He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Nope," was his brilliant, detailed response.

"Why?"

I don't know why I asked. What I was expecting. There couldn't be anything for me to expect. He'd known where yia-yia, Will, and I had lived for those years after Mom died. He'd always known where Sonny lived. And in almost ten years, neither one of us had seen him. Now all of a sudden—

"Money, kid." I looked up to see him scrub a hand down his face. "He drove all the way over here to ask for fucking money."

"Did you give it to him?" I asked the question slowly.

"Kid."

Maybe it was wrong of me to hope that Sonny hadn't because he was my dad after all, but I couldn't find it in me to be mature about it. "Son."

He tilted his head down, his lips drooped into a scowl. "Fuck no," he confirmed. "I know he asked Luther after I shot him down though."

"And he said yes?"

Sonny shrugged. "I don't know."

I narrowed my eyes at his face, taking in the cut that split this upper lip. "Oh.”

"Kid, I don't support a man that can't support himself. It's embarrassing that he crawls back here to mooch off other people—," I winced because hello. Hadn't I just done the same thing? Come crawling to my half-brother? I felt like a schmuck. Sonny must have read it on my face because he rolled his eyes. "Your situation is completely fucking different. Don't give me that face. You're not mooching off me. You got a job you don't like. You're trying to get yourself together and I've already offered to give you money. You didn't take it, Ris. You're not like that piece of shit in any way, you hear me?"

Crap, I loved this guy.

"I don't want anything to do with him," he stated with so much conviction in his tone.

I didn't either but apparently my brain wasn't working properly because I asked something I shouldn't have. "Did he ask about us?"

Sonny gave me a look I hadn't seen since I was nineteen and been told I needed to have another biopsy. It was filled with a dreadful kind of remorse.

And it projected the answer like a beacon in the sky.

Chapter Ten

“How long you been here now?”

I looked up to see my redheaded buddy, Slim, plopping onto the couch across from me. It was Tuesday, almost a month since I started at Pins and Needles and to be honest, it’d gone by really quickly and mostly painlessly.

I’d fallen into a comfortable routine. During the day, I'd hang out at Sonny's house, cleaning and cooking when I wasn't going to the rare job interview—the one and only one had taken place the week before but I hadn't heard back from them—and applying for places online. Occasionally, I'd let myself think about Dad coming into town to ask Sonny for money but it was rare. The man didn't deserve my annoyance. At night, I’d go home and half of the time Sonny would be up and we’d talk or watch television until he went to bed.

How he made it to work at nine in the morning was beyond me, but I didn’t ask.

The other half of the time, he was gone and I’d go to bed before he showed up again. In the days after he told me about our sperm donor coming into town, his mood had gradually improved so I didn’t ask where he went unless he told me. More often than not, he didn’t. But when Sonny was around, I always had a smile on my face though he was still acting a little strange since his unexpected visit. He was just like Will, whom I hadn’t heard back from yet either, but I didn’t let myself focus on that. I’d sent him weekly emails consisting of a short updates that confirmed I was alive, still with Sonny, still working at the tattoo parlor, and that I had a library card.  No surprise there.

The mirror to my Sonny was Dex, who’d been in and out of the shop for days. Half the time, something was eating his butt cheek and he’d go into the shop and head directly into the office, leaving me to have to sneak in randomly to get my work done. On the occasion that he was in a good mood, he’d smiled at me exactly three times—and God, it was a smile—and once he touched my hand when he walked by.

Not that I was counting or anything.

My days off were spent driving around Austin. I visited the Capitol, walked down Sixth Street during the day, which completely turned me off almost immediately when some douche bag started following me around. Sonny took me to a swimming hole one Sunday. We visited Trip's apartment another day. We went to the movies together a few times. After my second paycheck, I signed up for the closest YMCA to the house—because I’d seen quite a bit of apartments close to Sonny for when I moved in the hopefully near future—and started spending a quarter of each day swimming and exercising there.

It was good. I was happy with my quiet, little life.

Including when I found myself back at Pins, with Slim asking me how long I’d been working with him.

“A month.”

He sounded out the words slowly. “I think you’ve been here long enough.”

This was suspicious. “For what?”

Slim grinned. “To break in that canvas, Iris.”

I'd thought about getting a tattoo nearly every day but I still hadn't talked myself into it. "But I don’t want to get one unless I’m sure I like what I’m getting.”

“Then get a piercing on the house. Me or Blue can do it.”

“Iris, you getting a tattoo?” Blake called out from his spot at his station, hunched over a customer's bare back.

I shot Slim a funny look. “No, but Slim’s trying to talk me into getting a piercing.”

“Do it,” he egged on.

A piercing. A piercing? Hmm. I could live with a piercing. It wasn’t permanent, and after seeing how many women and men came in to get various parts of their body pierced, it couldn’t have been that bad. Plus I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten a little envious when I’d seen someone walk out feeling like a million bucks after spending time in the torture chamber. What was the worst that could happen? I'd take it out if I hated it?

Plus, needles and I were old friends. Not necessarily best friends, but I wasn't afraid of getting poked and prodded.

My facial expression must have given away my thoughts because the redhead started nodding. “C'mon,” Slim pressured.

“But where?” I looked down at my hands like there would be some magical map leading me to the best spot on my body to get violated with by a needle.

“Nose!” Blake called out. How the hell he still clearly heard our conversation from all the way over at his station with Mastodon playing was beyond me.

I shook my head, imagining myself with a nose piercing. While there was nothing wrong with it—there was nothing special or messed up with my nose—I couldn’t see myself with one. “Nah.”

“Your eyebrow?” Slim suggested.

I thought about it. “No. I’m not cool enough to pull it off. Or tough.” Just yesterday, I screamed when a flying roach made its way into the parlor.

The two guys, and possibly even the customer, laughed.

“Get your tongue pierced,” Blake threw out.

No. Hell no.

When I was seventeen, my best friend at the time snuck off and got his tongue pierced behind his parents’ backs. A week later, he had a knot the size of a golf ball in his mouth, and ended up unable to eat solid food for months. That thing was traumatizing, and I liked food too much to risk it.

“No. I like to eat, and that’ll make guys think I like to give hugs with my mouth, you know what I mean?” I stated, matter-of-factly.

“What the fuck?” someone asked from behind me. That someone specifically being Dex.

Kill me. Kill me now.

My face flamed up like a tomato when I turned around to see him smirking, holding a bottle of chocolate Nesquik in his hand. “Uhh… I meant—“