by A. J. Thomas
Hawk clapped his hands together, grinning. “Healing isn’t wasting time, but this octopus sounds like it fits. As soon as you finish drawing the first section, I think we should get started. You need this. But go take a fucking shower and eat.”
“Yeah, I’m starving.”
“I’ve got a lady coming in about a rose, so holler if you need anything,” Hawk added.
“I’m okay,” Sean said, surprised that it was true.
Seeing Bruce again had been devastating, but he actually felt better now that it was over. Feeling okay didn’t have shit to do with Bruce, though, and everything to do with the way Nate had treated him.
He hadn’t imagined that talking to someone about something as normal as music—or even his fucked-up relationship with Bruce—instead of how he was “coping” with his injury would be exhilarating, but it had been. Most days he only left the shop to go to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy. He’d assumed the meeting at Harrison and Poole would be nearly as grueling as the workouts his therapist put him through, and it had turned out to be worse than he could have imagined. But the hours after had been as unexpected as a cool sea breeze on one of those muggy Houston days when the outside world felt like a giant sauna. Even the awkward meeting with Bruce and the chilling conversation that followed hadn’t been enough to crush the giddy relief he’d felt at being treated as if he were a normal human being again.
He appreciated everything Hawk did to help him, from sitting by his side in the hospital to helping him adjust to living in back of the shop and keeping him fed, but even Hawk had become so careful when they talked that sometimes Sean couldn’t stand it. He recognized that Hawk just didn’t want to offend him or depress him more, but their stilted conversation was having the opposite effect.
Whatever happened with the settlement and his work for CPG, he had to begin to piece his life back together. He was broken, and Hawk was treating him like shattered glass that would crumble under the slightest pressure, but he would fix it. He would get stronger, he would push through the pain until his right leg could hold his weight, he would figure out how to take care of himself again.
WHEN NATE came by the shop the following week, Sean was reclining on the weight bench, panting and covered in sweat. Nate stepped into Sean’s converted space, glancing around at the boxes of ink and supplies that still lined one wall, and the cot, the small stereo, and the stack of sketchbooks. His gaze wandered before fixing on Sean himself. He stared, openmouthed, at Sean.
Sean flinched to try and hide the worst of the scars circling his hip, where his surgeons had found enough skin to piece together a quilt of flesh around his right leg. There was no hiding the scars on his leg, or the black neoprene liner covering his stump, and Sean cursed under his breath.
If Sean had met Nate a year ago, he’d have assumed the distracted expression was a sign of interest, but now he dismissed the possibility as wishful thinking.
“You’re—” Nate swallowed and gestured to Sean. “—in really good shape.”
“Therapist’s orders,” Sean said, making no move to get off the weight bench and back into his chair. “If I don’t work out, she can tell, and she’ll make sure I’m too sore to move after every session for the next week.”
The blush staining Nate’s cheeks didn’t fade.
“I’m sorry for….” He gestured at his bare chest and legs. The air-conditioning doesn’t quite reach back this far. But if you could toss me the shirt from that crate?” he said, pointing to the green plastic milk crate that served well enough as a laundry basket.
Nate moved toward the basket, stopping after half a step. “This is your space—you don’t have to throw on a shirt on my account. I’m intruding. I apologize, I should go.”
“You can stay,” Sean said quickly. He’d wanted to see Nate again. So damn much he’d hardly been able to go an hour without thinking about him. “And it’s miserably hot, so if you don’t mind, then it… it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t mind,” Nate said in a rush. He dropped his gaze to the floor, licking his lips. “I was just surprised by the room. You live here?” Nate asked, stumbling over the words.
“I guess so. Hawk’s apartment is upstairs,” he explained, grateful for the distraction. “It’s not exactly accessible. But I’m managing okay down here. Please don’t tell me there’s another meeting, because I’m not up for that shit right now.”
“If you had a choice, you’d never be up for another meeting. No, I wanted to see you,” Nate said, sitting down on the cot, a flash of perfection amidst the utilitarian grime of the shop. His hair was neatly styled, and in the poorly lit room, it looked pure black. His suit was a crisp gray that made his skin seem a bit darker, a bit more tempting.
Sean found himself wondering if Nate actually had any body hair beneath the thick, smooth fabric. He’d imagined him hairless, a perfectly smooth blank canvas he could cover in ink, but covered in coarse hair that he could run his fingers through would be nice too.
“To see me?” He sat up straighter.
“To update you,” Nate said quickly. “I wanted to update you on where we’re at, and I figured if I called to warn you I was coming by, you’d find some way to get out of it.”
“That’s unfair,” he muttered.
“It may be unfair, but can you tell me it’s not true?”
“Without lying? No.”
“Blame Hawk—he suggested I just show up,” Nate said, finally meeting his gaze again. “Besides, until you’re more comfortable getting around on your own, I’m sure it’s easier for me to meet you here. And I don’t have an office, so… I figured I’d come by once a week to let you know what’s going on with the case and see how you’re doing.” Nate continued with a quick summary of the emails he’d exchanged with the other side over the last two days, including their official opening offer.
