He sounded like the boy from years ago, the one who got so uptight when he was losing atPandemicthat she’d dubbed him ‘Captain Wah-Wah’ and made crying motions with her fists until he threatened to chuck her out of his house. And suddenly she wanted to scream it. The thing she’d vowed never to admit.
You were supposed to be my friend.
“Hey? Tabby?”
She shook her head, furious with herself. “What, fuckface?”
“I… are you okay?”
You were supposed to be my friend.
She ripped open a sanitation wipe. “Aside from having to look at you? Sure.”
The smack of antiseptic blasted away Toby’s scent and her nostalgia along with it. Fuck telling him how much he’d meant to her. Fuck him in general.
“Hold still while I do this,” she said, gesturing for his arm.
“Okay.”
Grateful for her gloves, she scrubbed the cotton pad across Toby’s arm briskly, like she was cleaning an oven tray. “I’m gonna put the stencil on, then you can check the placement in a mirror before I start.”
“No problem.”
She unravelled her stencil and lined it with the swell of his right bicep. “So, you really do want a tattoo, huh? Two blondes aren’t gonna burst out of a cupboard and try to lure me into a surprise foursome?”
Toby grinned, instantly transmuting into the douche from the Village Belle. “Not unless you want them to?”
“I’d rather flush my face down the toilet.” Satisfied she’d sized everything right, she pulled the plastic protector away from the sticky side of the stencil and slowly lowered it onto his skin. To his credit, Toby stayed utterly still as she smoothed the template flat, letting purple temporary ink sink into his pores. She backed away from the table, glad to put some distance between their bodies. “Go look in the mirror before I take the other plastic side off.”
He got to his feet slowly, his stomach muscles flexing in new and fascinating ways. Tabby feigned interest in the almost imperceptive sea views through the windows as he walked to the other side of the lounge room and through a door. A light flicked on, and she felt safe to release a shaky breath. She was so rattled, and she hadn’t even started tattooing him. How the hell was she going to endure three hours of this?
By thinking about Cartagena, she reminded herself.By remembering the money. Speaking of which, yet again…
She walked to her bag and picked up the discarded envelope. It was thick with paper, and when she opened it, she saw a wad of green hundred-dollar notes. She pulled them out and counted five grand—more money than she’d ever physically held. Feeling a little dizzy, she stuffed it back into her bag. She could run, take the money and be in Colombia tomorrow, but then she’d be That Person. She’d done a lot of dodgy stuff in her life, but outright theft wasn’t one of them—at least not this kind of theft. Jacking a street sign with your name on it was one thing; stealing five grand and failing to do your job was another. She would have to do this. Tattoo Toby Tennant. Resigned, she sat in the rotating chair and arranged the lamp into the correct position. It was a cute little set-up, but that only made her feel worse. And where was Mopsy? Seeing the elderly breeding spaniel was the only thing she’d been looking forward to about this experience.
“All good,” Toby called from the other room. The light flicked off, and he walked back into the lounge. “On the table?”
“Yup.”
Tabby wheeled out of the way so he could settle, then peeled back the stencil’s protective film so there was nothing but the outline of her winter scene on his arm. The design was so perfect, even in purple, that she felt a stab of excitement. Whatever else, it would be cool to see this thing she’d made come to life. She took up her tattoo gun, comforted by its familiar weight, the feel of it in her hand.
“Do you want to know how much it’s going to hurt?” she asked.
“It’ll hurt as much as it does.”
“Neh, neh, nehhh,” Tabby imitated to cover how perfect an answer it was. Toby was a cleanskin, as they said in the biz, and holding cleanskins’ hands—especially dudes—as they winced through the needle was something most professional artists grew to hate.
“Good,” she said, starting the machine. “Hold tight.”
Toby tensed a little as she lined the needle with the stencil, but when he relaxed, she still couldn’t make contact. There was a moment when you touched a tattoo gun to someone’s skin. A point of no return. She hesitated, trying to savour it, and found nothing but nerves. She glanced up at him and found him staring back at her, his eyes pale and unreadable.
“Why do you want this tattoo, exactly?”
“That’s my business. You gonna start?”
“I guess.”
She clenched her jaw and kissed his skin with the needle. He flinched but mostly held still and there it was, the first ink he’d ever have, the start of her winter forest. Missy transitioned into Garbage’s ‘I’m Only Happy When It Rains,’ and Tabby felt heartened. She’d done this a thousand times, and she could do it again. She let her fingers move instinctively, tracing the needle slowly but surely around the lines of a snowy pine tree.
