The graying beard and long wiry hair, the jolly grin and crinkles around the blue eyes. No, not Santa Claus.
Stu Motherwell.
He approached the counter in slow, measured steps and I noted that the black motorcycle boots he was wearing had definitely seen their best day a long, long time ago. The buzz of a tattoo needle continued from the room beyond, so I guessed there was at least one other tattooist back there.
“Hi, son,” he greeted the young man. “How can I help?”
“I’ve got an appointment for a tattoo removal in ten minutes.”
“Name?”
“Darren Drysdale.”
Stu bent over to look at the computer screen, clicking the mouse a few times. “Drysdale. Take a wee seat. Rae will be ready for you in a bit. I’d offer you a coffee, but my last assistant bought that fucking contraption and none of us know how to use it.”
The customer snorted. “No bother, mate.” He nodded at him and turned around, wandering over to the sofa to wait.
I then found myself under the scrutiny of Stu’s bright blue eyes. He seemed to take stock of me for a moment and then he gave me a massive grin. “And what can I do for you, wee fairy?”
Wee fairy? That was new. If he wasn’t my interviewer, I might reply that this “wee fairy” would ram her wee but effectual foot up his arse if he “wee fairied” me again.
It was possible I was a little angry these days.
But also desperate . . . so . . . “I’m Shannon MacLeod.” I stepped forward and held out my hand. “I’m here for the interview for the admin position.”
“Thank fuck,” Stu pronounced jovially, striding around the counter to enfold my hand in his huge one. He shook it, shaking my whole body with the motion. “At least you look normal. The last one looked like she hadn’t seen a human being in forty years.”
“Oh?” How was I supposed to reply to a comment like that?
“Aye. She didn’t even know what an apadravya or an ampallang was.”
I winced just at the thought of those genital piercings. A brave man, was all I’d say, a brave man indeed who sucked it up and got either one of those. “You do those here?”
“Simon is our piercings guy. He does it all.” Stu grinned. “I take it from that wee flinch you know what they are.”
I nodded, not really comfortable discussing penis piercings with my possible boss—although I guessed if I got the job, that might very well become normal conversation between us. “Surely, you don’t get a lot of requests for those, though, right?”
“I’m sure women the world over would prefer more than we do get.” Stu chuckled at his own joke and started walking toward the back room, gesturing for me to follow him. “My office is through here. Let’s chat.”
We passed through the back door, entering a long narrow hallway where light from three doors streamed through. The buzzing noise was coming from the middle room. Stu pointed at them. “Three workrooms.” He pointed to the one nearest us. “I share that one with my manager. He’s our main tattooist and our finest artist, so he usually does the big projects, unless I take a particular interest. Fridays are his day off, so unfortunately you won’t meet him today. The middle room is Rae’s. She’s finishing up a small tattoo at the moment. She does our tattoo removals as well. The last one is Simon’s. He’s a tattooist, but you’ll find most of his appointments are for piercings.” Stu nodded toward the closed door at the end of the hall. “My office.”
We passed by the workrooms and I sneaked a peek inside the middle one. I saw the back of a skinny, purple-haired woman I guessed was Rae. She was tattooing what looked like a butterfly on the lower back of the curvy girl braced over a chair.
I peeked inside the last door, meeting the eyes of a nice-looking, tattooed bald guy. He had a customer, but he gave me a little wave as I passed. I returned it, thinking he had kind eyes.
“In we go, wee fairy,” Stu boomed heartily as he opened his office and swept an arm in a gesture for me to enter before him. He frowned as I moved past him. “What did I say?”
I realized I must not have been able to keep my irritation off my face. Oh well, he’d caught me, so I might as well be honest. “Wee fairy? Not really sure how to take that.”
“Well, I don’t mean anything bad by it, lass.” Stu strode into the room, passing me to take the big leather seat behind his cluttered desk. He waved a hand at the chair in front of me, so I quickly took it. “It’s just with that hair and those eyes and the fact that you are in fact ‘wee,’ you remind me of a wee fairy.”
