“Sure, let me know when,” I said.
“I was thinking about now,” I told her with what I thought was a charming grin.
“Oh, sure,” I said.
I was going to have to fight myself from giving into him again.
CHAPTER NINE
DAX
I could tell that she wasn’t sure about being alone with me. I liked flirting with her and I would love to have some more of that hot, sweaty sex with her, but I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable so I promised myself I’d back off a bit while we worked.
We went back into the back office and started pulling out boxes. As we went through them, we did the same thing we’d done last time and just separated them by the date that was written on the outside of the case and made little piles with them. We put the bare ones we found in a completely different box just to get them out of the way.
It was quiet and I was trying to think of a subject that wouldn’t make either one of us uncomfortable when she said, “I registered for the fall semester.”
It caught me by surprise.
“Wow…that’s great,” I told her. It was great. I was happy for her and happy to see that she was planning to move forward with her life. I was a little jealous that I wasn’t going with her though. “And you’re looking for a job?”
“Yeah, I’m starting small. I only signed up for two classes and I thought I could get a part time job too. I delivered three applications out today. I’m hoping for the hostess position. The hours would work well with a school schedule, I think. I need to find some direction in my life. Sitting around and not knowing what I want to do and not having anything to do is killing me.”
“I think it sounds like a great plan,” I told her. “I’ve been having the same thoughts myself.”
“Yeah, I guess you have a better excuse for not having a job and not going to school than I do. I let my life fall apart piece by piece and I hardly noticed it was happening. Part of it is to also get as far away from this club as possible. I just don’t see any good coming out of hanging around here.”
“I would love to be able to go back to school and then get a real job that will get me out of here too. That won’t ever happen though with my felonies. The fact that they’re drug felonies narrows it even further. I did talk to my mom…and my dad, actually about the tattoo shop. We had an uncomfortable family dinner last night.”
“Did your mom agree to help you?”
“We didn’t really talk about it,” I told her. “But she did want to know how much it would cost and what I would need to start. I’m sure she’ll help me. It’s going to be a lot though and I plan on paying her back so I’ll have to do a lot of tattoos.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” she said.
“Yeah, but my plan doesn’t really involve getting away from here any longer like yours does. For one thing, these guys get a lot of tattoos and they know a lot of people who get tattoos so that would be really helpful when it comes to getting my business up and running.”
“Yeah,” she said, hesitantly.
“What? You think it’s a bad idea that I hang around these guys? I’ve been around them my whole life.”
“No, the guys aren’t so bad in and of themselves,” she said. “It’s what goes on when they’re all in the back room that really bothers me.”
“Yeah, I get you,” I said. “I never wanted any part of any of that before and I still don’t. Did Terrance ever talk about it…about what goes on back there?”
The meeting that day with my brother really piqued my curiosity.
“No, he didn’t talk about anything that went on here at all. He was even vague about all of the runs he went on. When he was in a really pissy mood he would tell me it wasn’t any of my business.”
“I’ve been out of the loop for so long. I was curious what they were into these days,” I said.
I was really fishing for what the hell they were into with my brother and the crack house full of body guards in the hills.
She stopped what she was doing and said, “Really? Why do you want to know, Dax? Won’t that just lead to more trouble?”
“I’ll be careful. I actually think I might get in more trouble if I don’t know what’s going on. I went on a run with them right after I got out. We went to this old abandoned warehouse and there were a couple of creepy looking armed guys and a sharp-dressed man and a lot of crates. My dad and Terrance’s dad talked to them out of earshot of the rest of us, but I was curious about the crates. If I had to chance a guess, I’d guess guns rather than drugs. Then today I went with them and I was shocked as hell to see my brother there. I haven’t even heard his name since I’ve been out. He was acting all bigger than shit with his Prez patch. I’ve been so busy with all of this crap, trying to figure things out, that I hadn’t even realized that I hadn’t seen him around. It’s probably a good thing too. His mouth was working overtime today. Have you seen him lately?”
“No, it’s probably been six months since I’ve seen Brock,” she said.
“That’s weird, where has he been?”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t know. He just kind of faded away. I was so preoccupied with my own stuff that I didn’t pay much attention. I know something big went down between him and my dad maybe eight months ago or so. He was around less and less after that until one day he was just gone. I do remember asking Terrance what they were fighting about, but once again, he told me it wasn’t really my business. Hey, what was the date we were looking for again?” I told her and she said, “This one is two days before and goes up to that day.”
“Let’s put it in,” I told her.
She slipped the tape into the player and turned the television on. We watched as it started out with no one in the office, then as I fast-forwarded it, I saw my dad and stopped. He was just going through his bar owner routine, nothing fascinating. He didn’t even log onto the computer that I saw. I fast-forwarded it again and stopped every time I saw someone come in. None of them touched the computer though until my dad and my mom came in and my dad logged on to show her something. I assumed it had to do with their books because she had her little book with her that she used to pay the bills. They left again and I didn’t see him log out. There was a lot more tape of an empty room and then…there was my brother, Brock.
