by Anna Martin
Max had changed a lot since the last time Tyler had seen him. He was still tall and slim, but instead of an awkward, gangly teenager, he now looked like a guy who was comfortable in his own skin. Especially since his skin was liberally covered in tattoos.
Tyler had only seen his arms, of course, but they were decorated all the way to the wrist in black and gray designs. Tyler wanted to see more of them but wasn’t entirely sure how to ask.
Sweetwater had a relatively small sheriff’s office, with six deputies working various shifts under Sheriff Coleman, who had just been reelected for his second term. Tyler liked working for Ted Coleman; he was a good guy.
Since he’d joined the department, Tyler had mostly been on community policing duties, which was just fine by him. The rest of the team had long since divided up other duties between them, and Tyler’s position was only open since Mike Pryor retired. Tyler vividly remembered Deputy Pryor coming into his elementary school to hand out warnings and advice, year after year. They were big shoes to step into.
Mostly, Sweetwater was quiet. At first Tyler had found it irritating, desperate for something to do, something to fill his time and make his life exciting. But life with Juniper was exciting enough, and Tyler had grown to love the steady rhythm he’d developed in the community. People knew who he was. He was trusted, respected, and there wasn’t much more he could ask from his job. He’d take peaceful over exciting if it meant everyone was safe.
He pulled into his assigned parking space and grabbed the tray of drinks, balancing them carefully as he slung his backpack over one shoulder and tipped his sunglasses down on his nose.
The office was quiet when he walked in. Tyler’s first stop was Shelby, who worked the front desk.
“Disgusting strawberry something something,” Tyler said, dumping the iced drink down in front of her.
“Thank you, Deputy Reed,” she said sweetly. Tyler rolled his eyes.
Sheriff Coleman wasn’t at his desk, but the jacket on the back of his chair told Tyler he was in the building somewhere. Tyler left Coleman’s black coffee on his desk and made his way around the rest of the office, playing up to the role of coffee fairy.
“Heard you got signed on for the school visits,” Miguel said, plucking his coffee from Tyler’s tray.
Tyler grinned at him. “Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing. I like visiting the kids.”
“That’s why we hired you.” Miguel slapped Tyler on the shoulder. “You pick up all the donkey work.”
Tyler just laughed and headed to his desk.
Chapter Three
WITH HIS second coffee of the day safely in a travel mug, Max stepped out of the house and took a deep breath of blissfully clean air. He was feeling good this morning, with jobs to do and places to go. That always put him in a good mood.
He drove in a loop through the streets, refamiliarizing himself with the different landmarks. Some things were just as he remembered them, others had changed over the years. He guessed that was just the way of things. Though Max came home fairly often, he always seemed to head straight to his mom’s house or to wherever they were meeting. He didn’t wander around for the sake of it—he’d had no reason to.
It was easy enough to find the row of shops where he intended to open his studio. The vacant storefront was the last one on the end of the row, with a florist, a hair salon, and an artisanal bakery making up the rest of the block. Just when Sweetwater had welcomed an artisanal bakery, Max wasn’t sure. It looked good from the outside, though. He made a mental note to visit soon.
This area was the old downtown district, and some of the buildings dated back a hundred years or more, from when Sweetwater was a thriving mining community. Max could remember the mall on the edge of town being built when he was a teenager; that was when this district had died. There had been a concerted effort in the past few years to revitalize the downtown area, though, with the local community deciding it was important that the buildings and businesses here had a chance to survive. Otherwise there was a very real possibility it would disappear.
On the opposite side of the street was a row of old buildings that used to make up the city bank, courthouse, and theater. They were big and old and imposing, and recently the theater had reopened and showed movies a few nights a week. The bank and courthouse were slated for renovation too, with rumors circulating that they might be turned into a restaurant and wedding venue.
Max had already let the Realtor know he was in the area, and while he waited for her call, he meandered in and out of the different stores, playing nice with the other owners. They regarded him as a curiosity. Max would take that, for now.
He got caught up with the owner of the bookstore and was almost late meeting the Realtor. She was waiting outside the empty shop when he jogged up.
“Hi,” Max said, reaching out to shake her hand, trying to hide that he was a little out of breath. “Max Marshall, nice to meet you.”
“I’m Alex,” she said. “Let’s get started?”
The shop was part of a row of redbrick buildings that stood squat and square. Inside, it had been emptied and whitewashed when the last business moved out, meaning Max could easily picture how he’d set things up. It would be much smaller than the last tattoo studio he’d worked in. The difference was, this would be all his.
“Tattoo studio,” Alex repeated.
“Yeah. That’s the plan.”
“You already have your permits?”
Max nodded. “They came through last week.”
“There aren’t any other tattoo studios in the area,” she said, sounding a little dubious. “I think the closest one is about an hour away, in Louisville.”
