by Paula Cox
I reach into my pocket and take out the money, make to hand it to Bear. He closes my fingers over it with his giant paw. “I said I sorted it. You’re married. You need to hold onto your money.”
I nod and put the money back into my pocket.
Chapter Forty-Six
Felicity
I hope. That is what I do. I hope and I hope. But this is the first time in my life when I feel like I’ve arrived. I’m not hoping for anything anymore. We’re here; I’m living it.
We sit in the sun, tired and relaxed, and then I turn to Roma. The wounds on his face have healed and he looks stronger and more capable than ever. I think of all the sweet, close moments we’ve shared over this past month, all the times we’ve made love, and tingles move over my skin. If this isn’t love, I think, I don’t know what is.
“So you’re not officially married, eh?” Bear says.
“Not officially, no,” Roma says. “What’s that smile about?”
Bear is grinning ear to ear. “I’m ordained,” he says. “The village over the hill did it. I’ve already married a few people. I can do you two, if you like, make it official.”
Roma turns to me, a question in his blue eyes. A blue which is now brighter, full of life and love, the blue of a changed man. I don’t answer with words. Instead, I climb to my feet, walk to where he sits, and drop onto his lap, splitting my legs over his waist. I lean down and kiss him passionately on the lips. Bear turns away, shielding his eyes.
“I’m not seeing a thing,” he laughs. “But I’ll take that as a yes.”
“What do you think?” I say, when the kiss is over. Our bodies are alive to each other.
“I think we should stay here and help Bear rebuild, build something up instead of breaking it down. And I think we should get married tomorrow morning, at dawn.”
He brings his hands up my back, gripping me hard, and I’ve never felt more secure.
“That sounds good to me,” I smile.
We kiss again and Roma lifts me to my feet, standing up.
“I love you more than anything, Felicity,” he says.
He kneels down, takes a daisy from the grass, and wraps it into a ring. He does this with tenderness. Then he slips the daisy onto my finger.
“I love you, too.”
Our kiss is long, hot, perfect.
THE END
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INKED
CHAPTER 1
“Hey Foxy! You’re sure taking your sweet ass time with that ink, don’t you think? You’re in hour three already, man. What’s the deal?” Ian leans in over my shoulder so that I can feel his warm breath on my skin. I try to ignore those strange goosebumps darting up my spine and focus on the work at hand.
“You can’t rush an artist, Moe!” I exclaim as I give him a soft elbow to the stomach to push him away. Ian has always been my boss first, mentor second, and friend third. This is how we always played around. And I hate to admit how much it’s probably going to hurt me when he leaves this place for his retirement.
He must be reading my mind, because he replies in a soft, almost timid voice, “I’m gonna be in Palm Springs with my old lady by the time you’re done topping off the color on that thing.” He turns to the man in the chair, who’s flipping through a motorcycle magazine with his spare hand. “You had to pick Foxy Anna, didn’t you Pedro? You could have gone with the master and gotten this tattoo done in minutes!”
Pedro drops the magazine to his lap and smiles. “Stop giving the girl a hard time. She’s the best in the business—in all of north Portland. I’m just glad she’s got time to get me in at all.” I’m not the best at taking compliments, but I sure as hell will take this one. It’s been a rough few days… oh, who the hell am I kidding? It’s been a rough few months now, and I can use all the happy breaks I can get.
“When was the last time you did a tattoo anyways?” Pedro asks Ian, wincing in pain as I switch the needle for the color applicants.
Pedro and Ian fight back and forth about the business and the local politics of the town. Two old men bantering like they’re ruling the roost. Pedro’s been in my chair for almost every one of the tattoos snaking up and down his arm. Ian did his legs and chest. That was a million years ago, when this shop was still the king of the tattoo scene. We’re still up there, but we’ve been slowly surpassed by some of the private shops owned by the gangs.
“You wish I still do tattoos, Pe! Some of my artwork belongs in a freakin’ museum! The Louvre wants my work!”
“The Louvre? What in the holy fuck is that?” Pedro tosses his magazine directly at Ian’s head before realizing where he is and that one quick movement could cause me to really screw this tattoo up. He sinks back in the chair, places a hand on mine, and says quietly, “Sorry chica. You know this crazy mofo gets me worked up when he wants to.”
“I’d prefer it if you’d just keep your ass still and not let that stupid son of a bitch get to you.” I try to contain my smile as I focus on the edging of the work. I usually only work in black and white, but Pedro brought me in a design his daughter did, and I couldn’t say no to that. As I stand back and examine it, I have to admit it’s pretty damn spectacular. It’s a white and blue dahlia with wide open petals. Each petal has a skeleton shaped eye with flames as their pupils. I’ve just about finished with the flames. No mistakes, clean lines, good outlining. I am loving where this is going.