Brock walked in and looked at the computer, whatever he saw there made him smile. My dad presumably left his email logged in again. Brock went back over to the office door and looked out into the hall. He looked up one side and down the other. He came back and standing up, he made a few short key-stroke motions and hit another button. Smiling again, he walked away.
“What the fuck?”
“That was Brock,” Olivia said, as shocked as I was.
“Yeah, that was Brock. Why the fuck would my brother want to set me up?”
I was trying to wrap my head around this thing with Brock on the computer. We both sat there for a while. I was lost in thought and she probably didn’t know what to say.
At last I said, “We can clean this mess up. I’m done for today.”
“Okay,” she responded.
She started putting the tapes we’d taken out back in the boxes when I went on to say, “You want to go with me to get a new tat?”
“Really?”
I laughed. “Yeah, really. I’m not going for anything extravagant. I mostly just need to get out of here for a while. We can take off first thing in the morning. If nothing else it’ll be a nice ride. Come on, it’ll be fun. You can get one too.”
She laughed. “Um, I don’t think so, but I’ll go with you.”
That was satisfying enough.
CHAPTER TEN
OLIVIA
The next morning Dax knocked on door of the room around nine AM.
“Good morning,” he said, looking me up and down. Sometimes when he looked at me I could literally feel the heat from his eyes on my body.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m ready.”
/> We rode into town and I was surprised when we passed the only shop I knew of. We ended up at a house on the wrong side of town. I climbed off the bike first and he followed. He could tell what I was thinking by the look on my face.
“It’s cool, he does them out of the garage, but the place is sterile, I promise.”
I wasn’t convinced by the looks of the front yard and the rusty cars in the driveway but I followed him up to a door on the side of the house.
He knocked and someone yelled, “Yeah!”
“It’s Dax!”
A tiny little girl with pink hair pulled the door open. She looked like a pixie with her short pink hair, loud eye make-up and tiny little body that seemed to be covered in tattoos.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey Liz,” Dax said. “This is Olivia.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” the Pixie responded. I wondered if she could say anything else. Then she proved she could by saying, “Greg’s over there.”
I looked around and could see that Dax was right, the garage was sparkling clean. The floor was laminate and looked like you could eat off of it. There was a sterilizer machine and something that looked like a dishwasher. There was even a certificate on the wall from the health department from a Haz Mat training. Greg was behind a curtain and I could hear the whirr of the tattoo gun.
We waited and a few minutes later Greg walked out. I saw his belly coming first and a few seconds later the rest of his body joined him. He was about six-foot tall and he had to be pushing four-hundred pounds. On top of that, every visible part of his body except his face was covered with a tattoo.
“Dax! Hey you old Son of a Bitch, how are you?”
“I’m great, Greg, how are you?”
“The same, man, the same,” he said. “Who is this doll?” he asked, referring to me.
“This is my friend, Olivia,” Dax said. It was the first time I heard him refer to me as his friend without the girl in front.
“Glad to meet you, Olivia,” Greg said, extending a freakishly small hand in my direction. I shook it and wondered if he and the pixie was a couple. I’ll bet their quiet time was quite a sight to behold.
“Sorry to just stop by,” Dax told him. “I’m not having the best night. I got a bug up my ass about getting a tattoo making me feel better.”
“Hey, no problem. You can stop by any time. Hayley!” Another pixie, this one with purple hair came out. If they’d had the same color hair, the two of them would have looked identical. “This is Hayley, Liz’s sister.”
Dax and I said hello and then Greg told her, “You don’t mind if we finish yours later, do you?”
“Oh no, you can go ahead, I’ll come back another time,” Dax said.
“It’s okay,” Hayley said with a little pixie smile. “I could use a break.”
“Come on back, Dax. You gettin’ one too doll?” he asked me.
“Not tonight,” I told him.
“Hey, you could let your boyfriend do it. I trust Dax with my stuff. The first year he was in he did some great work on me. Look he did this one.” Greg pulled up his shirt and showed me a beautiful lotus flower, almost buried by a roll of fat.
“It’s pretty,” I said. The flower was, anyways.
I took the seat he offered me behind the curtain and Dax sat on the starch white, clean gurney. Greg made sure that Dax saw him change out the needle and the gun for a sterile one in a package and he changed out the ink.
“What are you getting buddy?” Greg asked him.
“I just want the Harley penned in on my tank,” Dax said, pointing at the tattoo of a hog he had on his right bicep.
“I can do that, you want me to put some flames on there too?”
“Yeah, sure,” Dax said.