Despite myself, I found I was fighting a smile. This big bruiser of a man seemed perturbed and worried that he might have upset me. “It’s okay. I’m just a bit nervous about the interview.”
“Och, don’t be nervous.” He shook his head. “We’re just going to go over your work experience and then I’ll introduce you to Rae and Simon. If you get the job you’ll be working mostly with them, so I like to get their feel for a person.”
From there we chatted for about fifteen minutes or so about my previous work in the administrative world. He was mostly interested in my experience as a receptionist for a tattoo studio in Glasgow. I’d worked there until I was twenty. I’d been dating a local biker at the time who was almost ten years my senior (yeah, my family had loved him), and his best mate owned a studio. The job lasted as long as the relationship, which was roughly eighteen months. It was charming really—he cheated on me with a skanky biker babe and I was the one that got fired. “Downsizing,” my boss had called it. Yeah, more like his mate found it too awkward to have me around after I walked in on him screwing another woman.
I’d soon discover that was just one of the many joys of dating an honest-to-goodness bad boy.
“That all sounds great.” Stu gave me a huge endearing grin that made me smile despite myself. He’d really made me feel at ease during the interview, and I’d begun to think that working at INKarnate might not be such a bad thing after all. “Let’s go meet Rae and Simon.”
Simon’s room was empty, but we found him hovering in the doorway of Rae’s, watching her work as she talked with the young man who was there for what appeared to be his first session for a tattoo removal. The young guy blinked up at the doorway in alarm when Stu and I appeared.
Rae frowned at his abrupt change in demeanor before following his gaze. She smirked. “Don’t worry. They’re not all here to watch. Right, Stu?”
Rae’s purple-and-black hair was cut choppy and short around her long, narrow face. She had a sharp nose and a thin mouth. A tiny jet stud sparkled on her nose, and a small silver hoop pierced the left side of her lower lip. Huge dark eyes and enviously long black lashes saved her face from being too severe. The more I gazed at her, the more I realized she was striking even without the hair and the piercings and the sleeve of black rose tattoos down her right arm. A skinny Harley-Davidson tank top and black jeans showcased her long-limbed figure.
“Who’s Red?” She nodded her chin at me.
“This is Shannon. Shannon, these are my artists, Rae and Simon.” Stu gestured to the tall, bald artist.
Simon grinned at me and I felt my warning flag start to fly. He had dimples, very, very charming dimples, glittering hazel eyes, and nicely developed muscles underneath his gray Biffy Clyro shirt. Tattoos covered every inch of both his arms. Black tunnels pierced his ears.
He was a problem.
Perhaps a job at INKarnate wasn’t going to work out after all.
“You should hire her,” Simon said to Stu without taking those pretty eyes off me. “She’s hot. She’ll attract interest.”
Nope. Definitely not going to work out.
A snort erupted from Rae as she perceptively read the expression on my face. “Don’t worry, Red. He prefers dicks. Like, actual dicks.”
I blinked in surprise not just at her crassness, and in front of a customer no less, but at the implication. Simon was gay? He caught my look of surprise and laughed. “Yes, I’m gay.”
/> I hated to admit it to myself, but the revelation made me relax instantly, the disappointment I’d felt only moments before disappearing. I grinned at Simon now. “If you’re single I’ll pass out with disbelief.”
He laughed at that, seeming pleased. “I’m not. My boyfriend is called Tony. He’s Italian.”
“Oh, don’t get him started on Tony,” Rae groaned, rolling her eyes. “I love the guy, but if I have to hear one more tale of Tony’s talented mouth and generous heart I’m going to vomit all over myself.”
My eyes betrayed my shock and Simon patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s just Rae’s way. She loves me really.”
She harrumphed at that and turned purposefully back to her client, who’d been watching us with something akin to boredom on his face. “Hire her, Stu. You know I love shocking the fuck out of people, and Red here looks like she’ll make that fun for me.”