It takes me another twenty more minutes to perfect it and put my signature touch on it. Every tattoo artist has it. Ian’s thing is dark, thick lines that make his drawings seem like cartoons. Brian, who works day shifts and weekends, only does vintage work with comic book pops of red and blue. You could tell Brian’s masterpieces from a mile away. Me, I do shadowing and shading. It’s a tough skill to pick up. You’ve got to be patient and have a steady hand. And you’ve gotta have time.
Sometimes, like today, thoughts get muddled when all you can do is stare at the most intricate part of a man’s skin and plan for which way the needle will swing. Most of the time, I try to think of the person I’m tattooing. With Pedro, it’s easy. I know about his family, his grown girls, the dog I tattooed on his forearm last May. He’s a vet, which makes him skittish but stern. He speaks his mind about everything and anything. He earned that freedom in the middle east twenty years ago.
With others, I see their scars and imagine the accidents they’ve been in or the personal battles they’ve fought. Sometimes their skin will prickle and I’ll wonder why they’re sensitive. Newbies cry, especially when they pick hard places to tattoo. But most of them grit their teeth and push through the pain. Some of them even enjoy it, and Lord knows what stories I could imagine up for those kinds of people.
But today, I can’t focus on Pedro or his damn artistic daughter. Today, I’m thinking about my own self and getting the hell out of here. I look up at the clock. It’s past ten p.m. I’ve only got about two hours left of my shift, and unless someone walks through that door in about fifteen minutes, I’m free to go home. We don’t do last minute walk-ins unless they’ve booked in advance or are bringing in enough cash to bribe me to ignore city ordinances on business hours.
Plus, by ten o’clock, Riley gets off work at the oil fields. I know his routine. He’ll head to one of the bars down the block from here, probably Dark Star, and get himself good and drunk. With that liquid courage, he’ll plant himself on the hood of my car and wait for me to shuffle out of here alone. With no other choice, I’ll either have to call the police, stay the night in the shop—it’s happened—or make a mad dash to the car and hope I can make it back to my mom’s.
It’s been almost three weeks since I last went home to my own apartment. That night, Ian went with me and guarded the door while I grabbed everything I could and threw it in a bag. He and his wife followed my car all the way to my mom’s in Lemon
t, just outside city limits, and watched as I called a police officer who walked me through the steps of getting a restraining order.
It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life to ask my boss to do that for me, but there was no one else I could trust or turn to. After I put the paperwork in, I swore to God that I would never ask Ian to help me like that again. My problems were my own, and I wouldn’t get anyone else involved in the mess I’d created.
But, the longer I stay working here, the more of a chance I have of Riley finding me and cornering me in the shop.
Of course, just as this thought pops into my head, I hear the ring from the security door. Ian installed it after the whole Riley thing so we could monitor who comes and in out of the shop at all time. Ian strolls over casually and peers at the small TV mounted in his office. The camera points at a man I don’t recognize at all. He rocks his weight back and forth on his heels and toes with his hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans.
Ian presses a button and yells into the microphone. “You got an appointment, fella?”
All three of us watch from our chairs as he nervously rubs the back of his neck and then stammers, “No… no… just want a tat done tonight. Can y’all fit me in?”
“Were you looking for a particular artist? There’s only one here tonight, and she’s about to walk out the door in a half hour.”
The man stares up at the camera directly as if Ian just said the magic words. “Is it Anna Fox? That’s who I’m looking for. I’m a fan of hers.”
Ian spins quickly to look at me as I stare up at the clock. I mouth the words, “Please… I can’t…” But he pretends to not understand and presses the button to let the stranger in. The mood in the room completely shifts from where it was minutes ago. I can tell Pedro, the customer still in my chair, feels my unease as well. I quickly wipe the remaining ink off of his arm and bandage him up. As he stands and hands me my cash tip, he holds my hand just a bit longer as if to say it would be alright. I wonder how much he knows about Riley or the reason for the new security system.
I ring up Pedro for the rest of the work while I try to keep an ear on Ian chatting with the customer. There’s something about finding my work on the internet and just wanting something simple—a symbol for his club. He shows Ian the artwork, hand drawn on some printer paper.
He stares at it for a second before eying the guy again. After a pause, he shows the man into my booth and drops the paper at the checkout boot. “Nothing that won’t take you all of twenty minutes to do, kid. Just do the minimum and get him out of here. You need the money anyways.” Before I can argue, his coat and hat are on and he’s heading out the back exit with his hand raised in the air as a silent goodbye.
Before heading in, I look at the image on the paper. Ian’s right. It’s nothing to be too pissed about. It’s just a black circle with three crisscrossing lines meeting at the center. I quickly recreate it on the office computer, print it on some vellum, and head back towards the booth where the man is already sitting, staring at the doorway.
“Hey. I’m—”
“Anna Fox. I know. I saw your designs online. I was hoping you could do that up for me.” I give the man with the brutish voice a lookover. He’s obviously a club guy. Fantastic. I hated those assholes. They come in drugged up or drunk and are always so freaking demanding. Plus, I knew tattooing the wrong thing on the wrong guy could get you labeled real fast as a club marker, and Ian was adamant about not wanting his shop to become that. But I don’t recognize this mark from all the rest, and at least this guy looks sober enough to stand up straight.
