The Internet Told Him to Leave Me, but He's Still Holding Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Shop

Annika visits Dahlberg Tattoo to prove she's unbothered and the regulars adore her; the mystery commenter tells her to go back.

I stared at my own face on his counter pad.

Ten lines of ink, and he'd gotten the pencil in my bun at exactly the angle I always stab it in.

"Walk-in wants this on his chest."

There was no walk-in.

I knew there was no walk-in.

I typed, "Tell him she's probably just busy."

I deleted it.

I typed, "That's a very good drawing."

I deleted that too.

Replying wasn't against the rules.

Replying wasn't texting first.

But anything I sent would have a heart in it, because my thumbs don't know any other way.

So I did the breezy thing.

I put on lipstick, my good jeans and his old flannel, and I walked the four blocks to the shop to be unbothered in person.

The bell over the door of Dahlberg Tattoo has been ringing wrong since before Knox bought the place. It clanks.

It clanked.

"Annika!"

Three people said it at once.

The apprentice is twenty-one and has been trying to grow a mustache since August.

He jumped up from the second chair so fast he knocked over a cup of green ink caps.

The retired mail carrier on the waiting bench, who was in for his ninth swallow, lifted his paper cup of coffee at me.

The lady who brings lemon bars every week pointed at the plate and said, "Take two, you're skin and bones."

I am not skin and bones. I have never been skin and bones. I took two.

Knox was at the front counter with a paperback open, a big man on a small stool.

He didn't get up.

He just closed the book over his finger and looked at me.

Slowly. All the way down and back up.

"Well," he said. "Look who walked into my shop."

"I was in the neighborhood."

"You live in the neighborhood."

"So I was in it."

The mail carrier laughed into his coffee.

I put my lemon bars on the counter and kept my hands in my pockets so they wouldn't do anything.

"I came to see the walk-in," I said. "The one with the very specific request."

"He left."

"Said he'd come back when she starts kissing him again." Knox shrugged one enormous shoulder. "Could be a while. She's very independent now. From blankets."

The apprentice made a noise.

"That's a sad story," I said.

"It's a tragedy." Knox leaned his elbows on the counter, which brought his face down almost to mine. "Poor guy. I told him if it was me, I'd just stand there and let her look."

"Let her look at what?"

"Anything she wanted."

He smelled like green soap and coffee.

His forearms were right there on the counter, the moose on the left one.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

"Do you want something?" he said. "I could do you a little one. Right here." He touched one fingertip, very lightly, to the inside of my wrist. "No charge. I'd go slow."

My whole arm lit up.

The lemon-bar lady said, "Oh my," and fanned herself with a flash sheet.

I pulled my wrist back.

"I'm good," I said. "Thank you. I'm very unbothered."

"You look unbothered."

"I am."

"Your ears are red."

"It's cold out."

"It's fifty-five degrees, sweetheart."

The apprentice put his face in his hands.

I lingered for twenty minutes, just to prove a point.

I ate both lemon bars.

I looked at the flash on the walls like I hadn't seen it a thousand times.

I asked the mail carrier how his granddaughter's hockey was going and heard about every single goal.

Knox tattooed a lighthouse on a woman's calf while I was there, and every time I looked over, he was already looking at me.

Not at the lighthouse.

At me.

The needle buzzed and stopped and buzzed, and he did not miss a line.

When I left, he called, "Bye, Annika," across the shop without looking up, in a low voice that should be illegal in a place of business.

The bell clanked behind me.

I walked home very fast.

My face burned the whole four blocks.

At home I sat at the drafting table and didn't draw the moose.

I opened the laptop and posted Day 3.

I drew the moose standing in the doorway of a little shop, with a bear behind the counter.

"Day 3. Went to his work to show him I'm fine. I was extremely fine. I left after twenty minutes. He did not chase me. That's good. That's what I wanted."

I read it back three times.

It didn't sound like what I wanted.

The comments started almost right away.

"Queen behavior. Let HIM come to YOU."

"Twenty minutes is too long. Ten next time."

"Girl he didn't chase you. Be careful."

That one sat in my chest.

He didn't chase me.

What if, already, he'd started to be relieved?

I scrolled down, faster, looking for the one I wanted.

There it was, posted while I was still reading the others.

fortyfour_k.

"Go back to the shop. He's waiting."

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