“I take that as a challenge,” I said, feeling indignant at the accusation that I was somehow thin-skinned. “I’ve been around and heard a lot worse, I promise you.”
Her mouth quirked up at the corner. “I’ll take that as a challenge.”
“You’ve done it now.” Simon sighed.
“You’re hired,” Stu announced.
I looked up at him, feeling an overwhelming rush of relief. “Seriously?”
He smiled. “Aye, I like you.”
That didn’t sound very professional. “You’re hiring me because you like me?”
“People have no idea how important that is to a successfully run business. If everyone gets along, if the atmosphere in here is great, people will recommend us.”
“Oh yes, because my affable fucking nature, not my immense ability with a tattoo needle, is what brings in all the recommendations,” Rae drawled.
Stu grunted. “It’s not your affable fucking nature or your ability with a tattoo needle that brings in the recommendations. It’s—”
“Cole,” she finished for him, throwing him a grin. “But I’m not bad either.”
Stu couldn’t help smiling at that. “Aye, you’re not bad either.”
“Right.” Simon turned toward us and shooed us with his hands. “Let Rae work.” He smiled at me as we walked out into the hallway. “So, are you accepting?”
I thought about it as I wandered after Stu into the main room. A customer waited at the counter and Simon hurried over to greet him while Stu stared at me expectantly.
So Rae had a mouth on her and I was guessing no filter between said mouth and her brain, but underneath the prickly demeanor I sensed a real affection for her employer and her colleague. Stu was loud and blunt but easygoing and laid-back. And Simon seemed just as easygoing and nice.
It couldn’t be the worst place to work.
Who was I kidding? They could be horrible and I’d still be accepting this job. I stuck out my hand. “Thank you. I’d be pleased to accept.”
Stu beamed, shaking my hand and with it my whole body again. “Brilliant. How does Monday sound?”
“Brilliant,” I echoed, smiling hugely for the first time in days, weeks even. I was relieved to finally be moving forward with my life.
Stu looked over his shoulder at Simon. “She said aye!”
Simon laughed. “Good news. Cole will love her.”
“Oh, aye.” Stu chuckled in a way that made me feel suddenly nervous. Who was Cole? Stu’s eyes twinkled. “I’m actually semiretired. I’m not around a lot, so I leave the running of the place to my manager, Cole. He’ll go over everything you need to know on Monday.”
I smiled weakly in response.
I suddenly had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
* * *
The room was cold and narrow, but at least it was a place to rest my head for now. Although that didn’t make the surroundings any less depressing. Not to mention I hated having to share the communal bathroom with the five other guests who were staying at the “hotel.”
I’d finished filling out the employee details form Stu had given me before leaving INKarnate. On the one hand I felt incredibly lucky to have secured a job so quickly, and on the other I was absolutely dreading meeting my new manager. I had to hope that he was just like Stu or even Simon. Not a bad boy.
Grumbling under my breath about the miscommunication that had landed me in this situation, I pushed away the form and picked up my phone. No messages. As if I really expected there to be any—I hadn’t been entirely visible back in Glasgow to my family, but at least I’d existed. Now it was like I’d been wiped from all recollection.
Ignoring the burn of anger in my gut, I got up and crossed the small room to where I’d piled my suitcases and five boxes with my belongings. I’d thrown most of my stuff out before moving. I thought it might help to purge myself of those memories in order to start over.
Searching through the boxes, I found the one I was looking for. The one box I’d kept from high school was the one with all my old sketch pads and art materials. Sketching always relaxed me—it took me out of myself for a little while. I seemed to need that a lot lately.
When I was packing up, I hadn’t had enough time to go through all my old drawings, but tonight I had nothing but time and four grim walls. I needed something to take my mind off my family problems, and I didn’t have money to buy any new books.
