Not My Fantasy Read online

  "So, what's this?" Gabe asked later that night as we were cuddled up in bed. He pulled out the biker romance novel Tess had given me. "Not sure how I feel about you getting all hot and bothered over some other guy."

  "A fictional guy," I scoffed.

  “What's up, love, am I not enough to get your motor going?"

  I looked over at the long golden length of him, his abdomen flexing as he shifted on the bed, balling the pillow and shoving it under his head. His smile broadened as he saw me try to look past the splendid display of man flesh and fail. “Seriously, if you got my motor going anymore, I think my vagina would wear out and I’d have to get another one transplanted.”

  “That’s what a fella wants to hear.”

  22

  Things settled into a comfortable pace for once. No more strange people popping up at inopportune times, well, except for Merlin, but we were all getting used to him, Tess especially. I woke up every morning and knew exactly who would be in it, me and more times than not, Gabe. I didn’t really know where this was going, but I felt no urgency to work that out. Right then, it was good sex and good times.

  Tess was still reading through Nan’s notebooks, of course, she did. I think she was in some way disappointed that the visits from men of myth and legend had stopped, but seeing Merlin on the regular seemed to satisfy her.

  A month or so later after they’d taken over the library, Wizards of Ink had its opening. I’d ducked home that night to grab some clean clothes. I wasn’t sure what tattoo shop opening etiquette was, but I figured an old black shirt I’d bought as a teen with a heavy metal logo and some tight faded jeans and boots kinda had enough of a rock chick vibe that I wouldn’t stand out too much. I laid on what eighteen-year-old me would have thought was an appropriate level of black eyeliner and gave my hair a bit of texture with some product and hairspray and headed out.

  “Wow!” I said, standing in the doorway to the tattoo shop. Flea was busily blowing up helium balloons, Gabe was talking to a phalanx of waitresses, each one in a shiny leather mini, crazy black heels, seamed fishnet stockings and black bustiers. Flea grinned when he saw me, grabbed the nearest balloon and promptly inhaled the contents.

  “Welcome to our fine shop!” he said in a cartoonishly high voice.

  “It is damn fine. I don’t know what my grandmother would have thought, but this is nothing like what I expected.” I’d kept clear of the space as it was being developed, both because it was what Flea wanted and it was easier for me. Along with the incredible mural they’d ripped up the old carpet and laid down black and white tile on the floor. Big, black leather benches and old purple-velvet, wingback chairs were lined up along the wall near the front door, for customers to wait comfortably on. The flash art was displayed inside ornate flat-black frames, the walls sans mural painted a tobacco brown. There was even a big shiny vintage cash register on the counter.

  “Looking good, babe,” Gabe said with a grin, coming over and then beckoning to a waitress to approach. “What will you have?”

  “Um . . . a Coke I guess?”

  “Rum and Coke times three,” he said to the girl who just nodded and click-clacked away. I cocked an eyebrow at this, but he gestured to Flea to abandon the balloons. He grinned, tied off the last one and then tossed the balloon high to match the others on the roof.

  “Well, it’s done,” Flea said, slinging an arm around each of our shoulders as we took our drinks from the waitress. “And I’m damn proud of what we’ve achieved. Thanks for taking a chance on us, Ash. Many landlords would have started screaming the moment the spray cans came out.”

  “Hey, it looks awesome in here. Flea, you’re a devil with a spray can.”

  “You want to do a facelift next door? I got some ideas.”

  I laughed, “Not sure if the magic shop crew could deal with that much awesome.” Flea nodded sagely.

  “Well, a toast,” Gabe said, moving to face us. He raised the glass and we followed along. “To Wizards of Ink.”

  “May she live long and prosper,” I said and took a deep swallow of the sweet burning drink.

  “Damn straight,” Flea said.

  Flea sculled his drink and busied himself with re-checking the tattoo stations. He was going to have a few friends help out tonight to drum up business, hopefully, to add some more staff to the roster. A waitress came over and took our empty glasses from us as soon as we were finished. I watched the chick’s micro mini as she returned to the bar and said, “Lucky I’m a trusting woman,” I said to Gabe, “these chicks are smoking hot.” Those grey eyes met mine, pausing for a moment before cupping my face in his hand.

