Inked on Paper (3 page)

Chapter Two

Presley

“Hey, bitch!” Blaze’s cheerful tone echoed from somewhere behind me. “You fuckin’ sleepin’ over there or what?”

I didn’t bother to look up from the shoulder I was tattooing. “I was,” I mumbled. “But then your big mouth showed up.”

Blaze chuckled, then propped herself on the counter beside my station. She leaned over, checking out what I was working on, then sat back up. “You seen Gil?”

I paused long enough to look at her and swipe more ointment on the guy’s shoulder. I put the needle to his skin again.

“Some little giggly chick came by and he lit outta here like his ass was on fire.” When Blaze didn’t come back with a smartass retort, I paused again and looked up at her. “Girl, you do not wanna get involved in that,” I warned.

Blaze Vinsant was one of my closest friends, had been for years. In fact, she was now working at Different by Design—the tattoo shop I owned with another friend of mine, Charlotte Davenport, a.k.a. Charlie—because I’d practically dragged her over here kicking and screaming a few months ago. One of the best damned decisions I’d made in a long time, although I definitely wasn’t about to tell her that. Blaze’s ego was big enough as it was.

“What?” Blaze finally said, sounding offended. “You think I want some of
Gil
?”

I smiled, putting the needle back to the guy’s shoulder. “I know you, Blaze.”

“No, you
think
you know me,” she countered.

I knew her. Well.

“Now, if we were talkin’ about Gavin … that’d be a different story.”

Of course it would. Because
that—
my two best friends hooking up—wouldn’t be weird at all. Although secretly, I thought it would be kind of cool. Again, not mentioning that to Blaze.

I grabbed the paper towel and wiped the guy’s skin, cleaning the droplets of blood that had formed as I studied the design, touching up one last part before tapping his arm. “You’re all set.”

“Really?” The guy tried to awkwardly look behind him to see the tattoo.

“Here,” Blaze said, thrusting a handheld mirror at him. “Use this.”

I pushed back out of his way and let him get to his feet to check out the ink in the mirror, then looked at my friend. Blaze’s fiery red hair—hence the name—was piled in a crazy heap on top of her head. Her smile was painted with cherry-red lipstick, her green eyes perfectly ringed with thick black liner. The woman stopped traffic, not only because of her natural beauty but also because she chose to wear minimal clothes that highlighted the ink that covered nearly seventy percent of her body.

Not that I was anything to scoff at. I’d been hit on three times tonight as it was—not that I was counting. Unlike Blaze, I didn’t eat that shit up; instead, I tended to brush it off, choosing to act as though it’d never happened. I had purposely left dating off my to-do list and had no intention of adding it anytime soon.

“You headin’ home after this?” Blaze asked me, nodding toward the guy who had moved over to the mirror on the wall.

“Yeah.” I was exhausted and hadn’t intended to be here this late, but when the guy had walked in and Charlie had been otherwise occupied with another walk-in, I’d offered to stay. Now that it was a little after ten, I was eager to go home and crash.

“Lemme bandage that up and you’re good to go,” I told the guy, motioning him back over.

“Cool,” he said, his eyes slowly moving over me as he eased back onto the chair. I knew what he was going to say before he said it, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “So … I was wondering…”

I didn’t meet his gaze, ripping the saran wrap from the roll and grabbing the tape.

“Would it be possible to get your number?”

I smiled to myself, keeping my head down.

“Dude, she’s taken,” Blaze blurted, like it was so obvious.

It was a lie, I definitely wasn’t taken, but I didn’t mind. More than once, Blaze had stepped in to warn away the young guys who thought that hitting on me was the best way to end their night.

“Like, married?” His eyes widened and his interest briefly shifted to Blaze.

“No.” Blaze frowned.

“Then it ain’t permanent, right?”

“Yeah. It kinda is.” I noticed the way Blaze looked around the room as though searching for something. “And man, you should see him. Dude’s, like, six six, two seventy-five. Big fucker. They call him Hulk. You just better hope no one tells him you were asking for her number.”

“Oh … uh…” The guy was shaking his head adamantly. “I had no idea.”

Blaze breathed a mock sigh of relief. “Cool. Then we’ll keep this between us.”

The guy nodded and didn’t look at me again, which was fine by me. He was far too young for my taste.

A few minutes later, I was swiping his credit card and sending him on his way. Blaze was still following me as though she had nothing better to do.

“Hey, Pres, can you download the charges for today?” Charlie asked from behind me, the steady buzz of her tattoo gun pausing briefly.

“Sure.” With a quick glance at Blaze, I made my way back to the tiny room Charlie and I sometimes used to take care of paperwork and order supplies. Truthfully, it wasn’t much more than a storage closet, but I’d managed to cram a desk inside, hence the reason we—okay, fine,
I
—called it an office. Everyone else called it a closet.

“You seen Blue?” Blaze asked, following me into the room.

“He ran out to pick up some food,” I said as I dropped into the rickety chair that had been duct-taped more than once just to keep it together. It squeaked and shook, momentarily making me wonder if I was about to land flat on my ass.

It held and I released a breath.

“He doin’ okay here?”

Two weeks ago, I’d hired Blue—whose real name was Darwin, but he swore to kick anyone’s ass if they called him that—to help out around the shop. He was interested in tattooing and he’d offered to work as an apprentice. In an attempt to get some assistance, I’d offered to pay him to help out, cleaning and answering phones, all the shit no one else wanted to do. Apparently he’d been hard up enough to accept.

