by A. J. Thomas
“I’m not going to flinch,” Sean insisted, lifting the needle and glancing down at Nate’s hand. Instead of shifting his hand away, Nate trailed his fingers down the lines of Sean’s octopus, tracing the shape of the suction cups. The skin around the tattoo was soft and hot, but the tattoo itself was still rough and raised.
“I’m not going to be able to focus for shit if you keep doing that,” Sean warned him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, skimming his fingers over the outside of Sean’s forearm.
“I really don’t think you are.”
“I like your tattoos.”
Sean shifted his foot away from the pedal. “If you like my tattoos enough to want one on your skin, you need to stop.” He swatted Nate’s hand away, grinning despite sounding annoyed. “If I screw this up because you’re molesting me, I will make you pay full price,” he threatened, waving the needle at him.
“Your work is worth paying for.” Nate chuckled and pulled his hand away. “But I get it. Hands to myself. I don’t mind watching. Not at all.”
Sean drew back again and glared at him.
“Watching you work,” Nate swore, trying to look innocent.
“Tell me about where you grew up,” Sean said out of the blue. “You’ve told me about the trauma that was law school, but what about before that? You lived here in Houston, right?”
“Yeah, more or less. My folks have a place a few blocks north of San Felipe, near Tanglewood Park. Plus we spent a lot of time in Galveston, because my mom loves the ocean.”
Sean let out a low whistle. “Pricey.”
“The original McMansions,” Nate agreed.
“Nope. Sorry to burst your delusional bubble, but I don’t think the houses in Tanglewood are small enough to qualify for McMansion status. And a house in Galveston? Damn.”
“My parents are both attorneys,” Nate tried to explain. “They both make decent money. The house in Tanglewood is striking, all old-fashioned Southern luxury, but I always kinda hated it. I bought their place in Galveston after college, and that’s where I live now.”
“You drive to and from Galveston every day?”
“It’s no longer than most commutes from the suburbs. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’d love to open up a practice out there so I don’t have to make the drive every day. As for growing up, there’s not much to tell. I went to school, never was very good at sports, unless you count chess and video games as sports.”
“So you were a geek?” Sean asked, his tone innocent and surprisingly nonjudgmental.
“My brothers always said I was. And they were right, but I’ll be damned if I ever admit that where they can hear me.”
“Your brothers? Are they lawyers too?”
“Oh, God no. My oldest brother, Matthew, is a real estate agent. He moved out to the East Coast years ago, and Steve….” He didn’t know what made him hesitate, since Sean was the last person in the world who’d likely care about Steve’s eccentric tendencies.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. Unless he’s a politician or some gay-bashing preacher. He’s not, is he? Because I always wonder what the family of people like that really think about them.”
He chuckled, trying to picture his middle brother cutting his hair and going into politics. “He’s on the other side of the extremist spectrum. He studied history in Oregon but refused to get a teaching certificate. He said he was planning on graduate school, so my parents didn’t care. But instead of a PhD that would allow him to teach at the college level, he got a master’s degree in museum curatorship.”
Sean paused and met his gaze. “Museum curatorship? That’s an actual degree?”
“That’s what my parents wondered.”
“How’s that working out for him?”
“If he wanted to work in a museum, it’d probably be helpful. But somewhere along the line, he became a bit of a hippie and decided that he would rather perform manual labor than contribute to the country’s growing wealth gap, or something like that.”
“A bit of a hippie?”
“A bit. By ‘bit’ I mean ‘complete and total,’ of course.”
“Ah. Long hair, leather fringe, that kind of thing?”
“No leather, not with the way he rambles about animal rights and karmic guilt. He wears lots of denim, though, and he kind of has long hair. But then he got a job installing cable and I guess it was getting in his eyes, so now he has a mullet. He always wears a baseball hat and keeps the long part in a ponytail, because it annoys the hell out of him.”
“Why doesn’t he just cut it?” Sean asked, obviously trying not to laugh.
