The Distance Between Us | Eric Coulter

twenty-six

present

Rory

To be completely honest, this wasn't even close to what I had planned for tonight.

Nope. My initial plan for tonight was to head straight back to the dorms and enjoy my amazing (not really) bed that now had a mattress on it and sleep myself into a coma.

Instead, Zeke barged into the room, somehow managing to sound like a herd of elephants even though he was just one man- earning quite a few glares from my roommates along the way- and dragged me out of bed kicking and screaming (this might be a bit of an exaggeration) and promising that this was going to be fun.

The fucking liar.

Now, I'm sitting here bored out of my mind and staring at a wall of- amazingly done but now boring after I've been staring it at for so long- artwork while everyone else was busy getting tattoos.

Yeah, I guess I could've gotten a tattoo like everyone else, but I've decided that I was too indecisive for something so permanent and didn't want to risk ending up regretting it.

I ended up browsing through a display of jewellery by the counter and looked up at the lady behind it, "You guys do piercings too?"

She raised a heavily pierced brow, just a few of many other piercings on her face, as if to say 'what do you think?' and leaned her elbows on the glass, "What are you looking to get done?"

My eyes fall back onto the jewellery and I spot some cute barbells with little designs on either end that were displayed in pairs. It finally clicked for me what those were for when a snort sounded from beside me.

My eyes snapped to see that Eric was standing beside me. I'm not sure when he had decided to grace us with his presence, but how I didn't even notice it was beyond.

"Don't even bother." He sounded almost bored, "You don't have the balls for those."

I narrowed my eyes at him, "No one asked for your opinion."

He rolls his eyes at me and lets out a loud sigh as if this entire situation was inconveniencing him, "I'm helping you save time. You should be thanking me."

I whirl on him, staring him down (or up, considering he's taller than me), "Fuck. Off."

The piercer's eyes dart between the both of us like a ping pong ball being served back and forth before she finally clears her throat, "I'll give you guys a minute. Just let me know when you've made up your mind."

"Great," I threw my hands up in exasperation, "You've scared off my piercer."

"Me?" He questions, "You're the one who can't make up your fucking mind."

One thing was for sure, Eric sure had a way of getting on my nerves.

As both of us started going off on each other, our voices overlapping over one another's as we took our verbal shots, Zeke settled between the both of us awkwardly.

"Erm, guys?" He starts, "People are staring."

I glared at our audience before turning it on Eric, "Look what you've done now."

Almost comically, Eric turns to Zeke and makes a face that's screamed 'what the fuck?', before turning back to me and arguing, "You're the one making a fucking scene."

"Children!" Zeke cuts in once more as our arguing starts up against, "Would you guys relax?" He frowns at us, "I don't know what kind of weird-ass foreplay you guys got going on, but you guys got to bang it out or something because this is getting a little out of hand."

"We're not banging each other," I snapped defensively at the same time Eric bit back, "Oh, we will."

I glared at him once more for good measure before turning to dismiss him without another word, focusing my attention back on the jewellery.

He scoffs and then says under his breath, "Bet you won't do it."

Out of spite- which probably wasn't the best way to make decisions- I waved down the piercer who looked like she'd rather be anywhere but here and jabbed my finger towards the jewellery. "I want these ones."

She shrugs, then removes a pair of new identical-looking barbells from behind the counter and gestures with her chin for me to follow her, "Alright, come on back."

I eyed the packaged needles in her hand as she led me to the back and gulped.

The piercer then leads me into a back room that has a fully reclined tattoo bed in the centre and a metal tray beside it.

She proceeds to set up the needles on the tray as pop well as some very medical-looking clamps and pillows then snaps on some black gloves.

"Take off your top and lay down," She instructs me without even sparing me a glance.

I do as I was told, squirming uncomfortably as my bare skin hits the cold leather of the bed.

"This won't hurt that much, would it?" I asked and the piercer shot me a flat look.

"There's going to be a needle through your nipples," She deadpans, looking at me like I was an idiot. In her defence, I guess it was kind of an idiotic question.

I winced at the thought of it and took a deep breath to call my fraying nerves.

The temptation to back out was strong, but I wasn't going to prove Eric right. Damn me and my unrelenting ego.

I stiffen as she uses some ink to mark out where my piercings would go. I guess there's no going back now.

There's a sharp pinch as the piercer places on the clamps my nipples, which (obviously) already doesn't feel very pleasant, so I can't imagine how the actual needles are going to feel like.

I swear I stop breathing for a moment, squeezing my eyes close in anticipation.

The piercer starts counting me down and all I can think of is; what the fuck did I just get myself into?