Quite the contrary, his capacity for empathy was so deep that she often wondered where it could possibly come from, for neither she nor what she had known of Joe displayed anything similar. Jay was capable of being moved by anything—people, animals, insects, fish. Sofia could stick googly eyes on a curtain rod and Jay would suddenly turn sympathetic, would wonder if it didn’t grow stiff and bored, jammed in one place all day, or if it was content that way, looking out into the world, a calm observer.

Rudeness, in her mind, was not just a lack of manners, but a disregard for other people in favour of self-interest. Jay, even as a little boy, however, often seemed to have the opposite problem. If the children he was playing with wanted him to be ‘it’ all the time, he’d do it. If they played Red Light, Green Light and someone declared that Jay had moved and had to go to the back again, he wouldn’t complain, even when he clearly hadn’t, even if he was one step away from winning. He was desperate to make friends. He just didn’t seem to know how to.

It’d been difficult to make it as a female tattoo artist in the 1990s, but at that point, she wouldn’t have known what to do if she didn’t have to fight for her place in the world. Every taunt and incredulous look thrown her way was powder in the keg.

She wasn’t going to be good. She was going to be explosive.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten a blowjob under the stars before.”

Logan snorted. “What stars?”

Jay glanced up for a moment at the decidedly starless sky. “Don’t tell me you’ve gotten a blowjob under the polluted night sky before,” he amended.

Jay crawled closer between Logan’s parted legs—and wasn’t that its own benediction—

The way his usually stern expression peeled away petal by petal to reveal a soft, wanting thing that Jay couldn’t hope to resist.

That had been a hell of a fight, his mom furious at his decision to become a photographer.

“You’re going to throw everything away and take pictures of weddings and bar mitzvahs for the rest of your life?” she’d demanded, eyes almost glowing with rage.

Logan had known, of course, that his mother didn’t actually think he’d ever make it as an artist. He’d realised then, though, that even the worst-case scenario of photographing other people’s happy events was better than the life she wanted for him.

“Yes,” he’d said and walked out.