“I’ve given up asking. He’s just my brother,” Nate said with a shrug. “He’s happy installing cable, and he manages to make ends meet. It pisses my dad off to no end, because he sends money home each month, trying to repay my folks for everything they contributed for his degree. He calls it his student loan payment.”
Sean chuckled. “I’ve got to admit he sounds like a fun guy. Your family photos have got to be awesome.”
“Well, not so much. The last time we managed a family portrait with everybody together was when I was ten. Matthew ended up marrying a girl named Laura whose family is really into the evangelical movement, and I’m not very good at pretending to be something I’m not. My brothers know I’m gay, but Matt’s convinced I can be straight if I just try hard enough.”
“If you just try hard enough?” Sean hissed. “I always wish people like that would try being gay for a while so they can see how fucking easy it is.”
“Yeah, making that suggestion would be funny until Laura launched into one of her prayer-warrior rants, and then….” He cringed miserably. “It doesn’t matter anymore. When they had their first kid, they decided they needed to make sure their child wasn’t exposed to… well, me.”
Sean shifted away from Nate’s skin as the buzz of the tattoo machine died.
“They were more than willing to stay in Houston, if my parents agreed to cut me out of their lives until I repented.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen. My parents didn’t kick me out, but they definitely weren’t happy, especially when Matt and Laura actually moved away. After I left for college, my mom made it quite clear that she wanted a chance to be a part of her grandchildren’s lives, so I make sure I never stop by when they’re in town.”
“It sounds like you still talk to your other brother, though.”
“Yeah. He’s….” Nate dropped his head back down onto the chair and returned his hands to the armrests, the back of his knuckles brushing against Sean’s elbow again. He felt Sean tremble, and he couldn’t resist shifting his fingers to ghost over Sean’s skin once more. “Steve’s great,” he continued. “He flies down for most holidays, and if Matt and Laura are in town, the two of us hang out at my place. A couple of beers, video games, and we go fishing at the pier.”
Sean paused and glared at Nate’s hand. That was probably Nate’s cue to keep his fingers to himself, but it was hard to resist.
“Given the whole badass lawyer thing, I’d have thought self-control would be your strong suit,” Sean said, shoving his hand off the armrest completely.
“I don’t think I’d describe practicing law as particularly badass,” Nate said, trying to look innocent.
“So you two spend the holidays at the pier while the rest of your family does a wholesome dinner in Houston?”
“Pretty much. He’s actually flying in Tuesday. Our mom likes to do a big dinner with me and him before Matt and his family show up, so….”
“Thanksgiving is next week, isn’t it? Holidays always sneak up on me.”
“Do you and Hawk have any Thanksgiving traditions?” Nate asked, trying to imagine what Thanksgiving dinner above a tattoo studio might entail.
“Leftover pizza. We’ll order like four pizzas the night before, and then we’re good for a few days.”
“Oh.”
“There’s nothing wrong with pizza
,” Sean insisted.
Sean tattooed long lines of white, gray, silver, and black, pausing every few seconds to wipe away the sheen of fresh blood that seeped from the tattoo. It hurt, but just as Sean had promised, the pain evolved into one giant pulsing ache. It didn’t become numb, but it was bearable. To lighten the mood, Nate told Sean about his sympathetic big brother following him into a gay bar on his twenty-first birthday. Sean nearly twitched, but he carefully pulled the needle away before laughing.
“You’ve got to introduce me while he’s here,” Sean said, his face lit by a bright smile. “I don’t think most straight brothers would do that.”
“Like I said, he’s great,” Nate agreed. “He won’t go with me anymore, but that’s because of my karaoke failures, nothing else.”
“You sing?” Sean asked, his eyes lighting up.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But after a couple of shots of vodka, I forget that I can’t sing. What about you?”
Sean smirked.
“Don’t tell me you sing too? Because with the whole genius, artist, and cute-as-hell combination you’ve got going, adding musician to the mix would be phenomenally unfair.”
