Free Work of Art by Monica Alexander Page B

five hours on a plane together and got a little drunk. We talked. By the way, I sort of told her about you.”
    “What do you mean you told her about me? She had no idea we were friends.”
    He grinned. “I told her about my buddy I was going to see who was marrying this chick who tries to control his life and has taken all the joy out of it.”
    I cringed. He was repeating my words from the night before when I’d been drunk, out of my mind, and half stupid. “Fuck you, dude. You didn’t tell her that.”
    He laughed. “Actually, I did. And then last night you just repeated what I’ve always thought. It was pretty fucking hilarious if you ask me.”
    “ No, it wasn’t,” I deadpanned, wondering why he disliked Trish so much.
    She really was a sweet girl, and she took care of me, and my family loved her. But I knew Brandon hated how she was always interjecting her views into how I should live my life, how she made me eat healthy and how she controlled how I spent my time , and who I hung out with. Then again, had Brandon ever actually complained about those things? He made fun of me, but weren’t those the things that had started to bug me in the past few months? Wasn’t I the one going off last night about how much I felt like she stifled me?
    Okay, no. We were not even talking about my relationship with Trish. We were talking about Harper and how she and Brandon were apparently friends now.
    “Dude, listen, Harper’s a cool girl, and I don’t have many friends who are girls. I think I’ll call her from time to time when I need a cool girl’s opinion about my life. Besides, it’s pretty awesome to be able to tell people I’m friends with Harper Connelly.”
    “Who, besides me, might care about that?”
    He looked at me like I was insane again. “Everyone who’s into body art. She was named as one of the top female artists in the country last year, and she’s done ink for Garrett Lewis and Dustin Craig.”
    “Who are they?”
    He rolled his eyes. “Dude, live a little. When was the last time you saw a movie? You have that big-ass TV. What do you watch on it?”
    “Sports. And I have a job and a life. Trish and I have things we do together. We have obligations in the community.”
    He rolled his eyes at the mention of my ‘obligations’. “Well, they’re actors, and they’ve come to Harper for ink. Plus, she owns Art Studio. You knew that right?”
    “No shit.”
    “Yeah. She’s a pretty big deal.”
    “Good for her.”
    I knew she was a tattoo artist, but I didn’t know she owned the place. It was a far cry from going to Yale which was what she’d set out to do, but I knew she was smart, so I was glad to see she’d done something with her life.
    I smiled to myself, remembering the first time she’d set foot inside a tattoo parlor. I’d been with her on her eighteenth birthday and had held her hand while she’d gotten that cupcake tattooed on her lower back. I’d thought it was so hot at the time, and it was the reason I’d known it was her when I’d walked into the room earlier tonight. As she’d had her back to me, her tank top had risen just enough to show me a tattoo that I’d recognize anywhere.
    “She’s also an artist,” Brandon continued. “ All that art you saw in the front room of her parlor was hers, and her work’s displayed in a few galleries around town, and she does regular shows of her photography. That’s actually how she made most of her money. Her art sells really well.”
    “ Seriously?”
    I was impressed. Harper had always been drawing and sketching and painting. She was really talented, but back in high school she knew her ticket to freedom wasn’t through her art. It was getting a college degree and a good job. But apparently she’d proven herself – and me for that matter – wrong.
    “Yeah. She wrote down the galleries where her work’s displayed so I could check it out if I wanted.”
    “I want to go to one,” I said