Still, I ask him his name. He stutters quickly, murmuring under his breath. I think I catch an “Andre,” but who knows. It doesn’t matter anyways. I just crank up the music and get to work. The faster I can get this over with, the better I’ll feel.
I’m just about done with the circle when I hear that damn exit door opening. It’s probably Ian, but I still jump from the whoosh of early Autumn wind and the smell of cigarettes. I put down the tattoo gun on the tray and apologize as I head towards the office. I call out, “What did you forget, Ian?”
As I turn to look down the hallway, I smack into the body of a completely unfamiliar man. I pop backwards, falling against the thin walls of the next booth. An arm grabs me by the waist as I try to wrestle away. In a whisper, barely audible over the music, the man says, “Woah. Woah. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m looking for Ian Hull. Is he around?”
I wrestle my way out of his grip, feeling the rough palms of his hands brush up against my bare stomach and hips. I brush the blond strands of hair from my ponytail away as I nervously answer, “No. He left about ten minutes ago. Who are you?”
He looks past me as he responds. “A friend. Who’s here with you?”
“A customer. It’s my last of the night, so if you’re looking for a tat you’re gonna have to come back tomorrow…”
The man is already halfway down the hallway before I can finish. He leans his body up against the wall of the booth before peeking over his shoulder. With a hand to his mouth, he looks back at me with a shocked, almost pained expression. The look on his face sucks the air out of the room and I watch, frozen in place, as he takes a deep breath and then reaches under his belt. There’s a flash of a black handgun before he spins towards the doorway.
“Get the fuck out of here!” He squares his shoulders directly at my customer, the barrel of the gun pointed straight towards him. “Take your shit and get out. NOW! Don’t you fucking come back here ever again or I will shoot you dead.”
I don’t know what to do but to run myself. My legs buckle underneath me as I struggle to hold myself up. I grab my leather jacket from the coat rack by the exit as I try to shut everything out. The men shout back and forth incoherently, and I just pray I can get out before a gunshot. I open the exit, but it falls back on me. A hand shoots up just above my head, forcing it closed.
“Don’t go out there. You can’t leave here.” The man with the gun forces me back in, tugging at my hips. “Don’t fight me! I’m trying to save your life!”
“By trying to kill me?” I scream as I thrash up against him. I curse myself for not listening to those self-defense classes my mom always took me to as a high schooler.
“No! Listen!” He spins me around to face him, dropping the gun back into his pants pocket. He lifts his hands, palms out, to show me he was serious. “Do you know who that man was or what he wanted? Have you seen him before?”
I walk backwards towards the employee’s lounge, feeling my way for the couch. My heels find the front of the leather sofa before I fall backwards. The noise from the music still blasts from my booth. But all I can hear is deafening silence. I try to focus on the customer’s face, but there’s nothing. I’ve never seen him before. I know that. I answer the man slowly, “No. I don’t know him. He said he knew me from my portfolio online. Or maybe he saw my pictures on social media. I don’t know. He just walked in before closing and wanted that tattoo done. I don’t ask any goddamn questions.”
“Can I see the picture? What was the tattoo he wanted done?”
I stand and walk back towards the booth. I don’t know why I tiptoe in there expecting to still see the customer waiting for me to finish. But there’s nothing, not even a sign that he was ever there. Maybe I’m imagining all this—the stress from Riley is getting to me. I will close my eyes and everything will just disappear…
“Is that it?” Nope. Still my fucked up reality. The man with the gun has followed me back to the booth. He hovers in the doorway as I hand him the original drawing with shaking hands. For what feels like forever, he stares at that nonsensical image as if it was a novel with a million things to say. But when he’s ready to talk, all he can say is, “This is not good.”
“What?” I ask in complete disbelief. “What the hell does that mean? You come in here, pull out a gun, kick out my paying client, and then order me around?”
He folds the drawing and places it i
n his back pocket. “That front door locks, right? And you’ve got security cameras in the area?” I nod slowly. “Good. Then don’t fucking go anywhere.”
“I have to go home. My shift is over in a half hour and my mom is expecting me. Plus, I have a psycho ex out looking for me too, and he’ll start here.”
“I wouldn’t worry about your ex. What you need to worry about is this tattoo. The people who tattoo this design don’t live more than few days. You’re marked for death, and that guy you were just working on is going to be your killer.”
“What? I don—” My mouth goes completely dry and I feel myself falling backwards into the tattoo chair. I hold on to the armrests for support as I stare back up at him.
“You marked him as a killer, and the rule is that the first kill has to be the tattoo artist who gave it to you. There were some… rumors… that they were striking again. That’s why I am here. I know Ian from a call of duty. I wanted to make sure he was safe and knew about it. It’s a good thing I found you because no one would have seen you alive.”