“That’s okay. It means I don’t have any competition. I’ve done my research, and we’re close enough to the community colleges to have a good population of people in their twenties. Plus, people will travel for a good tattoo artist.”
She gave him a bland smile. “You were interested in the apartment upstairs too?”
“Yes, please.”
“Let me show you.”
There wasn’t a staircase directly from the apartment to what would be the studio. They needed to go out the back, where the dumpsters for the block were kept, then up a metal staircase that looked a little sketchy.
“What’s the rent?” Max asked.
“Five-fifty a month, including utilities.”
Max nodded. At least it was cheap.
Inside, the apartment was much bigger than Max had been expecting. It seemed to cover the same floor space as two of the stores downstairs, with a wide open-plan living space.
“It comes unfurnished, I’m afraid, but you said you have your own furniture?”
He’d lived in a few different places in Pittsburgh and had accumulated his own things over the years. Furnishing the apartment would be easy enough.
“Yeah,” Max said, walking over to check out the view. From this angle, he could see the mountains over the tops of the trees.
“There’s two bedrooms, though one is rather small. I think the last person who lived here used it as an office. There’s a fridge/freezer in the kitchen, but no washer or dryer.”
“There’s a laundromat on this block, though, right?”
“Next street over. Yes.”
Max shrugged. That wasn’t the end of the world. “Okay,” he said, turning back to Alex. “I’ll take both.”
“Really? That’s great.” She beamed at him. “I’ll get the paperwork drawn up. Then you can come down to the office at any time to sign and pick up the keys.”
THE PROSPECT of getting started on the shop was exciting enough to get Max out of bed and dressed early, giving him time to drop his mom at work every morning for the rest of the week. Even though the ranch was John’s baby, Max’s mom was the one who made it all happen. In title, she was the general manager, coordinating everything that needed to be done to make the ranch function. In reality, she did almost everything, from taking bookings to planning
vacation clubs and coordinating the fairly large staff who took care of running all of the activities.
Her stroke five months ago had likely been caused by high blood pressure, though her doctors couldn’t say what caused the high blood pressure in the first place. John had already hired a general assistant to pick up some of the workload and hopefully give Max’s mom a break. Max was going to insist she slow down, at the very least.
Like everything else on the ranch, the office building looked like another barn, except this one was air-conditioned. Even though it was still early, people had started swarming around, getting the morning chores done. Despite his mom’s grand title, she wore jeans like all the other ranch employees and a dark green polo shirt with the ranch’s logo stitched on it.
Some of the thirty or so employees wore cowboy boots, but his mom had a dozen pairs of the same Adidas sneakers that she’d been wearing for the past twenty years. Things were casual at the Beckett Ranch, but the respect all the employees had for Max’s mom and John was universal.
“You’re not working too hard, are you?” Max asked as they headed for the main office building, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm.
“I’m not working much at all,” she said with a laugh. “Mostly I sit around, drinking coffee and telling everyone else what to do.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I need this, Max,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze when he unlocked the door for her. “I know you think I should be at home with my feet up, but I need to keep my mind active. It’s good for my rehabilitation too; my occupational therapist said it’s okay.”
“I know. I’m allowed to worry about you, though.”
“You and everyone else who works here. I’m going to my physical therapy, and it’s all just fine. Trust me.”
“I do.”
He flicked on the lights in the office and went around pulling up the blinds, letting the light stream in while his mom headed to the kitchen to set the coffeepot to brew. It stayed on all day, with people stopping in to help themselves when they needed a caffeine fix.
“Max?”
He dashed into the kitchen at the call of his name.
His mom rolled her eyes when he skidded to a stop. “Y’all are so dramatic. Can you please grab the sugar for me? Someone put it on a high shelf, and I can’t reach it.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Max knew his way around the ranch as well as any of the employees. As a teenager, it had been his second home. When he first started helping out, when he was fourteen or fifteen, he spent his days cleaning and tidying and mucking out stables, but over the years he’d become a regular instructor. He didn’t care much for camping—his mom teased him mercilessly about that—so he stayed close to the ranch and helped there.
The ranch meant almost as much to him as it did to John and his mom. And the Sweetwater community. The town was small, which meant everyone knew everyone and private business rarely stayed that way. John had a way of reaching out to even the most troubled kids, and the ranch was valued for giving local kids a chance to learn and interact with nature.
“Are you staying for a coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Max said. He reached over and tucked a curl of her sandy hair behind her ear. “I have so much to do.”
“That’s okay. I’m making tacos for dinner tonight.”
Max mimed being stabbed in the heart. “You did that on purpose.”
“Would I?” she asked sweetly. “I can’t just make my son’s favorite dinner for him?”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
He left her at the office with a kiss on the cheek.
The day before, he’d gone over to the Realtor’s office to sign the paperwork for the shop and the apartment and to pick up the keys. The studio was going to need a lot of work before he was ready to open to the public, but he’d been planning his big opening for the past few weeks, since before he moved home, so he was ready to get started.