Sean tried to listen, still unsettled by the dollar amounts they were discussing and struggling to keep up with the long list of statutes, motions, depositions, and the complicated dynamic between CPG’s staff attorney and the guys the company had hired just for this case. “I’ll be honest,” he said when Nate grew quiet and kept staring at him. “I’m not sure I understood half of the pretrial motion stuff. But their offer… it’s insane. Why would they jump from hundreds of thousands to millions just because you asked for more?”
“Because they know going to trial will cost them even more. Besides, this would cover your current medical bills and give you a bit of financial security for the next couple of years, but I wouldn’t call it generous, not compared to what you would have earned. After the pretrial motions come back, they’ll have to reassess their cost-benefit analysis, so we’ll see what they say.”
Sean narrowed his eyes. “I figured you’d want to go to trial. It’d give your dad something to see when you win.”
Nate popped his mouth open and sat there, frozen.
“Sorry, I guess that wasn’t really appropriate.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nate said, dropping his gaze. “And don’t worry about me. My dad never bothered to see what I could do when I was working in the same building, so I don’t see much point in trying to impress him now. This is about you. We’ve got to think about the time frame for the trial. If we go to court two months from now—which we won’t, because once we get a ruling on their motion to dismiss, they’ll file a motion to extend the court date—it’ll likely be another three to four months for a decision, and then they’ve got ninety days to appeal, which they automatically will. Add on six months to two years to begin dealing with CPG’s appeal, and then you’ll get the money from the judgment. Depending on the decision on appeal, we might have to go back and start again at the trial level, or the final judgment could be reduced.”
“There’s no way the trial will be the end of it?”
“No. If we win, they’ll appeal. If there’s any chance of getting a judgment reduced, they’ll have to. They actually have an obligati
on to CPG to go through every delay tactic the law allows.” He glanced around the store room meaningfully. “I think you could use the money a bit faster than that.”
“Yeah, but I also need to stop feeling sorry for myself and start putting in regular hours in the shop again,” Sean countered. “Would it be okay if I figure out how to patent that pump system? I know CPG is acting like it’s theirs, so would it make any difference if I… whatever it’s called?”
“Register the patent?” Nate suggested. “You can buy and sell patents just like anything else. They wouldn’t want you to sign that waiver unless they knew you had a right to patent it. It’ll take years to process, though. I could get in touch with an intellectual-property firm and let you know what all it involves, if you’d like.”
“Yeah, I want to. Before everyone in the fucking world decides they own a bigger share of it than I do. Although I guess it won’t do much good as far as paying bills now goes,” he admitted. “I hate it when I don’t know what the future’s going to be like.”
That seemed to make Nate smile, at least. “What would you do if money wasn’t a factor? If you could do anything?”
“I’d open my own place,” Sean said immediately. “My own studio.”
“You’d stick to doing tattoos?”
“I don’t think I could ever stop completely. It’s an obsession, but the money sucks, so I always figured I’d have to find a day job, you know?”
“Hopefully this settlement will give you a chance to do that, then. And honestly, helping to make that happen is why I’m here. Did you ever figure out your nautilus shell?”
“No,” Sean said immediately. “You were right about the octopus. I drew some mock-ups, and it looked good. Plus, the color scheme is complicated enough to cover up the rest of my tats. You want to see?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“The top sketchbook there.” He nodded toward the stack on the floor.
Nate took in the massive stack of notebooks, the edges worn and well used. “You’ve filled all of these?”
“Yeah. When I was on the ship, I used a tablet and a stylus. It was easier to keep track of everything, to organize drawings and stuff, but it wasn’t the same as paper.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Nate flipped through the top sketchbook and grinned. “When I was in law school, everything was electronic. Everyone brought a laptop to class to take notes. Most people recorded lectures as audio files and typed their notes. I can type just fine, but I learned pretty quick that I didn’t remember things as accurately if I didn’t write them down on paper. It feels different—tangible, you know?”
“It does,” Sean said, pleasantly surprised.
“This is it?” Nate asked, holding up the sketchbook to the last page of mock-ups. “Blue?”
“It’s mine—I can make it any color I want.”
“But you were so excited about that glow-in-the-dark red….”
“Ultraviolet. I won’t do glow-in-the-dark tattoos, there’s no safe way to do them yet.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One is safe, the other is both radioactive and toxic,” Sean said, laughing. “To make ink glow in the dark, you need phosphorus in the ink. Phosphorus absorbs energy and radiates light, like those glow-in-the-dark toys you’ve got to put in the sun. To make ink glow in the dark, you’d have to add something radioactive to the solution to energize the phosphorus. Since both the phosphorus and whatever you add to make it glow will cause cancer, it’s just a bad idea. Unfortunately, a lot of old ultraviolet inks were phosphorus-based too. Which is why Hawk won’t use them at all.”
“But you want one? Even if it’s dangerous?”
“Phosphorus is dangerous, but over the last ten years they’ve come out with alternatives. New inks that create a fluorescent effect, so they glow pretty much instantly under a black light. They’re neat, too—one brand I really like fades to almost nothing under full-spectrum lighting. Once they heal, you can’t even tell the tattoo is there until you shine a black light on it.”
