“Thank you,” I say softly.
“Anytime.”
There’s no bell overhead and it’s almost unnerving. The only sound that they’d have to know someone walked in would be the door closing. That can’t be safe.
“You guys are here!” Asher calls out from behind the desk that spans the whole front of the room length-wise. He’s leaning over the forearm of some girl, tattooing her.
“Hey, Asher,” I call out loudly over the sound of the rock music playing and the machine buzzing.
“Welcome, welcome,” Asher says, sitting up and smiling, “Ty, you good to take that gentleman in the front?”
“Yeah, man, I got it.” Ty puts his hand on my lower back, guiding me to the desk on the opposite side of the wall. One where the space is so completely Ty, I can tell it’s his immediately. He has these traditional designs tacked onto the wall, framed art here and there, but the whole work area is the same as his room; tidy, neat in a disordered way, but it’s obvious that it’s very cared for.
I walk closer to the wall, looking at all the designs that Ty deemed worthy enough to keep.
And one catches my eye.
It’s a traditional tattoo of a clearing with a stone wide enough for someone to lay against, or on. With a girl laying in front of it, sound asleep with a smile on her face, resting her head on the thigh of someone strong watching over her.
My breath catches in my chest and I tilt my head, taking in each piece of the picture. It’s…beautiful. I wish I could see it in full shading and color. I bet Ty made it magnificent.
“Wow,” I breathe out softly. Ty’s standing at the small cabinet next to his desk, pulling out the different tools and things he needs. But when I whisper, his whole body stops. I can see the way his shoulders curve in just slightly because he knows what I was looking at. “Did you do this?”
Instead of answering, Ty just nods, not looking at me, and it’s like his body restarts. His hand slowly starts to move again, pulling out plastic wrap.
“Did you finish it?”
“What do you mean, it is finished.” The gruff tone in which he says it tells me that I struck a nerve.
“It’s not shaded.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
I nod, pursing my lips together as I turn back towards the design.
“I’d be interested to see how it’d look shaded. Maybe colored if you’re into the traditional design.”
“You think you’re a tattoo artist, now?” Ty says. I can hear that he’s trying to be jokey about it, but there’s a heat on the edge that tells me I struck a nerve.
“Maybe. Maybe one day.”God, wouldn’t that be great?I think wistfully. No more trying to fight to survive on scraps. No more fightingperiod.
“Do you…draw still?” Ty asks softly, almost like he’s afraid that he might say the wrong thing and piss me off.
“Here and there. Sketches, doodles, nothing like Athena anymore, that’s for sure,” I laugh, trying to make light of the fact that the one thing that used to bring me some…clarity, I had to abandon. All the while, Ty honed his skills and created all this.
“Well,” he says softly, like he heard every word I didn’t say. “If you want, we can change that.” He slides a heavy black notebook across the desk and a pencil. “It’s one of my old ones, sorry I don’t have a fresh one on hand.” He gestures to the book. “We’re going to be here until after dinner. So you’ve got a lot of time to kill. Feel free.”
My eyes widen at the gift he’s offering me.
A piece of my past that I didn’t see myself ever getting back.
I slowly lean towards the notebook and drag it towards me, nodding.
“Thank you,” I say softly, pulling the book into my hand so gently it’s almost reverent.
“Yeah, of course,” Ty says. Shrugging like he’s trying to play it cool, but he can see how much it means to me. “You can sit wherever. There’s water and some drinks in the fridge in the back. Are you hungry?”
To answer my stomach decides right fucking then to growl and I wrap my arms around my middle to try and silence the sound that’s already embarrassed me.
