“If you wanna help out? Then getting this done is how you’re gonna prove your worth to me.”
My shoulders slump at just how quickly he can suck the fun out of everything. “Yeah. And then what?”
“Then, if I can still stand the sight of you, I’ll teach you how to use the autoclave, order re-stocks, and… we don’t have a piercer.”
“A piercer?”
“A person who does piercings.”
“I know what the fuck it is, but… what the fuck?”
“Do you want a job here or not?”
“I do, but Jesus Christ. I’ve gone from taking out the trash, to the rescheduling guru, to body piercer in the space of thirty seconds.”
“No you haven’t.” Tek shakes his head and walks towards the back room, and just before he enters he turns back tome. “You’re still just the guy who takes out the trash. Are you coming?”
“You truly are a delight before nine a.m.”
He smirks—just a little. “You haven't seen me at the end of the day. That’s when I really shine.”
I make a point of looking Tek up and down in a way so obvious that he wouldn’t be able to misunderstand what I’m doing. “You’re trying too hard.”
His eyes squint, but he bites his tongue.
I keep my mouth shut while he shows me where all the different needles, cups, tape, gauze, wipes, and the one hundred other things that this place needs to keep running, are kept. I follow him around with my phone, pretending like he’s boring me, when the reality is I haven’t taken my eyes off him.
His hands are big and long-fingered, with calluses at the pads. Even when he’s at rest the veins run high and tight under his skin. The sleeves of his white, long-sleeved, henley shirt are pushed up to his elbows, and I don’t know how he managed to dirty his slippers but not get one spec of paint on the white cotton. It’s not fitted, but it’s not loose either, and the fabric is thin enough that I can make out his large back tattoo when he hunches forward.
Forgetting the farce with my phone, I stare too long and he catches me watching him.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing. Just…” I fumble over my words. “Your tattoos. They’re cool. I like them.”
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
He nods with an expression that I interpret as;riiiight loser,then turns back away from me. “Do you have any?”
“Any what?”
He looks at me again with a similar expression. “Tattoos?”
He’s right. I am a fucking loser. “Um. No.”
“So just piercings then,” he says, but it’s not a question, and flicks at my nose rings. “Why two?”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “It's not common. One in each ear, but two in the same nostril.”
“You’re covered in drawings, but you think my piercings are weird?”
“I never said they were weird.” Tek steps close. Just like I did to him in the back room yesterday afternoon. “They're cool. I like them,” he says, repeating my own words back to me, and a second later he’s gone.
I hear the coffee machine start grinding beans but I’m still frozen in place.
I want to move. I need to move. I—
