2
Aiden
The bellover the shop door tinkled as someone stepped inside. Ten minutes left until I was about to close up.
I hoped they were here either to book an appointment or get me to change out their jewelry, because I was too tired for anything else and I wasn’t convinced I’d get the appointment written down without a mistake, either.
Screwing the cap onto the bottle of ink I’d just finished mixing, I peeled my gloves off as I walked into the front of the shop to find someone in a long black wool coat with a head of short, glossy black hair complete with touchable curls.
“Can I help you?” I asked, dragging their attention away from the little trophy display I kept on the wall. All my awards made newbies feel safer.
My regular clients just laughed when I got a new one.Oh, you went to a show on the weekend? How many trophies did you bring back?
My heart leapt into my mouth as they turned around.
Carter.
So much hotter than I remembered him in high school, pretty grey eyes looking me up and down, lips pursed.
What the hell was he doing here?
“Lemme guess,” I said, mouth way more confident than my brain. “Dragon on your butt?”
Carter blinked at me.
“What… what about me makes you think I’d wantthat?” he asked, a cute little crease between his brows.
That crush I’d had on him in high school? Clearly it hadn’t gone away. More like gone into hibernation.
I shrugged. “I’d get to tattoo your butt,” I said. “Could be that I’m projecting.”
Great move, Goode, my brain interjected, finally catching up with my mouth.
Better late than never, I supposed.
“Do you particularly want… no, you know what, don’t answer that,” Carter said, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. “This was a stupid idea.”
He turned to leave, and I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted less than that.
“It wasn’t,” I rushed to put myself between him and the door as non-threateningly as possible. Carter was bigger than me height-wise, but I’d grown up to be a strong guy and I knew I looked it. Being careful not to intimidate people was something I thought about all the time. Especially since this little place had become a haven for people who might otherwise have been nervous about getting a tattoo.
“Whatever it was, it’s not stupid. Lemme flip the sign and we can go into my office and talk?”
Carter paused, biting his lip and looking between me and the door I was almost-but-not-quite blocking.
I didn’t know what was going on in his head, but I could hear the gears turning from here.
“Okay,” he said, soft as ever, bitten-red lip sticking out the tiniest bit, swollen from the pressure.
Maybe he wanted to go make out on my couch.
… probably not, but a guy could dream about his number-one fantasy from the age of fifteen to nineteen, right?
I flipped the sign, guts doing a goddamn tango the whole time as I took him through to the cozy little office I kept for nervous first-timers and clients who needed extra privacy.
Well, I called it anoffice, but it was more of a lounge. A sofa and a coffee table, carefully arranged so even the biggest wheelchair commercially available would fit comfortably, too. Devin had cursed me in and out of hell over arranging this room, but he’d gotten a free tattoo out of it, so he didn’t get to complain.
“This is…” Carter looked around, eyes travelling from the dark-stained coffee table to the leather couch to the IKEA lamp in the corner.