I watched and they talked, mostly about guys they knew in prison. It was kind of surreal listening to Dax talk about being in prison. I knew he was there, but he never talked about what it was like. He and Greg mostly shared funny stories or things that I guess would be funny if you were in prison. Greg got out after Dax had only been in for a year, but I guess they stayed in touch. I wondered what Greg had done and then I decided I’d rather not know. The pink haired pixie brought a soda out for me about halfway through and just about the time Greg was finishing up, Dax started in on me again about getting one.
“Come on, Liv, just a little one. I’ll be gentle.”
“What are you going to do? I don’t want a Harley or a skull.”
He laughed and said, “I’ll do whatever you want. No Harley’s and no skulls, I promise.”
“What about my job hunting? A lot of employers don’t want to hire people with tats.”
Dax and Greg both laughed. Greg said, “Look who you’re talking to doll. We sort of figured that out as soon as we got out of the joint.”
“I’ll make it so tiny you’ll need a magnifying glass to see it. Come on, live a little,” Dax said. He grinned at me and I could feel my resolve slipping away. Damn him and those sexy green eyes.
“Okay, but a small one. Nothing obscene and on my upper arm where I can cover it up.” It wasn’t that I’d never considered getting one, but I’d just never had the nerve to take that plunge. I knew Dax wouldn’t hurt me though.
“Man, she’s a tough customer,” Greg said with a laugh. “I’m glad she’s yours.”
“Okay to all of the above,” Dax told me. I sat up on the table and watched as they opened new packages and Greg gave Dax a few instructions about the gun. Dax said, “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“It will hurt less if you don’t watch, trust me, okay?”
I must have really trusted him. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I felt his hand on my arm and against my will, I shivered from his touch. He pushed my sleeve up gently and lightly brushed his fingers across my skin.
He said, “Okay, take a deep breath and hold really still.” Then I felt it, the touch of the needle on my skin. It didn’t really hurt, not like I thought it would. It was like being scratched with a safety pin. He was going slowly. I could tell he was trying to be gentle. It couldn’t have even been ten minutes later when he said, “Okay, all done.”
I opened my eyes, “Really? That was so quick.”
“I promised you small,” he said. “Look.” He handed me a little mirror. It was a tiny little red heart right at the top of my arm. It was cute.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. That was my first professional tattoo.”
“You’re ready for business then,” I told him. “Because this one is perfect.”
He was standing close and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me.
“Awesome, man!” Greg shouted and was suddenly as close to me as Dax. The moment had passed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAX
My phone buzzed and I thumbed the answer button.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dax. It’s Miss Ortega.”
“Good morning Miss Ortega, how are you?” I did appreciate my parole officer. She was under no obligation whatsoever to call me before she stopped by, but she always did.
“I’m good Dax, the question is, how are you? Are you staying out of trouble?”
I looked around the bar and tried not to chuckle as I said, “You bet.”
“Good, I’d like to stop by in about an hour.”
Shit. “Sure, I’ll be home.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then,” she said.
I hung up and called my Mom. “Hey Mom.”
“Hi Dax, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Why do you always expect the worst?” As soon as that was out of my mouth I remembered who she was married to and said, “Never mind, scratch that. Miss Ortega wants to stop by in about an hour. I just wanted to make sure that’s okay with you.”
“Of course, I’ll make some coffee. I think I still have some pastries—”
“You don’
t have to go to all that trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” she said.
Sighing, I said, “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
I used the shower in Olivia’s room. She was already up and out, probably job hunting, I assumed. After I dressed I got on the bike and headed across town. It was a nice morning and I was tempted to drive on past and head for the hills. I pulled right into my parent’s driveway.
Miss Ortega showed up about ten minutes later, right on time as usual, and my mother had coffee and cookies ready of course. If this wasn’t my life, it would be funny. After she fussed over us for a while I finally persuaded her to leave so that we could get down to business.
“So, what have you been up to, Dax?”
“Well, I went looking for a job, but I’m not having much luck. So, I was actually thinking about getting my tattoo license.”
“You know someone that will hire you?”
I thought about Greg and said, “Maybe, but I was actually hoping to open my own place.”
“That’s ambitious,” she said. “It might be expensive to get started. How would you plan on financing that?”
“My mom and I have been talking about it. She has some savings and she might be willing to help me out. We’re looking into all of the angles right now.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to know you’re looking towards the future. You’re staying out of trouble and away from trouble?”
Absolutely, I spent my days at a bar that was a front for an outlaw bike club in back. I went to a meeting where there were crates full of guns and I found out my brother was some kind of big wig drug trafficker. I’ve also been seeking revenge for my false imprisonment. I think I may have found good cause to think it was my brother who set me up.
When I finished thinking about the truth I said, “Absolutely staying out of trouble. I would never want to go back.”
“Good,” she said. “I see the gun cabinet is gone. You didn’t just move it in a back room, did you?” Yeah, the back room of the bar I hung out in.
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