I smiled at him, taking a few more mouthfuls of food. I glanced up again only to see him still looking at me.
O-kay.
“Is there spaghetti sauce on my face?” I asked.
He shook his head, stringing more noodles along the tines of his fork.
I let it go until I caught his eyes one more time. “I’m not kidding, what’s on my face?”
“Nothin’.”
I narrowed my eyes in his direction but kept watching him. Until he did it again.
Oh dear God.
I put my hand over the middle of my face. “There’s a booger in my nose, isn’t there?”
He looked at me for a long moment, a moment that stretched light years and galaxies. Time-wrinkled centuries and possibly eons. Generations—
And then Dex was laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing. Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “You’re the goofiest fuckin’ girl,” between bellows of barrel-shaped laughs.
And I might have had a booger in my nose, though I’d probably never know for sure, but that laugh coming from that man.
So worth it.
Chapter Eighteen
“That’s fucking outrageous!”
Dear God, what in the hell had I been thinking working at a tattoo parlor? A tattoo parlor that was right around the corner from a body shop. A body shop that was owned by the president of a biker club. A biker club that owned a bar, which seconded as headquarters for said club, who were enemies with stupid asses that beat up innocent—err, pretty innocent—people.
Where had my quiet life disappeared to?
And why hadn’t I insisted on going with Sonny?
With the exception of Rick, the drunk guy who had yelled at me and called me a bitch, every other client had been incredibly nice. Even when they had to pay the steep rates that the shop charged—with good reasoning. The reasonswereframed all over the shop in printed acclaims.
The first time I heard how much Blake charged his client, I had to stop myself from choking. The prices could be down payments onusedcars. I’m not exaggerating. But it was standard practice to agree on a fee before any piece got started so the customer didn’t have a fit at the end.
Obviously, not everyone functioned on the same wavelength.
This customer had been in once last week to talk to Blue about having some detailed script done on his ribs. Blue had drawn out the idea, spoken to the guy about the pricing and themanhad scheduled an appointment to come in and get it done.
So whythe would-be clientwas now standing in front of me while I was trying to take payment and having a fit to end all shit-fits—and this included the year I worked at a daycare—was beyond me. “Blue had already spoken to you about the pricing last week,” I reminded him.
Blue stood directly behind me, silent.
“You never said it was going to be that expensive!” the guy shouted at Blue, completely ignoring me.
Yes. Yes, she had.
“Sir, before we schedule anything in advance for custom artwork, the rate is agreed on,” I told him.
Pissed Off guy just shook his head. “Fuck that. I’m not paying that much for a goddamn tattoo.”
Blue and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Okay.”
There were payment options that Blake had told me about, but that consisted of the customer paying in advance for artwork or doing bits and pieces at a time as they could afford it. But if Blue wasn’t going to say anything about it, then I wasn’t either. I think we both could be perfectly happy having one less belligerent customer coming in over a period of time.
