Free Make You Blush by Macy Beckett Page B

wanted Ryan to magically transform into a bald eagle. “But you can do it, right?”
    “Well . . .” Ryan was good, but maybe not
that
good. If he squinted and tilted his head to the side, he could kind of imagine the Smurf’s floppy hat as a bird’s beak. “Yeah, but it’ll be painful. For both of us.”
    “Thanks, man. I owe you.”
    Truthfully, Ryan didn’t mind. He did his best to stay busy these days because it helped keep his thoughts off the ever-present ache inside his chest. And if anything could distract him from Joy, it was a botched cartoon ass critter. After sketching the eagle, he transferred the image onto his friend’s backside and prepared his ink.
    “What were you thinking?” Ryan asked, shaking his head at the Smurf’s warped face.
    “I wasn’t,” Paul said. “It was senior-year spring break.”
    “Was your old buddy Jim Beam involved?”
    “You know it.
And
that rat bastard Jose Cuervo.”
    “Sons of bitches, both of them.”
    “Amen to that, brother.”
    When the tattoo machine was ready, Ryan placed one latex-gloved hand on his tool grip and the other on his buddy’s naked ham hock. “You ready?”
    “Fire away.”
    Over the next half hour, he worked methodically while Paul discussed his strategy for the next season’s fantasy football draft. Ordinarily, Ryan engaged his clients in conversation, but this cover-up required more attention to detail. So he tuned out his friend’s chatter and offered an occasional
mmm-hmm
to keep him happy.
    Ryan had just finished the eagle’s head and begun inking its neck when the lobby door opened with a
ding
!
He set down his tool and blotted the excess ink and blood from his buddy’s skin. “Sorry,” he hollered through the doorway. “My receptionist’s off today and I’m in the middle of a job. Won’t be done for at least another hour.”
    “No worries,” said a painfully familiar voice. “I heard you’re worth the wait.”
    It was a good thing Ryan had set down his tool before he glanced into the lobby, because the resulting double-take would have had him poking a hole in Paul’s ass. Joy was standing there watching him with a coy smile, but he never would have recognized her if she hadn’t spoken first.
    In cherry red stilettos that matched the new color of her hair, she clicked across the waiting area and leaned against the doorjamb to the workroom. She’d swapped out her delicate eyebrow hoops for bolder curved barbells, but what really had Ryan’s jaw dropping was her vintage swing dress. All black with white polka dots, it gripped her slim waist like a second skin before flaring out to the knee. Two halter straps tied behind her neck drew Ryan’s eye to a deep line of lush cleavage on display. In this getup, Joy was a retro wet dream. He almost forgot which century he was in.
    But what was she doing here . . . dressed like that?
    “Wh—” he began before all the air left his lungs.
    “I’m ready for my first tattoo.” She used a red-painted fingernail to trace a heart above her left breast. “The name
Ryan
, right here where everyone can see it. What do you think?”
    Thinking wasn’t really an option. He was too shocked. Joy had just strode back into his life, and it sounded an awful lot like she wanted him—and not for man candy. Ryan couldn’t stop the corners of his lips lifting in a grin. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew he should play it cool, but he’d missed her too much for that. It was all he could do to stay in his seat and not rush across the room to scoop her into his arms.
    “Sounds permanent,” he said. “You can’t take off a tattoo whenever it suits you.”
    “No, you can’t,” she agreed. “That’s kind of the point.”
    “Are you sure he’s that special?” Ryan gestured at his tattoo machine. “Because I do a lot of cover-ups, mostly of names.”
    Joy’s smile slid away, and she gazed at him with an intensity that made Ryan’s breath catch. “He’s the