by A. J. Thomas
“Removal?” Sean squealed. “Why were you talking to someone who does tattoo removal? I know your nautilus has been nothing but an outline for months, but it’ll look amazing when I finish it.”
“Tonya got a tattoo on her neck removed to make some blank space for the watercolor hummingbird you promised her. She thought it’d be a fabulous idea for people who want new ink but have darker tats that can’t be covered up easily. She mentioned a lot of her piercing clients like the fact that a piercing can be changed, that they’re not locked into one design forever.”
“But…. No!”
“Stop thinking about someone not liking your work and think about it from a client’s perspective,” Nate said calmly. “It’d mean people who have a tat they don’t like, or something they regret, even, could get rid of it and get something new without having to go to a separate place.”
“I’ll think about it, okay?” Sean promised. “It’s not like a hardware store is some kind of swanky office, though. If anyone should be complaining about a professional atmosphere, it’s you.”
“And if it becomes an issue, I can relocate.”
“But then you can’t play whatever music you want and blame it on the tattoo parlor next door,” Sean pointed out.
Nate chuckled. “God, I love you,” he said.
“I love you too. I don’t suppose we can skip business stuff and I can drag you back here for lunch? We could call room service, just relax for a while….”
It was tempting, especially when Sean sounded like he was still half-asleep. “I’m going to the shop as soon as this reception thing is over. You should get down there so I can stare at you while you unpack boxes all afternoon.”
“But that won’t result in lunch.”
“I’ll bring you something,” Nate promised. “When do you think you’ll be there?”
“I’ve got to take a shower first. Maybe an hour.”
“I’m sure I can escape by then,” he said before they said goodbye.
When Nate turned around, he found an irate looking eleven-year-old looking at him.
“What?” he asked.
His nephew stared at him, his head cocked to the side.
Matt had decided he was going to attend the wedding, wishes of the bride and groom be damned. Matt was the only one who’d come to the rehearsal dinner the night before, but Laura and their kids had walked into the actual wedding right beside him. Seeing them for the first time in person was awkward, but Laura had seemed more concerned about Cheryl than about Nate. Cheryl had edited the ceremony to exclude all of the standard Episcopalian prayers and hymns and any mention of God whatsoever.
Laura seemed genuinely worried about whether Steven and Cheryl were dooming their marriage from the start, but that worry left her oblivious to the way Cheryl cringed every time Laura said something. He almost wished he’d tried harder to wake Sean up that morning, just so they could distract Laura from the new sister-in-law she seemed determined to save.
“Seriously, kid, what?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Nate,” he said, not really confident about what other labels he could claim that Noah’s parents wouldn’t get pissed about.
Noah gave him an incredulous look. “You call my gramma and grampa ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ and you look like my dad.”
“Do I?” he asked, squinting at Matt across the reception hall. Matt was almost a decade older than him, a little overweight, and had light dirty-blond hair. “Nah, I don’t see it. You look like your dad.”
“And Uncle Steve dragged you into the picture when Gramma asked the photographer to get a shot of the whole family,” Noah continued, in the same tone Nate himself had used once when he’d been six and listing all the evidence he’d amassed proving that Santa couldn’t possibly exist.
Nate tried to think of an explanation, some easy way of explaining that what Steve wanted in his own wedding pictures took precedent over who Noah’s mom and dad wanted to claim as family, but he couldn’t. No matter what he said or did, Matt would take offense.
“Was that a family picture?” he asked, trying to sound dumbfounded. “I think Steve must have made a mistake. You should go tell them they’ll have to do another one, just for family, and I’ll make sure I’m out of his reach.”
“And when he was telling that story about finding a bunch of jellyfish washed up on the beach, you were in it.”
“Where are your parents? They wouldn’t approve of you talking to strangers, even at your uncle’s wedding.”
“But you’re not a stranger. This thing says you’re a Delany,” Noah pointed out, producing a copy of the wedding program he’d folded up into a tiny square. He unfolded the program and turned to the back, where Nate’s mom had had a guide to the wedding party printed.
