“Hey! I smile at people I like.”
Freya scoffs and rolls her eyes playfully behind her glasses. “So that’s like what, seven people?”
An image of Giselle flashes across my mind.
“Eight, actually.”
“Mhm. You’re early.”
“I know.”
“Well…” Freya cocks her head, peering at the pixilated screen in front of her. “Charlie is in the back getting ready for the client scheduled in before you. He won’t be done for a while. Do you wanna just wait around or…”
“I’ll wait,” I say to Freya, watching as she spins her new wedding band on her ring finger. She and Charlie have only been married a couple of months, but they were good friends for years before they revealed their feelings for each other. I’ve known them both since I was twenty-one, after I’d stumbled into this exact tattoo parlour, drunk off my arse and asked Charlie to tattoo me.
He denied of course, seeing as I was under the influence, but I wasn’t to know that until days later, when the ink of what I thought was a real tattoo of the words ‘Get Fucked’ on my shin, began to run down the shower drain.
I walked back into the parlour, laughing, the very same day and asked to make a proper appointment for a real tattoo this time. After Charlie had finished belly laughing, he booked me into the system and invited me for a pint in the pub down the road. We’ve been firm friends ever since. I met Freya through Charlie too, although he did almost take my face off when I triedto flirt with her. I got the message loud and clear then that Freya wasoff limitsunless I wanted a fist to the face.
The two of them went through a little bit of a rocky patch at the start of their relationship – figuring out how to transition from being friends to something more – but they made it work with an engagement and then their wedding closely following suit.
“Do you want a cup of tea while you wait?” Freya asks me, her fingertips flying over the keyboard.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind, I—”
“Great. The kettle and teabags are where they always are. Cups are on the draining board. I’ll have two sugars and a splash of milk, please.”
“Has anyone ever told you how bossy you are?” I ask while my feet carry me over to boil the kettle. Just because I think she’s bossy doesn’t mean I’m going to argue with Freya.
“No,” she replies sarcastically. “Never.”
Grabbing two clean mugs from the draining board in the small kitchen situation at the back of the parlour, I set about making Freya and I a cup of warm tea each.
She nods to me in thanks as I place hers on the front desk beside her, steam wisping from the surface and then wander off to have a look around the place. Charlie is forever putting up new designs and art to show off his talent, so I like to look around and see if anything catches my attention, anything I want to work into my own ink.
I expected the tattoo shop to be busier this time on a Saturday, but there’s nobody else except me and—
The doorbell chimes brightly to signal a customer, stealing my attention.
I glance over my shoulder to find a familiar figure standing at the check-in desk, her shock of glossy black hair cascadingdown one shoulder as she leans down to sign her name on the touchscreen pad.
What are the fucking odds…
I take a step forward, while Giselle straightens up, her startling sky-blue eyes meeting mine as if she can feel the heat of my gaze.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I say in greeting, stepping up until we’re almost chest to chest.
Freya’s eyes flick to mine in surprise, her mouth opening to say something, but it’s Giselle who beats her to it.
“Do you have a thing for watching people through open doorways and windows? Like a voyeur?”
Freya just about chokes on her spit, coughing loudly.
Following her as she takes a seat on the old leather sofa – one of only two pieces of furniture in the waiting room – I settle in next to her, thigh to thigh.
“Just for you, Gee.”
She pauses, eyes taking in every inch of me. “Well, take a picture it’ll last longer.”