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about, love,” he said. I looked away, wanting to take a step back, force his hand down, but not wanting to upset him. He’s a good guy, I told myself, don’t hurt him.

  “Have you seen Tess? She should still be here.” I said. His eyes didn’t drop from my face, even when mine were looking everywhere else but. He just seemed to watch the flicker of my expressions, then shook his head slightly and smiled.

  “Not yet, but it’s still early.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. She was staying back to close up and do a final tidy up. I’ll duck into the storeroom, see if she’s still here.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer when I didn’t move automatically and dropping his lips down to kiss the top of my head. “I’ll be here waiting when you’re done.”

  Tess stood beaming in front of an open portal. For a moment I thought she had been working back with Merlin again, but when I looked around, she was there all by herself. Her face was alight as she looked up at the apricot and turquoise sky of the gnome kingdom. “Tess!” She jerked guiltily, her smile wiped away. She slowly stepped out of the portal and back into the storeroom. “What are you doing?”

  “I did it!” she said, smile returned. “I did it, I bloody did it! I can finally, finally open the portal myself!”

  “That’s awesome, Tess, but seriously, we talked about this. You need to do this with Merlin around until you get it right. What if you’d opened it onto that horrible bat-realm?”

  “Merlin made it possible to only open it onto to realms we’ve already had successful dealings with, so I couldn’t have. It’s perfectly safe. Look.”

  I shrieked as she stepped through the doorway, onto the footpath outside it. A couple of passers-by looked at me oddly as they went, but one had the head of a Siberian Husky and the other a Cocker Spaniel, so they were in no place to judge. “Whoa! What the freaking hell?” Jez asked, obviously having just arrived. She quickly shut the door leading out to the shop behind her.

  “Tess, please, come back in here,” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re worried about,” she said, doing as I asked and then shutting the portal down with a weird, twisting, flicking motion. “I’ve got this. I’ve worked bloody hard and now, I can do it. I can open the portals.”

  “And what are you going to do with this hard-earned ability?”

  She took a moment to consider it then replied, “Run the import business.”

  She’s lying, I thought, without even a twitch of guilt. The pause was the giveaway; she had to think for a plausible excuse. I looked at the portal, looking for some kind of locking mechanism or linchpin that could deactivate the doorway until needed. Something I needed to talk to Merlin about. “Where’s Merlin tonight?” I asked.

  “Not sure if he’s coming,” she said. “Arthur’s about to start the quest for the Grail, so it’s a busy time for him.”

  “I always wondered what he was supposed to be doing off screen when reading the Arthurian legends. Now we know he was helping fair maidens open portals.”

  “He’ll be around when he can,” she said with a shrug.

  “We were thinking maybe he’d be coming by to see you,” Jez said.

  She frowned, shook her head and then burst out laughing. It was a harsh sound. “Me? The man is part-faerie, the most powerful ma
gic user in the universe and is fulfilling this mentor kind of role in multiple dimensions. Believe me, he’s not doing so because he wants to play kissy face.”

  I watched her say the words with a certainty that made me wonder if they were her words, or someone else’s. He was a gorgeous-looking guy, in that weird, otherworldly way, I could understand if she started seeing him as more than a teacher. Her eyes burned bright, she blinked in rapid succession, as if to keep tears back. Fuck.

  "Tess–"

  "It's fine. Let's go to the opening."

  "OK, I'll meet you there, I just need to grab something."

  I turned to Jez when I was sure Tess was gone. "Can you like, lock this thing or something?"

  "Me? Look, Ash, I've never really been that strong in the magic department."

  "But you're a witch."

  "Hedgewitch more than anything, sex magic sometimes. I can brew a mean tincture and make a good poultice, but that’s about it.”

  “So, you can either fuck the portal closed or patch it up with some soggy leaves you steeped in hot water. Shit.”

  “You gotta talk to Merlin. He’s the all-powerful wizard.”