Proud despite the kid’s confrontational attitude, Nate smiled. “I used to be your dad’s youngest brother, which means I am a Delany. But I’m still a stranger.”
“You’re my uncle?”
“No,” Nate said quickly. “Family is about more than sharing a few bits of DNA with someone. It’s about who you want to build and share your life with. Years ago, when I was a couple years older than you, your father and I decided that we were too different to be family, that’s all.”
Noah scrunched his eyebrows together. “You can’t do that. Mom and Dad both say so. Last Halloween, I wanted to give Sadie away and let someone else adopt her, because she stole my peanut-butter cups when we went trick-or-treating. But Dad said brothers and sisters are stuck with each other forever.”
“Did you get your peanut-butter cups back?”
“She’d already eaten them all.”
“That sounds rough,” Nate said, trying not to laugh. “But as a youngest kid myself, I promise you all she wants is to be just like you. And that includes having the same candy as you.”
“You think so?”
“When I was little, all I wanted in the world was for your dad to think I was cool. One year, when he was obsessed with Sour Patch Kids, I said I loved them and I ate them all, even though I really couldn’t stand them. What was the other one he liked…?” Nate bit his bottom lip, trying to remember the other gummy candy they’d fought over. “Swedish Fish,” he announced, smiling at the memory. “I don’t actually like those either. We are very different people, your dad and me.”
“Sadie wasn’t pretending to like peanut-butter cups. Everybody likes them. Except kids who are allergic to them, maybe, but everybody else.”
“So at least you’ve actually got something in common.”
“Nate, you need to keep your hands off my son,” Matt growled, noticing them for the first time.
Nate glanced down at the six feet of empty space between him and Noah. He made a point of looking at where he’d shoved his hands into his pockets.
Noah noticed the direction of his gaze and cocked a single eyebrow at his dad. “Dad, is he really—”
“Go to your mother now, Noah.”
“But he says he’s your—”
“Matt, you’re blowing an excellent opportunity to teach your son not to make a scene when crashing a wedding,” Nate said, forcing himself to smile. He spun on his heel and left while Matt stood there spluttering, trying to divide his attention between Nate and his hyper son, who was shooting one question after another at his dad.
Nate hurried out of the club, determined not to disrupt the calm atmosphere. He tried to ignore his dad as he called out to Nate, but his mom intercepted him, took his arm, and steered him back around.
Emmitt, with three-year-old Sadie in his arms, smiled at him. “You’re leaving already?”
“I made a toast, I posed for pictures, I had a wonderful time watching Noah interrogate his father. But yeah, I’m done.”
“Well, before you go, I wanted to suggest you consider taking on a partner.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Nate said to head him off. “I’m trying to convince Sean to hire somebody else, b
ut if they’re not quick to impress him, he shoots them down. Even if I take on a partner, he’s not going to trust them.”
“I wasn’t talking about Sean. The firm… well, you’re not the only one tempted to walk away when things get awkward. Tillman’s work is capsizing the firm’s reputation, and frankly, I’m tired of trying to save it. You tried to warn me, and I ignored you, and I’m sorry for that. I’m letting the other partners buy me out.”
“Dad, you’ve put your life into that firm.”
“A very smart attorney told me something a few months ago, and it stuck with me. He reminded me that practicing law is just a job, a job that shapes our lives and worldview, but a job, nonetheless. Thirty years ago, I was determined to become a successful tort attorney with an influential firm and an office that offered me a view of the entire city. Five years ago, I held on because I expected you would work your way up to partner and take over. I expected you would want the same things I did.”
“You shouldn’t walk away because of me,” Nate insisted.
