“Not well, you can’t.” Wayde put the phone to his right ear. “Mary Jo? This is Wayde. Give Rachel my next appointment. I’ll get her there.”

I looked askance at him, and from the tiny receiver came a relieved “Thanks, Wayde. She’s a pain in the ass.”

Wayde and I exchanged a long, slow look over the small space between us, and my fingers on the wheel tightened. “Really?” Wayde said, his face deadpan. “I’ve never had any trouble with her.”

He hung up with a flick of the wrist, and my pink phone looked funny in his hand. “Would you mind if I put this in your purse?” he asked, and my irritation tightened. Get me there?

“Go ahead,” I said, glancing at his tattoos as he gingerly opened my bag and dropped the phone in. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and he looked cold. “You have an appointment at Emojin’s? I didn’t think you had a scrap of skin left to ink.”

Smiling now, Wayde rolled up his left sleeve, making a fist and showing me his well-muscled biceps. Damn. An Asian dragon wound around it, its mouth open to show a flicking, forked tongue. Some of the scales were glinting gold, others were drab and blurry.

“Emojin is touching up my dragon. Giving it a little shine. I was stupid back when I got it, not caring who inked me. Emojin is one of the reasons I agreed to take this job.”

Traffic eased the farther we got from the city center, and I risked another look at him, surprised by his eagerness. “Excuse me?”

Wayde rolled his sleeve down. “Emojin is one of the best inkers this side of the Mississippi, if not in the entire U.S.,” he said. “I wanted to be a part of what she does, and if I’m here . . .” He shrugged, resettling himself in his seat.

I thought about that as I turned onto Washington. My heart gave a tiny thump, and I shifted my grip on the wheel, finally warming up in the car’s heat. November was cold in Cincinnati.