Epilogue
Rip
One year later
“You sure about this?” I asked Clark as I cleaned my equipment, spreading it out on the desk. “You’re not going to regret it later and hold it against me?”
“I’m sure,” he said confidently. “I’ve been thinking about it for months. And what better way to break in your new tattoo shop than to give me my first ink?”
Mars and I had found the little shop with the help of Lilith, a bartender at the Steel Rose who knew Seattle better than anyone else in town. It had taken a while to clean the place up and get it ready for customers, but with the regulars I’d gained at my old shop and Mars’s social media following, we already had a full appointment book through the end of the month.
It was an honest dream come true, the kind of thing I never imagined when I thought I was just coming through Seattle to look after my aunt. But with Clark around, a lot of new things were suddenly happening.
“Take off your shirt,” I instructed. “And see if you can get comfortable in the chair.”
Clark pulled his sweater over his head, then stretched out on his side in the big chair. I tried not to distract myself with the way his happy trail led down to his jeans, and went back to preparing my equipment.
“You about to get started?” Mars asked, popping his head in the door. “Can I watch?”
I turned to Clark. “Your call.”
He smiled, then rubbed his hand through his hair. “I guess. Just don’t think you’re going to convince me to get a nose ring.”
“Just don’t think I’m going to stop trying,” Mars said, tweaking Clark’s nose and making him laugh.
“This should be quick,” I said. “Maybe twenty minutes, tops. Your endorphins will kick in, but just let me know if you need a break. No need to be a hero.”
Clark nodded. “Got it. And I still have the aftercare instructions you gave me.”
Mars leaned against the desk. “Luckily, you’ve got a couple experts on tattoo recovery sleeping in bed with you every night.” He tapped the wolves on his arm, grinning. “You’ll have a smoother time healing than I had with this one, that’s for sure.”
“The time you got a tattoo and then went and laid in the sun all day,” Clark said, laughing to himself. “Because you were trying to impress some guy at the beach, is that right?”
“Look at that,” I said to Mars. “He knows your stories as good as I do. Now you two stop flirting with each other. I need to concentrate.”
I took the printout of the tattoo and applied it to Clark’s biceps, smoothing it down carefully and taking a second to make sure it was straight. The simple line drawing of an alien head stared back at me with blank eyes and a small, flat mouth. “How’s that look for you?”
Clark studied it for a second in the mirror. Then his eyes got wide. “Oh! I got an idea!”
“A different tattoo?” Mars asked.
Clark shook his head. “Not exactly. But I just realized there’s no way to know this is a friendly alien.”
“A friendly alien?” I asked.
“Not all aliens are nice,” Mars pointed out. “You’re the horror fan, Rip, you should know that.”
“Yeah,” Clark said excitedly. “It’s like when I first met Mars, and I thought he might not be a good guy.”
“Hey,” Mars said. “If I remember right, I had you charmed off your feet on the first date.”
Clark tapped the drawing with his finger, then hummed quietly to himself. “Same drawing,” he said, “but can you make him wink?”
“Wink?” I asked.
Clark blushed a little. “That’s how I always knew Mars was flirting. He’d wink.”
I turned to Mars, and when he shot me a wink back, all three of us burst into laughter. “A winking alien,” I said. “I dig it.”