“Let me finish,” he said, shifting Sadie to Nate’s mom. “Without the possibility of seeing you grow and succeed at the firm, there doesn’t seem to be a point in dealing with all the infighting and competition anymore. The only reason I stayed as long as I did was because I’d hoped that having you in my professional life would make up for cutting you out of the rest of it. Somewhere along the line, I lost track of that. I’d like to apply to work with you. It’s your practice, and your call, but I suspect Sean will be willing to let you off the hook if I’m the one stepping into your place. I don’t know that I’ve ever taken the time to tell you how proud you’ve made me, because there never seemed to be a need. After all, you don’t need to tell a track star that they’re good at running. But it would be an honor to get a chance to actually work with you.”
“Dad… I….”
He swallowed against the knot in his throat as his dad pulled him in for a hug.
“And you don’t have to worry about offending me if you’re not interested. I might just retire and be done with it.”
His mom leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Say hi to Sean for us?”
Nate nodded, still dumbstruck.
His mom encouraged Sadie to wave too. “Can you say ‘bye, Uncle Nate’?”
The words, happy and without any of Matt’s scorn, made him choke. He didn’t manage to say anything, but he waved goodbye as he left.
He wanted to see Sean, but going to the new shop in a tux was overkill. Although, given the way Sean had stared at him when he’d gotten it out of the storage bag to make sure it still fit okay, he might have to find a few more occasions to wear the damn thing.
It was almost four before he’d managed to grab takeout and make it to the shopping center. It was a tiny L-shaped strip mall right on Seawall Boulevard, and it really was perfect. It had a vacant clinic whose main floor was big enough and nice enough to be converted in a chic, open floor plan tattoo studio, along with exam rooms up above that were accessible by two flights of stairs or an elevator. It would be easy to convert the second floor, which was primarily modular walls and tables, into an apartment with everything Sean might ever need or want. There were several successful businesses leasing space in the shopping center, but the auto shop that had rented the warehouse behind the center had been out of business for years. When Nate told him the owner who’d sold Sean the warehouse was also willing to sell the auto-bay equipment and tool benches, Sean’s eyes had lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. Once the remodel was done and the shop was open, Sean would be able to do anything he wanted. He could work however he wanted, live fifty yards from the tiny stretch of beach on the opposite side of the road, and have the room and resources to build whatever sparked his imagination in the warehouse out back.
It still didn’t feel like enough, though. Nate wanted to give Sean everything, to give him a reason to smile from the moment he woke up each day. He’d negotiated a settlement on Sean’s behalf, but Sean himself had done so much more. He’d fought to walk again. He’d kept digging to figure out who was trying to hurt him. And he’d kept fighting to save Nate’s life, even when he’d been too frightened to move. He’d even managed to sit through Bruce’s arraignment, to face the man who had destroyed his life for the sake of money.
If Sean let him, Nate was going to spend the rest of his life making sure Sean knew how extraordinary he was.
He let himself in and waved at Tonya, who was busy pinning tattoo pictures to every available inch of wall. “I brought food,” he announced, setting two bags of burgers down on the pristine counter. “Is the new guy going to be in today?”
“Davey’s getting the new tat machines out of the van.”
“Ah. Okay, then.” He sat down on the Italian-leather sofa and grabbed the stack of documents he hadn’t had the nerve to hand over yesterday. He proofread the petition again, checked the formatting one more time, and sighed. It was pathetic, as Valentine’s gifts went, but it was one of the few things he could think of that Sean might want that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get for himself.
Tonya flipped her teal-and-blonde hair out of her eyes and smirked at him. “Was the wedding as bad as you expected it to be?”
“Yup,” he said, staring at the illegible scrawl that was Hawk’s signature.
“Sorry. Is Sean actually going to come in today? Or is he pawning all of this off on me?”
“Drinks hit him hard,” he explained. “He just woke up an hour ago.”
“Excuses, excuses. There are people who pay good money to get that fucked-up.”
“Well, he didn’t. I should have remembered.”
“He had fun,” she assured him. “And it was adorable watching him try to crawl into your lap. So cute it had me wondering if Sean’s going to be the only one living upstairs….”