  “Hmm, apparently he’s busy being part of the Arthurian Cycle.”

  “He hasn’t been around much, I wasn’t sure why. Tess–”

  “Yeah, I know. Let’s leave it, there’s nothing we can do right now. I should have thought this through, Merlin and the portal. It’s not like I shouldn’t have expected he’d have to take off and leave us with a proficient gatekeeper, dying to slip off to another dimension. Anyway, we can have a look through Nan’s books tomorrow. So, Shane?”

  Jez’s face split into a wide grin, “He’s coming by tonight.”

  “Nice! Tell me all about it.”

  “So, then he. . . ." I walked back into the shop, trying to listen to Jez’s tales of her adventures without wincing. "Seriously, Shane has the longest tongue!" It sounded like he knew his way around the female form, but he was Gabe’s employee. “And then he stuck his tongue right up my. . . ." I shuddered, I wasn’t sure I could look him in the eye when he turned up after what she'd just told me.

  "Sounds," I looked her over to make sure I'd guessed her response right, "great?"

  “So good. So, so good."

  "Well, that's good."

  "Yeah, maybe you, me, Gabe and Shane go out on a date or something. Like we did with the McAllister brothers in high school." Yeah, I remembered. They thought we were up for a foursome. Ew.

  "Sure, where is Gabe, anyway?"

  I found him standing by one of the tattoo stations. Someone had put on some pumping tunes and the tinny buzz of tattoo guns provided a slight counter beat. The shop had filled up, there were people everywhere, lined up against the walls nursing drinks and others fighting to make a circuit of the place. And then there was a couple of people getting tattoos. One guy was getting a small piece on his bicep. The other? Flea was tattooing the breast of a girl who made the Suicide Girls look positively plain. She'd attempted some modesty by leaving her bra and strappy singlet covering the other breast and holding a hand over her bare nipple, but by the look of the guys surrounding her, it didn't seem to matter. And who was standing right at her elbow, eyes taking in every inch of her lithe form, but Gabe.

  "There he is," Jez said lamely.

  "Suddenly, I'm not sure I care," I said. I turned to the closest waitress and waved her over, swiping a couple of shot glasses of tequila from her tray, handing two to Jez.

  "Who's driving?" she asked.

  "I'll get a cab if I need to. Bottoms up." I felt the familiar burn of pure alcohol spread through my chest. "That's the stuff."

  "Well, now you're fortified, go and talk to him."

  "Who?"

  "Gabe, and you know exactly who I'm talking about."

  "Hmm."

  "Go on, no way to find out what's going on unless you talk to him."

  "Maybe I don't want to talk to him."

  "Go."

  "Fine," I flounced over to the crowd, having to push past some disgruntled guys who didn't look they were as keen to see me get my tits tattooed, but they let me through. I appeared across the bench from Gabe, my eyes dropping to where her hand was nestled in his.

  I rocked back on my heels, taking the two of them in. She had long, dyed, pastel pink hair that spun like fairy floss in a halo around her head. She had the kind of slim body that I'd seen a million times in magazines and on the internet and always wanted. And she was no cutesy Barbie, she had lots of tattoos, ones that looked like beautiful Japanese prints, all over her and an elaborate gold ring in her nose. She’s who he should be with, I thought, my stomach sinking, they look perfect together.

  "You're done, love," Flea said, pulling his gun back and giving the tattoo a wipe over with a cloth.

  "Woo!" The girl said, sitting straight up and punching the air with her tiny fist, most of the guys’ eyes dropping to her now bare breast. "Thanks, honey, you made that a lot more bearable," she said to Gabe.

  "You up next?" Flea asked Gabe.

  He answered by pulling off the white Bonds t-shirt he was wearing, dropping it on the floor and lying down on the padded bench. The girl's jaw dropped as she took in his well-muscled chest. Evidently, she'd had the same thought I'd had. "Maybe I can hold your hand this time," she said, having restored her singlet.

  "Right here, mate," he said, patting the patch of skin over his heart.

  "What you after?" Flea asked.

  "The spiky heart with the banner cutting across it," he said, pointing to an image on the wall.

