CONNOR
“You did great,” I tell the man in front of me, knocking my fist against his. Gathering a few supplies from my station, I put together a small aftercare bag for him. “I know you think my care instructions are suggestions, but seriously, no sex or self care for three weeks.”
“So if I come back in two and it’s angry, you won’t help me out?” He jokes.
My eye catches on one of the other guys here, whose face is pinched together in something resembling disgust while he watches and listens to a conversation he isn’t part of.
With an annoyed shake of my head, I turn my attention back to my client, handing him the bag before walking him up to the front of the shop to pay for the service. It’s a quick and easy transaction, but I still feel eyes on me all throughout, and still as I walk back to my station to clean up.
“I’m about to start charging you an hourly rate if you keep insisting on watching me like that,” I tell him.
As if suddenly realizing that he isn’t as invisible as he seems to think that he is, his eyes flick away from me, blinking too fast and too many times to seem normal.
I’ve never been close with Rob; we work together, we’ve occasionally bounced ideas off of one another, and I like his art, but we’ve never been more than acquaintances. Work friends, at the most; and even that would be a generous description of our relationship.
Even still, once word made it around that shop earlier this year that I’m not the hetero ladykiller they all assumed me to be, things got weird between us.
Now he just sits there andstaresat me.
“Sorry, it’s just—” He hesitates, twisting his face at me before he drops the volume in his voice. “You fuck dudes.”
“I do, and I evendatethem sometimes,” I tease, wearing fake shock on my face while I spray disinfectant onto my worktable.
My eyes move to my best friend, sitting at his station with a pen to a sketch pad, buthiseyes are on the two of us. He does that a lot, the watching. Part of me thinks that it’s because he knows that once he gets going, there’s no stopping him, and he tries to maintain what little self control he may possess.
He calls it protectiveness, I call it repressed trauma.
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird to do piercings like that on people you’re attracted to?” He asks. “Conflict of interest or something?”
And just like that, Riptide is on his feet and making his way toward us.
His steps are heavy and deliberate, something that I’ve seen enough times since I met him to know that those steps usually end with a fist flying and someone bleeding.
Nine times out of ten, it’s about his wife.
I feel almost honored that this one is about me.
“Alright, you’re done,” He says, jerking his thumb toward the building’s exit. “I already told you, you’re making people uncomfortable.”
“Hemakesmeuncomfortable!” Rob’s arm flies in my direction. “I don’t want him staring at me while I’m trying to work.”
“Bisexual doesn’t meanyousexual, you fucking walnut,” Tripp tells him, “and if you think you’re his type, you’re being way too generous. Have you looked at your fucking hairline lately?”
I stifle a laugh, turning my head away from them with my hand covering my mouth.
He isn’t wrong about that. I tend to like them more rough around the edges, but still polished, and Rob…isn’t.
Reaching to the rack behind him, Tripp pulls bottles of ink from their slots, tossing them onto the floor at Rob’s feet. A few of them pop open, leaving pools of purple, turquoise, and orange in their wake.
While he works, the shortened hem of his cut-off t-shirt raises above his waistline to let ink-covered skin spill out, images out of my nightmares covering it, with lines of text that fall beneath his belt buckle.
“The cool thing about owning the place,” he continues too calmly, “is that I don’t have to offer you jack shit. I can just tell you to get the fuck out of my shop.”
“Riptide,” I finally say through an appreciative chuckle, “it’s okay.”
His foot flies out in front of him, sending a spilled bottle of ink across the floor and leaving a vibrant mess at the toe of his shoe.
“My clients make up—”