Though he had all the furniture he needed for the apartment, Max knew there were going to be a few pieces he would have to order for the studio. He had an adjustable bed and his stool to work on, but the studio needed storage space and a good front desk.
For the first hour or so, Max worked steadily, taking measurements and sketching out a rough design of how he wanted the space to look. He was going to use folding Japanese screens to divide up the room, rather than putting up walls. It would mean more flexibility in the future, if he ever wanted to expand and bring another person into the team.
There wasn’t much “behind the scenes” space, just a small washroom, a kitchenette, and what might generously be called a staff room, which had space for a couch and a TV—if he mounted the TV to the wall and shoved the couch into the corner. Max wasn’t too worried about it. He could always take his breaks upstairs in his apartment.
The designs he’d come up with while in Pittsburgh would work well on the walls, with only a few adjustments. He had planned to use a mix of framed pictures of his sketches and paintings, and painting directly onto the wall itself. It was something Max had seen in a gallery in DC, and he really admired the way the different types of art interacted.
Looking around the space again, he decided he was going to give himself two weeks to get the space how he wanted it and then a grand opening event on the Friday night.
Sweetwater was getting a tattoo studio, like it or not.
FOR THE next week, Max worked solidly, packing in twelve- and thirteen-hour days to get the studio in order. For now, he was staying at his mom’s house, only until he had time to unpack the apartment and make it a home.
With the warmth of spring making the studio uncomfortably hot, Max booked a guy to come in later that week and service the air-conditioning system. Meanwhile, he propped the door open while he worked.
“Max!”
He almost jumped out of his skin when he finally noticed the person calling his name—they’d probably yelled at him more than once.
“Sorry! Sorry.” He scrambled down off the cabinet, which he was using as a platform so he could paint a large dragon in the corner of the room.
Tyler walked in with a smile and turned down the radio that was perched on the ugly desk Max had picked up at a thrift store. He’d had an idea to turn the desk into an up-cycling project and make it pretty… except he hadn’t had time for that yet.
Tyler was wearing his uniform again, with his sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt. He’d shaved since the last time Max saw him, showing off his strong jaw and full lips.
In a move that was almost certainly not calculated, he hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. The action made his hands frame his crotch, and Max forced himself to look away.
Holy smokes, the guy was hot. And he didn’t even seem to know it.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine. Have people been complaining about the noise?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said.
Max crossed over and turned the radio off altogether.
“I didn’t peg you as a Whitney Houston fan,” Tyler teased.
“Who doesn’t love Whitney?” Max said, completely serious.
“I wasn’t sure if eighties pop music gelled with the look you’ve got going on.”
Max rolled his eyes and sat down on one of the cabinets. He found his bottle of water and drank deeply.
“I don’t subscribe to the death metal tattoo scene,” he said, wiping his forearm over his face and grimacing at the amount of sweat he found there.
“Is that because of the….” Tyler trailed off and finished his question by tapping his ear.
“No,” he said simply. He rarely thought about his hearing aids—they were just part of his life now. “I mean, I like music, but I’ve never really been into going to gigs or anything. I lost my hearing after a surfing accident.”
“Surfing?” Tyler asked, sounding surprised.
Max nodded
. “Head injury,” he said. “I wiped out, then got bashed on the head a couple of times by my board. I was really lucky. The guys I was out with managed to get me to a hospital quickly.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
Max waved off his concern. “This was… shit, about four years ago now. It could have been a lot worse.”
“You’re not completely deaf, though?”
“No, I’ve got about thirty percent of my hearing in my left ear and maybe fifty percent in my right. For the first year, it got progressively worse. Then I had surgery to try to fix it, and it’s been pretty stable since then. It’s usually fine. I just struggle when there’s a lot of background noise.”
Tyler nodded. “It doesn’t seem like it bothers you too much.”
“Like I said, I’m lucky.” Max genuinely believed that. “I know people have suffered far worse with sports injuries than what I went through.”
“Do you still surf?”
“Sometimes,” Max said with a grin. “I generally stick to calmer waters these days, though.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“So you’re just on your friendly neighborhood patrol?” Max asked, wanting to change the subject. Not because he was upset by Tyler’s questions—more that he didn’t like talking about himself all that much. He really didn’t like talking about his hearing aids either.
“Yep. I heard you were working on the shop here, and I thought I’d stop in, see how things were going.”
“Well, as you can see, John and I spent some very late nights putting together the cabinets and firmly cementing our nonparental but still very valuable relationship.”
Tyler laughed. “That sounds nice.”
“It was. I’m currently trying to make the place look less clinical and more artistic, which is a challenge, but I think it’s going okay.”
“You painted the wall?”
“That one, yeah,” Max said, gesturing to the one behind Tyler. It ran the length of the studio, and Max had picked a mid-gray tone to break up some of the stark white. He was pleased with how it turned out.