Anyway.
And then my phone went quiet.
I grabbed two cold fries and shoved them into my mouth, chewing while I looked at the awkward cut and paste picture Smith had sent. The trees were Ponderosa pines, and I wondered if northern California held any special significance for Smith or if he just liked the shape and the height of them. Either was fine, really. I’d long ago given up on the idea that tattoos needed to mean important things. Hell, I had a violin bow tattooed on the outside of my first finger so I could play the world’s smallest violin for Damon whenever he started to whine about life being hard. There was no denying tattoos could be meaningful. I rubbed the one across my ribs as a reminder of just how much, but they could be fun too.
They should be fun.
I finished off my fries and headed into the bathroom to wash my hands. My next appointment was due to arrive any minute, and I needed to get the stencil printed and my station set up. I busied myself with sanitizing and bagging everything and my client walked in ten minutes before her appointment.
“Hey, Athena.” I gave her a wave with my elbow.
She finished tying her long red hair up into a messy bun, a few tendrils hanging down in front of her ears, then waved back at me. She had on an oversized hoodie that undoubtedly belonged to one of her boyfriends, no makeup, and had a huge purse slung over her shoulder.
“Do you want to come on back?” I asked, dropping my ass down onto my black stool and wheeling out of the way.
Athena lifted the split counter and headed toward the chair, tossing her bag down onto the floor and climbing up. She had on shorts, I realized, but the hoodie was so massive on her they were impossible to see when she stood, and anything being toobig on Athena was a feat considering she was nearly six-feet tall in sneakers. She shifted her weight onto her side so I could spray and shave her thigh, which was already plenty smooth in the first place.
Once ready, I had her hop up so I could place the stencil on the outside of her thigh. She checked herself in the mirror and after a quick shrink and move, I poured out some ink and we were ready to get started. When I pulled some more ink, Athena dug a bottle of water and some chocolate out of her bag, making herself comfortable again. With her head against the back of the table, she let out a long breath and swallowed her candy bar. I wiped some of the excess ink off the bottom of her tattoo and started in on a new line.
“So, what’s been going on?” I asked.
She waited until I finished the line to move and take a drink of water, and I waited until she had stilled to start my next line.
“Just more of the same,” she said. “But you’ll never guess what Grant and Wesley did last weekend.”
Grant and Wesley were her boyfriends, and they had been for nearly ten years.
“Tell me,” I said, smirking up at her and wiping down her thigh again.
She drummed her long purple fingernails against the very top of her thigh, and I glanced up at her hand to find a ring on her fourth finger that looked a lot like an engagement ring. It was far from traditional, no gold and no diamonds, but the stones and the band sat on her finger with all the same importance and honor. I dragged my stare up to her face, finding an uncharacteristic flush on her cheeks and a sly smile pulling at her lips.
“Well,” I said, refreshing the ink and leaning back over her leg, “you can’t just leave me hanging. You’re gonna be here for a while so you might as well me everything.”
CHAPTER 5
SMITH
The week passed in a blur and before I knew it, I was standing—for the third time—in front of Ink and Ember. I could see Riggs through the glass, wearing what looked to be the same jeans as Monday, but instead of a white shirt, he wore a black hoodie that looked to be a little too small for him. He had the sleeves pushed up and his brown hair tied back at the base of his skull, and when he turned unexpectedly and saw me on the sidewalk, one of his thick brows lifted in question. He tilted his head toward the door and without much thought, I turned the corner and walked into the shop.
Ink and Ember smelled just like it had on Monday, like disinfectant and soap, but when Riggs came closer, I caught a whiff of rosemary and sage, a delightful, herbal blend that went right up my nose and lodged itself there making it hard to smell anything else.
“You’re dressed better,” he said in greeting, and I looked down at my jeans and t-shirt. Since I’d taken the day off work there was no need for business casual, and I’d only belatedly realized on Monday how ridiculous it had been to walk into a tattoo shop wearing a long-sleeved shirt and ask to get my arm tattooed.
“I didn’t think about it until after the fact,” I admitted. “Coming in was kind of spontaneous.”
I couldn’t believe I’d asked to get anything tattooed, if I was being honest. None of my brothers had any ink, at least as far as I knew, and it was pretty out of character for me to do something brash like this. My brothers always teased me about how much like Marshall I was, but I never saw it as a bad thing to be compared to my almost forty year-old brother. He was the best role model growing up and continued to set the bar for almost everything in my life.
I went into architecture because of Marshall, and I had an affinity for expensive wine because of Marshall. He was a good man, and I was proud to be compared to him, but sometimes it felt like that was all I had. I didn’t want to be Marshall Covington’s youngest brother forever. Hell, I didn’t always want to be a Covington. There had been a brief time when I’d entertained changing my name to Calavert, my mother’s maiden name, but after some thought I’d decided her sins were far worse than those of Willem Covington.
Willem was not a good father; he wasn’t even a bad father. He was absent, which was the best thing he could have done for any of us. Present in name and money only, he bought out all of our mothers and gave us opportunities that never would have been in reach were it not for his heavy hand. It was hard to be grateful for the life I had when it was so easy to think about the life I lost because of him.
The older I got, the more often I realized I needed to break out of the mold that I’d built for myself, the mold that had been built for me by his hand. I had also thought of leaving my job, but at the end of the day, I was truly passionate about architecture separate of Marshall’s fondness for it, so the work and the Covington name could stay. Going to Rapture with Asha was probably some flavor of rebellion, this tattoo…another.
“Nothing wrong with spontaneous,” Riggs said, lifting a section of the counter so I could step through into the back of the shop. “And you’ve had all week to change your mind.”
He was right.
I’d had all week to do a lot of things, namely think about how to get Asha to invite me back to Rapture so I could stare at men getting spanked and fucked again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get spanked, but I definitely wanted to try the getting fucked part. Admittedly, I had watched a fair amount of spanking porn since the weekend, and I didn’t hate the idea as much as I wanted to.
