“Fuck you,” Blonde Two said, which was fair enough, but Toby didn’t say anything. He’d nodded as though she’d asked to use the bathroom, and as Tabby finally found the strength to turn and run, she felt his gaze follow her across the bar.
“Tabitha?”
She jerked back to the present and saw she’d tattooed over three-quarters of Jo’s tarot card, her brain and hand in hyperfocus while her mind was a million miles away.
“Sorry,” she said to Jo. “I was in the zone. Everything okay?”
“Fine. You just mentioned that you’d run into your ex-friend last week.”
“Oh. Shit.” Tabby blotted excess ink from Jo’s arm, wishing it was her memories of that night. “He wanted a tattoo from me. We accidentally saw each other at a bar, and he was a total fucking cumberworld, and then this Monday, he called the studio to try and book a tattoo. Said he’d pay four grand cash, but it had to be me.”
“Really?” Jo said. “What did you say?”
“The same thing I told him in the bar—I don’t tattoo cunts.”
Jo laughed.
“Glad you think it’s funny,” Tabby said gloomily. “Sam almost killed me.”
“That’s your… older sister?”
“Yup. She owns the studio, and she told me I was pissing money up against the wall and it was bad for our reputation, but I don’t give a fuck. Toby can get whatever pleb tattoo he wants from anyone. He only wants me to ink him as a power trip.”
Jo frowned. “But you’re the most expensive tattooist on staff?”
“So?”
“So maybe he just wanted the best?”
Tabby snorted. “Me charging the most doesn’t mean I’m the best. It means I’m the most famous.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s how it works,” she said, her mind mostly still on Toby and his indecent proposal. “I’ve got the biggest social media following, so I can charge the most.”
“Hmm,” Jo said drily. “I wish I’d known this beforehand.”
Tabby winced. She was really shitting the professional bed today. “Hey, I’m not saying I’m not good. I am. But the industry is what it is.”
“A charade?”
“An industry. Anyway, talent is subjective. Fame is numeric.”
Jo surprised her by dropping the angry boomer act and laughing. It was different from how she’d laughed before. Clear and high and kind of adorable. Tabby giggled along with her, feeling some of the misery in her chest shift.
“Glad you’re not too mad at me,” she told Jo. “I don’t think I could handle any more enemies.”
Jo wiped her eyes. “You’re a funny girl, aren’t you?”
“That’s what they say.”
“You don’t think so?”
“If I am, I don’t see it doing much good.”
Jo looked amused. “Does your family put pressure on you?”
“Nah, I think they just want more for me. Or more for the world, maybe. Either way, I ignore them, and they’re mostly fine with it.”
