Kevlar offered to front me the startup, but I need to do this on my own. I need to stand on my own two feet.
I finish getting ready, and for the first time in a long while I like the girl looking back at me in the mirror. I love who she’s becoming.
I meet Kevlar in the parking lot. He’s waiting by his bike.
We’re going on a date. It’s starting at his tattoo shop where London is giving me my first tattoo. Kevlar is a bit butthurt he won’t be the one to do my ink, but I need this to be mine and only mine.
“Stop hovering. Shew. Go do something. Like sweep the front or some shit. But if you don’t stop crowding my station, I’m going to bury my needle in your eye,” London threatens my boyfriend.
“I’m not hovering,” Kevlar insists, but London just glares at him over the rim of her thick black glasses, her hands steady as she sets up the tattoo machine with surgical care.
“You are, boss man. You’re sweating all over my floor,” she says, popping her gum. “You want the girl to be nervous, then keep this macho man crap up.”
I think she’s one of the few people who can snap at him and get away with it besides his sisters or me.
Kevlar mouths something rude I can’t quite catch. He steps back, folding his arms and fixating on me with this hungry, dark stare that makes my insides twist. I’m perched on the padded tattoo chair, half of a cookie in my mouth. My hand trembles just enough that my nervousness shows. London snaps her gloves on, and I catch my reflection in the mirror.
Pale.
Flushed.
Scared shitless.
“Show me the sketch one more time?” I ask, voice pinched with a charged mix of excitement and fear.
London pulls the paper from her cart and hands it to me.
It’s a chocolate chip cookie with a semicolon in the middle. My story didn’t end that night on the beach. It began the next morning when Kevlar found me.
“Are you ready?”
“Let’s do this.”
She places the transfer on my arm.
My man. My biker grins at me with pride and love.
The tattoo gun buzzes, and London gets to work.
The tattoo takes about an hour.
“If you ever want to get more ink or this one touched-up, you know where to find me. But next time you’ve gotta let the boss do it. I can’t work with him hanging over my shoulder every five seconds.” She laughs as she wipes away some droplets of blood from my arm.
Kevlar flips her off. “Don’t be expecting a good tip now.”
“Pfft. You better tip me.”
“What’d you get?” Candyce and Ashley rush me when we get back to the clubhouse.
I show off my inked cookie, and they gush about how it fits me perfectly.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a true place in this world where I belong. I have friends. A job. Goals. A hotter than sin biker.
Life is good. Almost too good.
“No, he fucking didn’t,” Candyce screeches as Graves walks through the front with some big-boobed redheaded chick on his arm.
“Fuck,” Kevlar grumbles, wrapping a hand around his sister’s wrist.