“Why would you want a tattoo that fades?”
“Seriously?” Sean laughed. “A tattoo that’s invisible most of the time and shows up in a nightclub? I’ve had a ton of clients who would love to get something inked on their face, or neck, or hands and can’t because they’ve got to look like you.”
Nate glanced down at his suit, pursing his lips.
“Not that you don’t look fabulous,” Sean said quickly. “You do. But a lot of people have to look professional, and they can’t get the tattoos they want and still look that hot in a suit.” Sean slapped his mouth closed, wishing he’d just stopped talking. That infuriatingly confident smile was plastered across Nate’s face again. “Professional, I mean.” He dropped his gaze to the weight bench.
“I guess I can see the appeal,” Nate admitted. “Still, if I’m going to spend money on a tattoo, I want to be able to see it whenever, not just at a club.”
“I’m going to have Tonya layer the ultraviolet ink over the entire tattoo when it’s done, sort of like a highlight.”
“You can do that? Use both inks, so it shows up like a normal tattoo and glows under a black light?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s….” Nate flipped through the sketchbook again, returning to the nautilus shell. “If you’re committed to this octopus,” he said, drawing out each word slowly, “would you consider doing this for me?”
Sean jerked his head up, his pulse spiking.
For the first time since Sean had met him, Nate seemed nervous. “I looked up the poem. I’ve never thought about getting a tattoo before—I always figured they were spur-of-the-moment things you’re supposed to get when you’re drunk on spring break, not later on. But I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“You don’t have any tattoos?” Sean asked. “Not one?”
“Nope. I never wanted one before. How much would you charge for it?”
“Uh, it depends. How big would you want it? And where? And how many colors do you want? For big, detailed pieces I charge a hundred dollars an hour, but if you want me to shrink the design and make it a bit simpler, I can give you a flat rate.”
Nate let out a loud breath and leaned back, slouching on the cot with Sean’s sketchbook. “I want it just like the drawing, with the red highlight,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’m not sure about where, though.”
“You really don’t have a single tat?” he asked, thrilled that he’d been right about Nate’s skin being bare.
“Not yet.”
“Wow. So I get to be your first?”
Nate burst out with a laugh that he quickly turned into a cough. His neck and cheeks turned a bit darker, but he was still smiling. “I can’t think of anyone I’d prefer more.”
“Either way, you should think it over. Most people choose something small for their first tattoo, to make sure they aren’t sensitive to the ink and, well, to kind of ease into it. I don’t want to do something you’ll regret in a year,” Sean tried to explain.
“Are you saying there’s a waiting period for tattoos?”
“Not most tattoos. Hell, impulse decisions are what keep us in business. But for a friend, whose first piece is going to cover more than a few inches? Yeah. It’s something you’ve got to live with, and if you don’t love it, then it’s a mistake.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for three days,” Nate pointed out. “I’m sure I want it. It’s… mesmerizing.”
“Then a few days or even weeks won’t matter, because you’ll still want it. Besides, I need the time, even if you don’t. Depending on where you want it placed, I’ll have to scale the design and make a stencil. Then we can divide the work up into sessions. We’ll do the line work first, give that a week or two to heal, then do the base shading, then details, and then the UV highlight. It’ll take four sessions, so eight hours in all.”
Nate set the sketchbook back onto the stack. “There has to be a week between sessions?
”
“Two would be best. If the work from the previous session is still scabbed over, the next layer will be a mess, and if the skin is still irritated, it’ll be more likely to get infected. Plus, you’ll need to acknowledge the existence of regular clothes.”
“Regular clothes?”
“You’ll need to wear light clothes for about twenty-four hours afterward. Like basketball shorts and a T-shirt. Not….” He gestured at the heavy suit again.
“So there needs to be downtime? I hadn’t thought about that,” Nate grudgingly admitted. “Honestly, I’ve got no idea how the process goes. I assumed it would be fairly straightforward.”
“It’s simple enough, but there are some risks, and there is recovery time involved. If you’re freaked out about it, you’re welcome to come by and see the process firsthand.”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “Wouldn’t your customers find that a bit invasive?”
“Most of them don’t care. Those three chairs in our main workroom are all visible from the front of the shop.”
“What about people who want work done that’s more intimate?”
“We’ve got a private room,” Sean assured him. “It’s behind the curtain near the bathroom.”
Nate shifted forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Could I watch yours?” he asked, staring at his hands instead of looking at Sean. “Your octopus, I mean.”
Sean forced himself not to wince. He’d intended to get every bit of it done after hours so no one but Hawk could see. Then again, he wouldn’t be exposing much more scar tissue than Nate could see at the moment, and it hadn’t been as horrible as he’d expected. “It’s going to be messy,” he warned. “Mine is going to be a lot bigger than the one you’re considering. That means more time, more ink, more blood.”
Nate nodded. “I didn’t think it’d be neat and tidy, but I should know what to expect.”