Page 6

My client wants a spray of California poppies along the outside of her forearm, designed to curve naturally around a small older piece she wants to keep. Once I get the machine running, everything else falls away. I watch the needle lay clean ink into her skin, adjusting for every slight shift in angle. This is the part I love. Taking something that existed only as graphite on paper and making it permanently hers.

For a while, there’s no neighbor, no amplifier, and no annoyingly sharp blue eyes taking up space in my head.

By the time we take a quick break to stretch, I’ve almost forgotten him.

Almost.

My client stretches her fingers while I peel off my gloves and check the section we’ve finished. The lines are clean, the placement is holding exactly the way I wanted, and the older tattoo looks like it belongs inside the new design rather than something we had to work around.

“So, I heard through the local grapevine that you just moved here from San Francisco?”

“I’ve been here a few months.”

“My sister follows your work and recommended you. She said you used to be at a shop in the Mission.”

I nod as I set the machine aside. “For the last three years.”

That still gives me a small rush of satisfaction. I worked hard for the clients who followed my work there, and harder for the ones who were willing to track me four hours north when I left.

“What made you leave?”

The answer used to feel more complicated than it does now. “I wanted something quieter.”

She smiles. “You picked the right place.”

“Until yesterday, I thought so.”

She laughs, assuming I’m joking, and reaches for her water just as Nell passes behind me carrying a box of gloves.

“Is this about the neighbor?”

My client perks up immediately. “What neighbor?”

I give Nell a look, which she ignores completely.

“Ruby’s got a new guy in the other half of her duplex,” she says. “Apparently, he likes loud music.”

“I don’t care that he likes music. I care that it’s loud enough to come through the wall like he’s playing in my living room.”

My client grins. “Maybe he’s lonely.”

“Then he should get a plant.”

Nell leans a hip against the counter. “You said he was a musician?”

“I said he owns enough equipment to stock a music store.”

“What’s his name?”

“No idea.”

That gets both of them looking at me.

Nell’s eyebrows lift. “You yelled at the guy and didn’t ask his name?”

“I wasn’t introducing myself at a neighborhood mixer. I was telling him to turn down his amplifier.”

“What does he look like?”