BELLA - Chapter Four - One Day Until NYU Graduation

𝔸𝕣𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕪 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝?

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It's #tattootuesday and I'm sharing a look at Bell before her story begins...
#menofsteel #Foreversteel #tagyoureit

Chapter Four
One Day Until NYU Graduation…

After two years at NYU, I made the choice to apply to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and to stay until I received my masters. This was not something my father was initially happy about. Oddly, however, he worked it out himself within minutes.
“Business pays the bills, Bella, but the arts feed the soul. If this is what you truly want, then we’ll make it work.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.” I smiled and kept right on smiling when I broached the next subject.
I convinced Dad that the roommates I’d had for the first two years and I wanted to get an apartment. When he began shaking his head, I told him that an apartment would be cheaper and safer than running back and forth between buildings to see one another. After his background check on my three besties’ parents was conducted, he contacted them, and their parents agreed to allow it.
Meet the roommates:
Alice. Close your eyes and picture the cartoon image of Alice in Wonderland. She’s the human version. She’s also the clean freak. None of us are slobs, but if there was an empty water bottle on the table for more than ten minutes, she would put it in the recycling bin. If she saw a crumb on the counter, she immediately pulled her yellow latex gloves from under the sink and began scrubbing the area. She is also the sweetest.
Lily. Lavender hair, brown eyes, ebony skin, tattoos and piercings. Lily is the party animal of the crowd. All of us enjoy a social get-together, but not half as much as she does. Luckily, there are four of us, so we take turns accompanying her to parties.
Victoria, the ginger. She’s snarky, stunning, and until two weeks ago, she was in a very serious relationship for the past two years.
Gordon was the fourth roommate until Victoria and her parents got into an argument over Skype about the amount of money she had been spending. When she realized it was because she had been footing the bill for everything her and Gordon had done in the past year, their very serious relationship ended, and she never even cried.
“We’re really going to do this?” Alice asks as we stand outside Body Art in New York City.
“Fuck yes, we are,” Lily says through a hiccup.
We just left a private rooftop party hosted by a fellow graduate, promising to return after checking off the last D on my list of don’ts.
Victoria looks at me. “If we aren’t going in, then we need to get back to The Empire. I have a very handsome young man waiting to buy me a fucking drink.”
“Gordon’s roommate.” Alice nods then shakes her head like she’s trying to understand why Victoria would even consider such a thing.
She shrugs. “He’s hot.”
Lily grins. “He’s hung, too.”
“Aw, fuck no!” Victoria yells. “You did not—”
Lily holds up a finger. “Just once.”
“You’ve got to be bloody kidding me?” Victoria palms her face then looks at me. “I need to get back.”
“I’ll go with you,” Alice offers all too easily then looks at me. “If you don’t mind?”
Lily takes that opportunity to run to the nearest trash can and throw up.
“I don’t mind as long as you take her, too.”
“But—”
“I need to do this,” I cut Alice off.
“I’ll stay with you,” Lily offers, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
“You’ll get us kicked out. Go.”
“No woman is left behind.” Lily throws a fists in the air then stumbles.
“I’ll take an Uber. Just go.”
As soon as they’re off, I turn to walk into the building when the neon light turns off.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I push open the door.
“We’re closing up,” a man probably my father’s age says.
“But I—”
“We open tomorrow at eleven.” He smiles.
“Sisco,” I hear a man with a deep voice say. “I can take this one.”
The man’s, whose name is apparently Sisco, lips slowly turn up in the corners, and then he looks back at me. “You got cash?”
“I do.” I smile, excited that I am finally, at twenty-three years old, going to get my first and maybe last tattoo.
He looks back toward the room behind the partition. “Tags, she’s all yours.”
“Perfect,” he says.
“Lock up and come meet me for a drink when you’re done.”
“Will do.”
When Sisco walks past me, I see a man walk around the frosted glass partition and—
“You ready?”
—OhmyGod, I think as I look him over. Six foot plus of bulging muscles covered in more ink than I think I have ever seen on one person. All black, too, my favorite. And as amazing as all that is, the man’s face is chiseled perfection, with soul-capturing light brown eyes that seem to be getting darker by the minute.
He looks me up and down. “How deep you want it?”
My jaw drops, and his lips purse. Then he moves them from left to right and back again, trying not to smile, but those stunning eyes are doing just that as he reaches out a finger and lifts my chin.
“I like the path your thoughts are traveling on, beauty, but I’m asking about the work you’re here to get. You want just the tip of my creativity or do you want me to go all-in?”
Ohmygod, I think again as he reaches out and lifts my chin … again.
Get your shit together, I scold myself.
“I have my artwork,” I say, pulling my lustful eyes from his and reaching into my bag.
“Not how I work.” He walks past me and out the door.
“Wait. What?” I gasp, turning and following him, trying to keep up with his long strides. When I walk out the door, he’s leaning against the brick and lighting a cigarette.
“Your concept, my art.” He inhales then exhales slowly, the smoke dancing like a controlled gray flame beneath his nostrils.
“So, you don’t want my work?” I hold out the paper.
He looks away. “Nope.”
“You’re being serious?”
“Dead serious.” He looks back at me. “And you keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna give you what you want then tag you with my art.”
“Like what?” Stupid fucking question; I’m probably drooling.
“Like you’ve never had a man like me between your legs and you desperately want it to happen.”
He’s not wrong, but fuck that.
“I’m only looking at you like that because you’re looking at me like that.”
Real freaking adult-like, Bella, I scold myself silently
He raises a shoulder. “You’re a beautiful young woman; of course I’d like to fuck you. You just need to decide what comes first.”
“Meaning?”
“You want me to decorate you or make you messy first?”
“How about you do your best, and if I like what you do, I’ll—”
“Say it, beauty.” His eyes light up as he interrupts me. “I fucking dare you.”
My mouth is dry, my heart is racing, and no words are coming. I am way over my head with this guy but, my God, what a way to end my college career.