“Like that?” Scott spat.
“Yes,” Russell replied. “Likethat.”
“Wow.” He looked at Thomas, then whispered, “This is where you defend my honour.”
“Scott is…Scott.” Thomas said.
Scott raised his eyebrows. “Consider me defended.”
“Come on, pretty boy, one teeny-tiny tattoo,” Mohawk mocked. “Prove you’re not a total pussy.”
“I really think your ear is infected.”
“He is a total pussy.” Russell laughed. “You can tell just by looking at him.”
Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but fearing he might agree, Scott jumped in.
“Fine.”
Russell frowned. “Fine?”
“Yep.”
He stepped up to the counter and tapped the bell.
Thomas crowded into him, murmuring in his ear, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Wait until we’re alone later, you dirty dog,” Scott replied, lightly slapping Thomas’s arm.
“What?”
Scott slipped his phone out from his pocket and tapped out a message. A man appeared at the counter, nodding his respect at Thomas’s full facial tattoo before looking at Scott with a frown. The man had a tattoo across his cheek in typewriter font that read ‘too tough to cry’, which Scott didn’t agree with in the slightest.
Only psychopaths were too tough to cry.
He sniffed. “Are you wearing perfume?”
“I am,” Scott said, then gestured behind him. “And you’ll soon wish they all were because one of them – maybe all of them – has stepped in something that came out of a dog.”
The tattooist’s nostrils flared. “My elderly poodle is under this counter…”
“Oh.” Scott blinked. “The smell is coming from her. I’m sorr –”
“Does he need to use the bathroom or something?” the tattooist asked Thomas.
Scott narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a pet or a child.”
The tattooist looked back at Scott. “What do you want then?”
“A tattoo.”
Scott slid his phone onto the counter and darted his eyes down to it.
Say you’re busy, and I’ll have to come back another time. Thank you.
The tattooist read the message, then lifted his narrowed eyes. “Sure. I can fit you in right now.”
“Really?” Scott’s eyebrows twitched. “You’re looking kind of busy.”