“I’ve got a house,” Nate reminded her, although he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about the possibility.
“That you never stay in because it’s creepy.”
“It’s not that it’s creepy, it’s that I don’t want Sean to have a panic attack every time I’d like to spend some time alone with him.” And the fact that there was nowhere in Nate’s house that didn’t remind Sean of shooting Cory Alden, or watching as Jeff Hendricks had nearly bled to death, had made that a little tricky. Fortunately, Sean seemed perfectly content to let Nate spend most nights stretched out beside him in the hotel.
But he couldn’t encourage Sean to live in a hotel forever, despite the fact that Sean swore it was mathematically viable. Nate could see that Sean was going stir crazy, and even though the staff at the resort he currently called home had gotten used to him, he needed his own place. After living in Hawk’s storage room since the accident, Sean deserved somewhere he could have everything he might need.
“What is that, anyway?” Tonya asked as she flipped on the light in the new display case she’d wanted for body jewelry. “You kept staring at it yesterday, too. Don’t tell me someone’s suing Sean already, because that’s just…. Well, kind of expected, honestly.”
“Not yet. No, this is Sean’s Valentine’s present. I meant to give it to him yesterday, because I figured today was going to be crazy, but there never seemed like a good time.”
“Is it a marriage license?” she asked, her eyes growing so wide they were almost round.
“What?” He glanced up from the petition, surprised and not sure how the hell to respond to her question. “No! No, it’s not! I don’t… well, not that I wouldn’t want to. Maybe someday, but I don’t think he’d be…. I’m going to shut up now.”
“If it’s not a marriage license, what is it? It looks all official.”
“Meaning it’s in the format specified by the Texas rules of civil procedure? Yes. But it’s honestly kind of stupid.”
“Tell me!”
He shook his head and shoved the petition back into his briefcase. “Nope. You made me sing an entire Taylor Swift set last night,
so I don’t think I’m obligated to share anything with you.”
“Spoilsport.”
A thud at the door distracted her. She rushed over to open the door, where Davey Richards, Sean’s newest employee, stood with three boxes of tattoo machines in his arms. Nate had been surprised that Sean’s decision to open his own studio seemed to have become common knowledge among every tattoo artist in Houston, and more surprised still by the number of artists who had shown up at Hawk’s during the early part of the process, applying to work in Sean’s new place and to fill his position as Hawk’s apprentice. Since Sean had given Hawk more than enough money to retire, all of the furor had transferred to Sean and his plans for the future.
Of the dozens of people who’d asked for a position, Sean had only chosen one. Nate vaguely remembered that Hawk and Sean had both recommended Davey as an artist, but since he’d never seriously considered going to anyone but Sean, Nate hadn’t bothered to look him up. “Thanks,” Davey said, hauling all three boxes inside.
“I was bringing food, so I grabbed you a burger. It’s on the counter,” Nate announced, resolutely not looking at him.
“Cool, thanks.”
Despite the fact that they’d been introduced weeks earlier, Nate was still startled every time he saw Davey in person. He was a couple of years younger than Sean, but he was covered, from his hairline to his feet, in some of the most grotesque and realistic tattoos Nate had ever seen. He seemed to have taken his inspiration from zombie movies, because each tattoo looked like bits of charred, flayed skin, with muscle, bones, and tubes and tissue exposed beneath. He’d been more than willing to strip down to his jeans to show off a tattoo that looked like the skin had been ripped away from his rib cage and spine. It was horrifying, difficult to look at, and simultaneously difficult to look away from. The morbid array of ink was made all the more striking by the lines of earrings, eyebrow barbells, and other bits of metal sticking into and through his skin.
Even the more exotic tattoo magazines Sean had recently bought subscriptions to didn’t have anything quite like Davey Richards’s ink on their pages. Nate was secretly grateful Sean wasn’t eager to copy any of the designs, no matter how much he fawned over the level of detail.