Maddox snorts. “Papá Flores happened. I was seventeen, she was a couple years younger. Usually it was some meathead in a suit who drove her home from dance class, but her dad would come once a month to pay the bill, did so for years ever since his wife died. I came after school back then to help clean up, and Mom always roped me into leading the last few dance routines.”
He pauses, and I try to imagine the big hulk of tattooed flesh as a fresh-faced teen showing off his dance moves to a bunch of rich girls in leotards.
“Did you wear the tights?” I ask.
“Hell yeah I did. I had an ego the size of Jupiter at that age and loved being the center of attention for all those girls. The dance gear highlighted all my best assets. I was such a fucking tool.” He laughs, and I curse myself for putting that image into my own head. Now I’ll never unsee it. “Anyway,” he says after a breath, “the other girls and their parents had already cleared out. Celeste was usually the last one left. Papá Flores had disappeared into the office with Mom to pay the bill. I’d gone back to the dressing room to change. As much as I loved the outfit, I wasn’t about to be caught dead in it around my brothers.”
“So, you were alone with Celeste and made a move?” My gut clenches as I think about how that kiss must’ve gone down. It isn’t too difficult to picture a younger version of Maddox as the cocky charmer that comes out on the rare occasion now. Picturing Celeste as a young woman falling for that act is a lot harder. She’s been aloof and quiet as long as I’ve known her, just as stoic as her father, with the same piercing hazel eyes that make you feel guilty as fuck even if you know you haven’t done anything wrong.
“That’s the crazy thing,” Maddox says. “I was standing there, half-dressed in my jeans and nothing else, when she just walks in, wraps her arms around me, and lays one on me. Blew my poor little teenage mind. Then she was gone before her dad could catch us.”
“She came on to you,” I say, having just as much trouble wrapping my head around the idea.
Maddox grunts in reply, as if he’s still just as surprised. “The next week, she cornered me again, and I was ready. Hell if I was going to just leave it at a kiss. I needed to know why.”
“Did you find out?”
“Yeah. I should have known already, but I guess she’d been stoking a crush for years and it just came to a head. Or her hormones finally got the better of her. She said it was a thank-you for being so sweet to her when she was a kid. That she’d always remember me because of that. That was enough of a reason for me. After that, we had secret make-out sessions regularly. We got reckless, so naturally, her dad eventually caught us.
“Nothing happened at first. He quietly pulled her out of dance class, but a few days later, I got cornered after school by a trio of bangers who made it crystal clear that I should stay the fuck away from Celeste Flores. Gustavo was their leader. I never thought I’d say this, but that moment was the first time I’d ever been glad my dad taught me how to take a fucking beating. I never saw Celeste again until tonight.”
“Fuuuck.” I want to ask more, but I’m too conflicted, torn between envy that he’d had those moments with her and satisfaction that he took a beating for it. Also a little sympathetic, I have to admit. “You’re probably lucky he didn’t kill you, you know.” I don’t say as much, but there have been rumors about men who get too close to Celeste suddenly disappearing.
“Don’t I know it. I think the old man has a soft spot for my mom, though, so that was probably my only saving grace. My point is that she’s dangerous.”
“It’s Gustavo who needs to watch his back.” Gustavo plays with fire every time he bosses Celeste around. I can’t help but wonder if he does it to her when her father’s present. Doubtful. The man might be a cocky shithead, but he is far from stupid.
“You watch yours too, Leo,” Maddox says in a gruffer voice than I’ve heard from him before. “I’d hate to see you hurt. Arturo’s not the only one whose attitude toward her is a little possessive.”
I’m hung up on the weird heat that spreads through my chest at the obvious care in his tone. This is the first time I’ve thought of the guy as a true friend, despite spending hours in this very chair under his needles. Ever since he opened his shop a year ago, half the gangbangers on the west side have frequented it, and now more than half my ink is thanks to him. It’s rare enough to find someone I trust in this city, much less someone I’d consider a friend.
We don’t speak for another twenty minutes or so. He moves down to my lower back, where the previously inked lines disappear past the edge of my low-slung jeans.
“Time for the grand finale. Show me your ass so I can finish this bad boy off.”
“Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this whole tattoo was a scheme to get into my pants.” I wink over my shoulder, but he just regards me with his arms crossed. He twirls his fingers in a “get on with it” motion, and I lift my hips to unbutton my jeans, then shove them halfway off my ass so the tattooed outline he’s already done of the lion’s tail is visible. It extends just past my hips, stopping before the really fleshy part of my