Hauling the box over to the bed, I wiped away the dust that had collected on the top of the sketch pads with an old T-shirt and curled up on the bed to look through them. Some of the older drawings made me smile. Drawing wasn’t something that had come particularly easy to me at first. I’d loved to do it but was never able to make a sketch come alive. Until a boy in my first-year class (one I happened to have a massive crush on) in high school showed me how to hold a sketch pencil correctly and how to stroke against the paper, not draw in hard, unbending lines.
From there I caught on quickly and I was hooked.
The art lasted. The first crush didn’t.
A sheet of paper fell out from the third sketch pad I’d picked up and suddenly I was reminded of another boy. A year ago I would have been able to look at the sketch and feel nothing but a prickle of pain—a ghostly reminder rather than the real thing.
Now, however, looking down at the drawing of my ex-boyfriend Nick, I felt bitterness well up in me. That bitterness was becoming a familiar part of me and I hated it. I just didn’t know how to fight it.
But I leaned against my pillow, my fingers crinkling the sketch of the gorgeous Nick Briar. I’d gone out with Nick nine months after my first boyfriend, Ewan, had dumped me out of the blue. For a time Nick soothed the hurt Ewan had left me with. In my immaturity, I actually felt like I had won something over Ewan when I began dating Nick. He was nineteen and gorgeous and the lead singer in a rival rock band.
Nick had been the first of my bad boys . . .
* * *
The small club was dingy and smoky and much too hot. But I was filled with giddy excitement as I watched Nick sing onstage with his band, Allied Criminals. I thought their name was stupid and I wasn’t a huge fan of their music, but I loved Nick’s voice and his passion and how excited people were by them. I felt proud standing in the crowd as his girlfriend, and I promised myself I would always support him, no matter what.
Nick played up his brooding persona onstage, but in reality he was such a sweet guy. The night before, when I told him I wouldn’t be able to make it to this performance because of a family thing, he’d been really cool about it. He was disappointed, but he didn’t make a big deal about it like Ewan would have. And he made me feel special in a way that Ewan never had. Nick was always telling me how beautiful I was, how funny and interesting. I’d felt ordinary until I met him. I was completely falling for him, which was probably why I’d had sex for the first time with him a few weeks ago.
My friends were acting all immature about it and jealous, which was ridiculous. They thought it was a mistake for me to give it up to him and were really being unsupportive and ignorant
about the whole thing. Lucky I had Nick in my life so I didn’t have to put up with their silly naïveté all the time.
After Nick was so cool the night before, whispering sweet nothings in my ear while he made love to me, I decided I’d get out of my aunt’s birthday party to come and see him play. I couldn’t wait to see the look of surprise on Nick’s face.
The band finished up and I hurried toward the door that would lead to backstage. A bouncer tried to push me back, but after I explained who I was he disappeared backstage and returned with the band’s “manager.” In reality he was Nick’s older cousin, Justin, and I wasn’t really sure what it was that qualified him to be their manager. I didn’t really care just then. Justin recognized me and got me backstage only to disappear before I could ask which way I was going. I wandered in the opposite direction and came upon the band sitting around a randomly placed and barren pool table. They were drinking beer and talking loudly among each other with a couple of guys and girls I didn’t recognize.
Nick was nowhere to be seen.
Alan, the lead guitarist, glanced up and stiffened when he saw me, his eyes flickering beyond me nervously before they snapped back to me. “Shannon.” He stood up abruptly and the guys all looked at me in much the same way. “I didn’t think you were coming tonight.”
I smiled back, but my lips trembled. The tension my appearance had caused had alarm bells ringing in my head. “I wanted to surprise Nick. Where is he?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” Digby, the drummer, shrugged, looking at the other guys with a faked nonchalance that they returned.
Not Alan, though. His lips pinched together as he watched them, and when his eyes swung back to mine I stared into them stubbornly. My directness made him flinch. Alan and I got on pretty well. In fact, I sometimes got the impression he liked me. He flirted with me all the time and was always so considerate of me. I’d always brushed it off because I was mad about Nick and no one else could come close to how I felt about him.
“Where is he, Alan?”
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