Blind Kiss(21)

“You sing pretty well.”

“I can’t actually sing that well on my own. It’s like I can only do impressions or something. That’s why our band does a lot of covers. Hey, do you mind if we run by my apartment so I can grab a T-shirt? One that doesn’t have a giant hole in it?”

“That’s fine,” I said, though I was feeling a little uneasy about going to his apartment.

When we got there, I was surprised to find a very clean, two-bedroom upstairs apartment with big windows that looked out onto the street in front. I followed him into the living room as he pointed things out. There was a little dog following us, nipping at my heels. Some kind of terrier.

“That’s Jackie Chan, Mike’s dog. You can pick him up; he’s nice.” I’d always wanted a dog, but my mom wouldn’t allow it in her pristine house. “Mike’s not home so make yourself comfortable. Kitchen’s there, bathroom’s there. This is my room.”

I stood in the doorway and looked in. There were three guitars in the corner: two acoustic and one electric. “You said you’d play that one song for me.”

He was looking in his open closet for a T-shirt. “You already forgot our song?”

I hadn’t, though I had a feeling he had. “?‘Just Like a Woman,’?” he said as he glanced over and smirked. “I’ll play it for you soon enough. We need to get those beers first.”

He did remember.

When he tore his T-shirt off, I almost passed out. He was built—thin but defined, and he had random tattoos everywhere.

His jeans were hanging low and I couldn’t take my eyes off his waist. Grabbing a T-shirt off a hanger, he turned and faced me as he pulled it over his head.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, P?”

Oh, just your perfect body, and your jeans hanging off your hips. “Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing?”

“Well, actually, I’m wondering what all your tattoos mean?”

“A lot of different things,” he said. He pointed to the word Kimbird on his chest. “This one was a mistake.”

“Are they all about girls?”

He laughed. “No. Are you kidding? That would be a lot of girls. I feel like you’re getting a bad impression of me.”

“Well, I know nothing about you.” Which begs the question . . . why am I in his apartment staring at his half-naked body?

“This one is definitely about a girl.” It was the word Carissa in script on the inside of his arm, just below his elbow. “The only girl I’ve ever loved.”

“What happened between you and Carissa?”

“Do you really want to talk about my exes?”

“Well, I’m asking about you.” And yes, I did want to talk about his exes.

Taking my hand and pulling me toward the door, he said, “We can talk about Kimber and Carissa over beers—that’s fine—but you have to tell me everything about you, too.”


A FEW MINUTES later, we pulled into the parking lot of the New Belgium. “I’ve never been here. Do you think they’ll kick me out for wearing sweats and slippers?”

“You make sweats look good. Anyway, look at me. I’m a grease monkey. And it’s a brewery: they don’t care.”

Once we were seated, we ordered a flight of beer to split. “So tell me about Kim and Carissa.”

“Kimber? Well, that tattoo was a mistake for sure because we only dated for five minutes. Impulse purchase, I guess you could say.”

“Next week you’re probably going to say that about my phone number on your hand.”

He smiled. “Never.” He swiveled on his barstool and turned to face me while putting his hand on my knee, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Carissa was different. I would have married that girl, but we were young. She broke up with me on my twenty-first birthday. She invited me to a restaurant for my birthday dinner and—”

“Wait, when is your birthday?”

“November eighth. I’m a Scorpio, can’t you tell?”

It was true, I would have guessed that. “Yes, Scorpio, I can tell. I’m a Taurus.”

“We’re perfect together!” he shouted, practically loud enough for everyone in the brewery to hear.

“No, I actually think those two signs are totally incompatible,” I said.

“Anyway, so she invited me to a birthday dinner, and when I walked into the restaurant I found her sitting at a table alone. I thought she’d invite some friends to celebrate, but it was just her. She was also wearing a do-rag, which I found peculiar.”

He was looking up at the ceiling in deep thought.

“And then what . . . ?” I asked.

He took a sip of beer. “And then she said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t be with you. I’m wearing this do-rag so you won’t be attracted to me and won’t be sad about us breaking up.’?”

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, I swear. That’s what I loved about her. She was a freakin’ weirdo.”

“So how did you react?”

“I just stood up and walked out, and then I went and got drunk and showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night. I thought I would serenade her with my guitar, but she called the police on me.”