I’d done boring and monotonous since the moment I turned sixteen by working at a real estate agency, then a discount bookstore, followed by sales for a weight loss pill, dog sitting, watching over kids at a daycare center, and filing at a medical practice. I did what I had to do to pay the bills. So as long as I wasn’t prostituting or having to make collection calls, I’d pretty much take whatever I could get.
Only I hadn't anticipated a job with the infamous Dex. A man that I'd heard enough of intenminutes to know that I wasn't exactly going to be working for the Pope.
Notorious, yes. Bad, yes. Reformed like theymade it seem? I doubted it.
We'd thought my dad had been "reformed" and that didn't exactly work out.
Screw it. What was the worse that was going to happen? I'd grown up around a felon. A biker. I'd loved that felon biker for longer than he'd deserved.
My half-brother was a biker but not a felon. And I loved that moron, too.
I knew something much scarier than a big, bad biker with a record. A new job would be nothing in comparison, right?
Right.
"Cajones, Iris,"yia-yiawouldhave said in terrible Greek-accented Spanish. So I pushed open that shiny heavy door, ready for whatever was waiting for me on the other side.
What hit me immediately inside was all the natural light in the place. The orange-yellow light streaming in set off the dozens of framed newspaper and magazine articles mounted on the tinted blue wall. One magazine article immediately caught my attention with its glassy, red font proclaiming “Ink of the Year.”
Two black leather love seats were angled against the entrance window with a black lacquered coffee table directly between them. Across from the seating was a flat, very long and modern looking desk that matched the coffee table with a computer in one corner. I’d barely started taking in two tattoo stations directly behind the waiting area when a male voice hollered, “Hold on a sec!"
I looked around as quickly as I could, noticing two more identical stations to the left.
Another article titled"Up and Coming Sensations: Locke and Company,”was framed right in my peripheral vision.
Could I work at a tattoo parlor?
I thought for a second about the only other place I'd gotten an email back from and the cocktail waitress position at the strip club wasn't exactly appealing. I had a friend who had worked in a salon waxing people's private parts. What's been seen cannot be unseen, she'd told me once.
So, yeah. I could. I didn't have a choice.
"You Sonny'sgirl?" the deep baritone voice asked from down the hall, in time with the low squeaking thud of boots on tile.
It kind of happened in slow motion. Turning around. Coming face to face with him.
~ * ~ *
It should be said that the first—and only—time I saw Dex Locke had been the week before at Mayhem.
Sonny had dragged me to the bar by sheer manipulation. I'd just gotten to Austin not even two hours before.
And it probably didn't help that I'd just kind of... dropped in.
It'd been a last minute trip. Up until the moment I turned in the keys to my apartment, I hadn't beensurewhat exactly I was doing. Not that there were many options. I could either drive to Sonny's place in Texas or go up and crash on Lanie's couch in Cleveland. After living with Lanie for a year and knowing that I'd be staying with her and her parents, going to Sonny's hadn't really seemed like much of a decision.
It was inevitable.
But then again, Mom and Dad had kept me on the east coast for a reason. A reason I was clearly dumping into the garbage and possibly setting on fire.
"It'll be fun," he'd said at first.
"A lot of people remember you when you were a kid," he'd kept going, knowing I was a sucker for him.
Sonny wanted to make a point because he kept babbling. "Justbecause you lived in Florida doesn't mean you weren't born into this."
Like a fool, and because I loved Will and I loved Sonnyjustas much, even if he wasn't my full-blooded brother, I fell for it. We'd dragged ourselves to Mayhem so he could welcome me into my estranged family.
During the drive, all I thought of was my mom. It was a blessing she wasn't around to strangle me with her bare hands, smiling throughout the process of her choking the life out of me.