Sean shook his head slightly. “You’re making this impossible.” Sean wiped away a bit more blood.
“Sorry. I’ll stop,” he promised.
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Sean said, focusing on his work again. “Can I ask about that hearing Monday? You said I don’t need to be there, but will the company have witnesses and stuff?”
Nate considered the question. Sean looked nervous, but he held the tattoo machine in a steady grip. “Probably. I know the Republic Sea is back in Galveston again. Cory Alden left me a message saying the entire crew had been ordered to be available for every court session, but I think they’re just being overcautious.”
“God, I don’t want to see him.”
“I doubt their counsel will let Lancaster bother you again. I’d make their lives hell if they did.”
“Him or Cory,” Sean explained. “Before they got under way last time, Cory came in, trying to get me to patent the control module for the pump assembly along with him and Bruce. He came across like he wanted to make sure I’d get some money out of CPG if the lawsuit fell apart, but he was just trying to get his name on the damn thing so he could get his share of the profits.”
“His share?” Nate asked. “What, exactly, did he contribute?”
“He helped me cast and polish some parts. The machine shop they’ve got over in Galveston is big enough that we could have an entire team of guys in there to get things done quickly when we were in port. And he helped me check the data feed when I was fiddling with the control module.”
“So he didn’t do anything?”
“He did what he could. CPG kept the ship busy all the time. The design was an idea Bruce and I tossed around during my first summer out there. I spent the next year at school researching the feasibility, designing and running simulations, figuring out how to collect data and how to rapidly cycle the pressure in a pump that size. It was nine months of research that they didn’t have time to do. By the time I went back to the ship, I had the control-module programming done, thanks to the months of simulations, and the rest of it I had solid designs for. Just like with your final tattoo design, I wasn’t working with rough ideas anymore, I was ready to go.”
“So they don’t deserve a share of the credit, because they didn’t do any of the work.”
“He didn’t see it that way. But Bruce and CPG aren’t any better.”
“Sean, you don’t owe them a damn thing. If you don’t want to deal with Cory again, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want to either.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sean said with a smile. “I think you thrive on confrontation. Will me not being there really be okay?”
“It will be fine. You were assigned to work on a ship, and your job was necessary to the ship’s mission. That’s the exact definition of ‘seaman,’ and their motion is going to be thrown out. They can call the crew as witnesses, but if they say anything different from what’s in their depositions, I’ll deal with it.”
Sean pulled the tattoo needle away, wiped more blood from Nate’s skin, and slouched on the stool, his entire body dropping as he scrunched up his eyes. “You’re sure?”
“You do what you’ve got to do. I’ll take care of the hearing.” He tilted his head up, gaze fixated on Sean’s neck again. Being able to stare at the detailed suction cups and the colors without any fear of being caught or having to explain himself made the pain from the tattoo all the more worthwhile.
“You need to stop that too,” Sean said, without even looking at him.
“Hmm?”
“Tensing your back. It makes the muscles in your abs twitch.”
He stopped himself before he could mumble a denial. His back wasn’t the only part of his anatomy that got tense when he stared at Sean’s tattoo. “Sorry. I really like your octopus.”
“If you want to like your own tattoo, hold still, okay?”
Nate folded his arms behind his head, trying to relax. Closing his eyes helped. Slowly the scratching moved lower, circling his navel and traveling farther still.
“You’re not going to want to wear anything tight over this for a few days,” Sean warned him. “Nothing with a belt, that’s for sure.”
“There’s no court on weekends,” he announced, keeping his eyes closed.
“Good. In terms of healing, your best bet would be to go home and spend the rest of your weekend naked.”
He almost sat up as his eyes popped open. He tried to say something, cleared his throat, and closed his eyes again.
Sean ran the needle around the center of the spiral one last time, then leaned back. “That’s going to have to do it for tonight. The line work is done. I’ll do base shading next time, then build up the layers from there. The last session will be a touch-up and the ultraviolet highlights.”