  "Yeah? Not really in keeping with the rest of your art. What script do you want?" Flea asked.

  "Ash," he said. Flea’s head jerked up, meeting my eyes. His eyebrow slowly rose and I could see the implied question there.

  "You sure about that, mate?"

  "Sure enough to know I want this," Gabe said, taking my hand in his. The pink girl took this in, her jaw growing tight. Me, I just looked at his hand, not sure what to think. Flea waited for some kind of indication I approved. I heard guys standing around the bench shift and grow impatient, now that the only tits on display were male. As the silence grew, Gabe's eyes also turned towards me.

  "What about just initials?" I suggested. It wasn't what I wanted, I didn't really know what I wanted. We'd been hanging out for a month or so, I hadn't expected to be having a conversation about my name being tattooed on anyone's body quite yet. It was, evidently, the wrong answer. Flea shook his head slightly, turning to grab some transfer paper. Pink-haired girl slipped her arm around another burly guy and wandered off, taking at least half the audience with her. I sat down on a stool and tangled my fingers with Gabe's, but he'd turned his face away from me.

  "Mate, I don't usually do names, except for kids and dead relatives," Flea said as he prepped the stencil. "I can do it as a favour, but maybe a symbol might be a better choice."

  "Like what?" I said.

  “Sometimes people get an image that relates to the loved one's name."

  "My name's Ash. What's he going to get, a burnt tree?"

  "Do the initials," Gabe said in a hoarse voice. "Let's get it done."

  "Righto, mate," Flea said, showing him the stencil when it was done.

  What am I fucking doing? I thought as the tattoo was inked. When his hand closed hard around mine, I didn’t think it was the pain. He was a seasoned veteran of the needle. If there was any pain that was causing him to flinch, it was caused by me.

  I'd been equal parts annoyed and amused by Gabe's appearance in my life. He was so . . . different from other blokes who'd been in my life. His looks were obviously striking, but it went beyond that. He seemed a lot less complicated, played a lot less games which weirdly, made him more complicated for me. I was used to the 'will he, won't he' push and pull at the beginning of a relationship, where guys run a bit hot and cold and you have no idea what's going on. Instead, Gabe just seemed to run hot, relentlessly hot. But how do I run? I wat
ched the outline begin to appear on his skin. I didn't know.

  “There you go, mate," Flea said. As Gabe got up and looked at the tattoo in the mirror, I could see his shaky smile reflected in the surface. Oh fuck, I put that there, I thought, feeling my chest tighten painfully. I walked over to him and slipped my arm around his waist, reaching across with the other to touch the artwork.

  "It looks good on you, though everything seems to look good on you."

  "It's too soon," he said. "I'm rushing things."

  I sighed and rested my head against his shoulder, "Everything's moving fast, that's for sure. Maybe you've just got to give me some time to catch up to you."

  He pulled me to him, taking me in his arms and laid a single kiss on my forehead. "I'll try."

  "There you are, darling! This all looks very professional. How long did the renovations take? This will be a real selling point if you decide to rent out the other side of the shop. Shows what can be done with the old place with a little work.”

  "Hello, Mum," I said. She swooped over and enfolded me in a cloud of expensive perfume as she kissed each cheek.

  "They've done a solid job," Dad said, inspecting the nearest picture frame. "Nice mitred joints. Maybe I should get some ink myself."

  “Bill, tattoos work as business casual for the young only," Mum said.

  "Think I'm too old now for 'CeCe forever'?" Dad said, writing the words over his chest with his finger.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Mum said. "Ah, Gabriel, how are you?" I turned to see him arrive with a beer and a white wine, passing them to my Mum and Dad. "Pinot Grigio? Lovely. Now, where's Therese? Neither of you has responded to my meeting invites to discuss the business. We need to work out a mutually beneficial time."

  "Um, I'll go find her." Gabe looked at me in alarm as I disappeared into the crowd, but I saw the gleam in my mother’s eye as she launched into yet more questions for Gabe. No doubt, he'd be providing her with a business plan and profit/loss statement before the end of the night.