Chapter 2
“I don’t do ugly.”
Rob huffed in amusement before taking a long swig on his drink. Gabe couldn’t help but watch as thin beads of sweat trailed down Rob’s temple, following the tilt of his jaw to his neck then sliding beneath the open collar of his shirt. The two of them had been friends for years, and while Rob was both unquestionably straight and married, that didn’t mean Gabe couldn’t appreciate that his boss was still a beautiful man. Unfortunately, Rob’s porn-drinking only served to remind Gabe of how much he wanted someone of his own in his life.
He sighed and then went to the counter to clean the glass. Yeah, he was young—and if a certain crazy teenage girl could be believed, he looked “like Adrien Brody, only darker and cuter”—but he’d never been a fan of one-night stands or anonymous sex. He blamed his mother and all the Bollywood movies she’d made him watch with her as a kid: the kind of stories with innocent, feisty heroines and protective, handsome heroes and dewy-eyed love songs and perpetually happy endings. Gabe hated being labeled a romantic, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want the same happy ending the couples in his mother’s VHS collection always got.
“Hey,” Rob said, holding up the empty plastic Coke bottle, “recycle this for me, will you?”
He tossed it at Gabe, who dodged it as the door made its cheerful bing-bongnoise and a teenage girl walked in.
“Hey, Hype,” Rob drawled pleasantly. Gabe wiggled his fingers, wishing he’d agreed to ink Teddy-Bear-Ass after all, if only to have a reason to ignore her.
Not that Gabe disliked her or anything. It was just she was a kid—a kidkid, as in an actual child. She was fourteen but looked twelve, though she tried painfully hard to act like an adult. Her real name was Hyacinth, but she’d burst into tears once when Gabe had called her that. Tonight she was tottering around in black-and-red leather lace-up boots that made her feet look enormous, strapping down jeans that clung tenuously to her hips with a red belt that had probably been tacky in the 1980s. Her T-shirt was dark pink, advertising some band Gabe had never heard of. And as usual, she had an enormous pink bow in her raven-black-dyed hair, which made her look like an anime character. She’d also decorated her arms with a Sharpie again, in the sad hope that anyone would mistake them for actual tattoos.
Gabe used the excuse of bending to pick up Rob’s Coke bottle to hide his laughter.
“Heya, Rob,” Hype said. Gabe pitched the bottle into the recycle bin and watched as Hype wobbled over to the love seat next to the flash binders of tattoo designs and dropped into it, sighing dramatically. She let her head fall back and turned her face up to the fan. “It is so fucking hot! I can’t believe how hot it is!”
“Language,” Rob said, with the same soft tone he’d used to warn Teddy-Bear-Ass.
“Believe it,” Gabe grumbled from behind the counter.
“So…it’s pretty dead here, huh,” Hype went on. She looked around, as if expecting people to crawl out from under the furniture. She stretched out on the love seat, mimicking Rob.
“It’s a Monday night and too hot to move,” Gabe said. He got out the Windex from the cupboard beneath the counter and then liberally sprayed the glass to scrub away Teddy-Bear-Ass boy’s sweat. He knew Dee would be pissed at him for using a regular commercial product, but Gabe wasn’t convinced the all-natural tree-hugging stuff she liked actually killed germs. He glanced up at Hype. “Don’t you have homework?”
Hype looked at him witheringly. “Summer vacation, dumbass.” She sighed again, even more loudly. “There’s nothing to do until Thursday when the all-age clubs open.”
“You could get a job,” Gabe said. He smiled sweetly when Hype glowered at him.
“How’s your mother?” Rob asked her, sitting up. “Hey,” he called to Gabe. “Would you be so kind as to bring Hype a Coke from the fridge, please?”
“Are you sure she should be drinking Coke? It has caffeine in it,” Gabe said. “I think we have milk.” He chuckled at Hype’s look of shocked affront.
“My mom’s fine,” Hype said to Rob after a last glare at Gabe. “You know, bitching me out all the time, the usual.” She started picking at a scab on her arm. “She’s got a new boyfriend.” She sneered over the word. “He has this long gray hair that he keeps in a skanky ponytail like he’s a wannabe biker, eh? And he smiles like…” She broke off and shuddered. “Like he’s a fucking pedophile. He creeps me out.” She shrugged, still looking at her arm. “So, you know. I came down here.”
“It’s always a pleasure to have you visit,” Rob said, smiling warmly at her. Gabe noticed he didn’t call her on her language again.