“And that’s it?”
“Unless you decide you want more. I know I said start slow, but I would love to put a kelp forest and a cloud of jellyfish on your chest.”
“A whole ocean?” he asked. “That’s tempting.”
Sean sprayed something with a pink tint onto the tattoo and dabbed it up with a clean paper towel. He patted the skin dry and then rolled his stool toward the counter. He returned with fresh gloves and a large sheet of regular plastic wrap, and set it right onto the tattoo. Just like Nate had watched him do before, Sean taped down the edges of the plastic wrap. He rolled away one more time and returned with a single printed sheet of paper.
Sean began collecting ink cups and throwing them in the trash. “Basic aftercare stuff,” he said, cleaning up the tray with a quick, methodical efficiency. “Leave that plastic on it for three to four hours. Then take the plastic off, wash it with warm, soapy water, and dry it gently. It’s going to scab over. Don’t scratch it, pick at it, or rub it. You can slap it if it’s really bugging you. I’ll give you a sample of the balm I like to use—it should see you through the first few days. You’ll need to apply a thin layer of it four times a day. Do not expose it to the sun at all, and when it starts peeling in three days, let the dried colored bits fall off naturally. Try not to wear anything too tight, or that’s going to rub against it.”
“I’ve got to wear regular pants on Monday,” he insisted. “There’s no brief in the world that’s brilliant enough to compensate for showing up to a hearing half-naked.”
“Wear a soft undershirt and go commando,” Sean advised. “So long as the slacks fit and aren’t too tight, it’ll be fine. But the elastic from your boxers is going to rub like a bitch.”
“So,” Nate said, rubbing his fingers over the gathered waistline of his underwear, “how should we manage dinner if you want me to take these off?”
Sean didn’t even react.
Nate waited until Sean was done taking apart the needle assembly and throwing most of the parts in the trash before he sw
ung his legs to the side and stood up. As soon as he did, a wave of dizziness swept over him. “Shit,” he hissed, grabbing his forehead.
Sean rolled the stool close to him and easily maneuvered him back onto the chair. “Sit back down,” he instructed. “I know you haven’t had dinner, but when did you last eat?”
“This morning. I got caught up writing a parenting plan for a client, and I barely had time to run home and get changed before I came here.”
Sean sighed and shook his head. “Don’t move, okay? Just sit there.” He stripped off his gloves and tossed them in the trash too. He reached for his phone and tapped the screen a couple times, then held the phone to his ear and waited for a few moments. “Hi. This is Sean next door. Any chance you could run two entrées over for me? Anything that can be ready superfast is fine. No, he’s gone already, it’s for me and a new client who decided to get a big piece done without eating first. I don’t want him to pass out on me. Yes, him.” After another moment, he cocked an eyebrow in Nate’s direction. “Eggplant again?” he asked.
“Uh, sure.”
“That’s fine,” Sean confirmed. “Awesome. Thank you.”
When he ended the call, he tossed the phone on the counter and glared at him. “You should have had lunch,” he said as if scolding a small child. “Didn’t I tell you to eat before you came in?”
“Uh, no. Why would it matter?”
“Because I just put what your body interprets as a major injury onto your skin. You need to eat before you get any piercings or ink done. Your blood sugar can crash really easily, because your body is compensating for shit.”
“Compensating for shit?” Nate repeated, chuckling.
“Yes. You’re lucky you didn’t faint or throw up when you tried to stand up. We keep snacks around just in case. Usually, anyway. I ate them all. Are you sure I didn’t say anything?”
“You did,” Nate admitted. He’d been so distracted as he’d shaved and changed clothes that it had slipped his mind. A knock on the front door echoed around the shop. “Shit, Tonya locked the door.”
Sean rolled the stool across the workroom, transferred himself into his wheelchair with ease, and headed for the front of the shop. Nate drank in the sight of Sean hoisting himself into the air so easily, still awed by the way Sean’s tightly muscled arms made him go brain-dead.