Kat
I froze in place as I stepped out the front door of my house and saw that my front tire was flat as a pancake.
“No, no, no,” I groaned, hurrying forward to get a closer look as if I could possibly be mistaken.
No luck. It was flat, and I had to deal with it.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath as I threw my purse into the driver’s seat and popped the trunk. I was going to kill my brother, Jason. He’d borrowed my car yesterday, and now my perfectly good tire was flat. No way that was a coincidence.
Grabbing the jack, lug wrench, and a spare tire out of the trunk, I hauled them over to the deflated tire. Taking a closer look, I spotted the problem. A nail was stuck in the rubber. I sighed and checked the time on my phone.
There was no way I was going to make it to work on time.Damn it.
Firing off a quick text to the owner of the tattoo shop where I worked, I tucked the phone into my back pocket and got to work. Luckily, my dad had taken the time to teach me how to change a tire back when I got my driver’s license. It was one of the few bonding experiences we ever had. He said that being a girl was no excuse to not have basic knowledge about your car. So, I knew how to change tires and oil, replace spark plugs, and change the light bulbs in my headlights. I was no mechanic, but at least I felt somewhat independent.
I went through the steps as quickly as I could—loosening the lug nuts, lifting the car with the jack, and taking the flat tire off. I tossed it onto my front porch. Jason didn’t know it yet, but he was going to buy me a new one. I put the spare in place and wrapped up the process. It only took about twenty minutes, but I wasn’t much of a morning person and was barely going to make it to work on time before this. Now, I was officially behind schedule.
I drove like a bat out of hell through downtown La Playa, weaving in and out of traffic as well as I could on a busy Monday morning. I ignored the dinging of text messages coming through on my phone, knowing it was probably my best friend, wondering where I was.
I dug around blindly in my purse as I kept my eyes on the road. Finally, I felt the unmistakable shape of the pack of gum I stashed there. Pulling the Juicy Fruit out, I unwrapped it, tossing the wrapper onto the floor of the passenger side where it joined a dozen others and empty cans of various energy drinks.
I needed to clean out the car again. It was crazy how quickly it got trashed.
I popped the gum into my mouth, chopping away as the sweet, fruity flavor exploded on my tongue. Pulling into the parking lot of Ink Envy, I took the first parking spot I saw. The shop was a small white building on a corner lot. There was a mural painted along the side of the building, perfectly positioned to catch the eye of drivers along Blackburn Drive. The owner had paid a graffiti artist to create an enticing image. He went with a woman holding a tattoo gun. Coming out of the gun was a rainbow of color that morphed into shapes and images. From left to right, it went from bright and vibrant to dark and striking. It was beautiful, and I still found myself staring at it in awe after working here for nearly three years.
But there was no time to stop and stare today. Locking up my car, I jogged over to the front door of the place, my Chucks eating up distance. I pulled open the door and took two steps before colliding with a tall man’s hard body. I went reeling backward with a gasp as the man fumbled with the box in his hands, barely avoiding dropping it onto the linoleum floor.
“Oh, crap. Sorry, Gary,” I said as I realized that I had run straight into my coworker. Gary had started working at the shop just a couple of months after I did. He was a talented artist, but not the most reliable person.
Not that I had room to talk on a day that I showed up so late.
“Whatever,” he snapped. Brushing past me where I stood in the doorway, he stalked out the door without looking back. I furrowed my brow in confusion.
“What the hell was his problem?” I asked out loud, talking to myself. I was surprised to hear an answer coming from behind me.
“He was just fired.”
I turned to see my boss, the owner of the shop, sitting behind the counter to the right side of the room. Brie liked to man the counter herself instead of hiring someone. It made her the face of the business for customers, the first person they would see when walking through the door. We were in a reception area, where the customers checked in and paid. No one was around, so we could speak freely.
“What happened?” I asked, shocked. Gary wasn’t a close friend, not like the other tattoo artist, Piper, who was probably my best friend, but I saw the guy every day. He was a part of my world, and it was jarring to think that he was suddenly gone.
“The guy’s a cokehead,” Brie said, her voice dripping with disapproval. “I suspected it forever, but his work was good. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until I was refilling supplies this morning and found his stash.”
I winced. That was a big no-no.
“Yeah,” Brie nodded, reading my oh-shit expression. “He brought that crap intomyplace. He’s got balls of steel.”
I laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. Brie didn’t play around with that stuff. We were sub-contractors, but she was quick to remind us that this washerhouse. She didn’t want to get a bad reputation, and drug use by the staff was a quick way to do that.
“Laugh it up, chuckles. You know this leaves us short-handed, right?”
That sobered me up. She had a point. Brie could do tattoos, but her time was usually spent doing other things. She was the only one that did piercings, for instance. That meant that Piper and I were the only full-time tattoo artists. My plate was already full on most days. Piper and I taking over Gary’s workload was going to be rough.
“You going to hire someone else?” I asked as I started to make my way to the back of the shop. The area was divided into three sections by a half-wall. We all had curtains hanging from tracks on the ceiling that we could close if a client was getting a tattoo on a private area of their body.
“As soon as possible,” she replied. I was almost out of sight when she called out, “Kat?”
“Yeah?” I turned.