“Yeah, why?” I looked up at Blaze again. She was standing in front of the mirror, fixing her hair.

“Just checkin’.” She turned to face me, her nose scrunching as she looked around the office. I leaned back and regarded her. I could tell there was something on her mind, but like usual, she expected me to be a mind reader.

“Spit it out, Blaze.”

“What? I’m just here to hang out. You know, keep things lively.” She dropped into the vacant chair across from my desk, then propped her combat-boot-clad feet on the edge. “Can’t leave you alone for a fuckin’ minute. You think this is all fun and games and shit.” A genuine smile tilted her lips.

The woman loved to give me shit. “I’m a big girl.”

“Uh huh. If I don’t keep an eye on you, I fear you’ll have that fucked up country shit blastin’ on the speakers and you’ll be croonin’ right along.”

There were two things wrong with that sentence. One, I didn’t listen to country music—that was Charlie’s thing—and two, I didn’t croon. Still, I grinned at the mental image it brought up.

“What do you do in here, anyway?” Blaze’s keen gaze scanned the room. “Clearly not what you’re supposed to be doin’. This place looks like shit.”

“Thanks,” I huffed on a laugh. “Don’t you have someone to do?”

Blaze winked. “I kicked him out this mornin’.”

I glanced at my wrist, pretending to note the time on the watch I didn’t wear. “So, where’s the next victim?”

Although Blaze was the complete opposite of me—she was loud, obnoxious, promiscuous, among other things—she was also one of the best tattoo artists I knew. And since I’d brought her on board eight months ago, she’d brought in a shitload of business.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” Blaze said with a smirk. “You all moved in yet?”

I nodded. “Finally.”

Finding a condo in downtown Austin wasn’t nearly as easy as I’d hoped it would be. I’d set out to do exactly that six months ago, going month to month on my rent just so I could land a place that I could buy, rather than rent. It had taken more time than I had to find, and more cash than I’d been hoping to part with, but finally, I’d found the perfect place. Probably more expensive than I should’ve settled with, but once I’d stepped foot out on the balcony and seen the view, I couldn’t help myself.

Watching Blaze, I asked, “You got any appointments tonight?”

Blaze dropped her feet to the floor, adjusted the clip on her head, and sat up straight. “Yep,” she said. “But as usual, they’re late. You know if Charlie’s stayin’?”

There were no set hours since foot traffic into the shop made all the difference and Friday and Saturday nights were always the busiest.

“That’s what she told me,” I confirmed. “And Shawn’s upstairs.” I looked up to meet Blaze’s eyes. “Blue should be back any minute.”

As though he’d been summoned, the bell over the door rang, and I heard Blue announce he was back.

After getting to her feet, Blaze spun around and peered at herself in the mirror on the far wall before turning back and grinning at me. “Well, while you finish this shit up here, I’m gonna go flirt with the cute kid with the food,” Blaze said, grinning at me over her shoulder.

Oh, shit.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” I warned. “He’s too young for you.”

“He’s eighteen, bitch. That makes him the perfect age.” Blaze’s mischievous chuckle followed her out into the hall.

With that, Blaze disappeared, leaving me with the mess on my desk and a silent prayer for Blue, the guy who’d begged me to let him apprentice out of my shop. The same guy who didn’t know what he was in for once Blaze set her sights on him.

Chapter Three

Jake

No sooner had I hung up with Liz and closed out of the article about my whereabouts than my cell phone rang again.

I glanced at the caller ID.

My mother.

Nope.
Not doing it.

As much as I loved that woman, I couldn’t deal with her tonight. I knew she only wanted to get my ironclad agreement that I’d be over for dinner this week, and I already knew how that conversation would go. She would ask if I was coming, I would confirm I was, then she would ask me again if I was sure, I would tell her yes … so on and so forth until my ears were bleeding and I wanted to toss my cell phone out the window to the street seventeen floors below.

She was my mother. What could I do?

“Not answer the phone,” I said aloud, letting it go to voice mail.

I shouldn’t have answered when Liz called, but I had ignored the thirteen other times it had rung since before dawn this morning, and I knew she wouldn’t stop. As for my mother, well, she would just have to wait. As would my agent, my publicist, my sister, that chick I’d banged last night in the back room of that club, and any reporter who wanted the inside scoop, for that matter.

If I were going to talk to anyone else—which I wasn’t—it would be someone who didn’t want to ask about my next book. As it was, I was lucky that Liz hadn’t read me the riot act since the first draft of my latest novel wasn’t waiting for her in her inbox, nor did it look as though it would be anytime in the near future.

Leaning forward, I peered down into the white ceramic mug on my desk—the cheesy one with the argyle pattern and the blue J on the front that my niece had bought me for Christmas two years ago.

Empty.

Huh.

Just like the page on the screen.

But an empty coffee cup… This I could do something about.

Grabbing the mug and my phone, I got to my feet, peering around my office, wondering if there was anything else I could clean or fix. Or both. I looked at the bland, off-white walls. Maybe I should paint. Some color probably wouldn’t hurt.

I made a mental note to ask my assistant to get someone to paint the condo.

“Not helping,” I muttered to the procrastinating devil that had evidently taken up permanent residence on my shoulder feeding me task after task, none of which would make me any money. The little fucker had been sitting there for… Damn. It’d been a long fucking time.

If I’d been smart, I would’ve evicted his annoying ass by now. But no. Apparently, not only was I mysterious, I was also masochistic.

Rounding the corner into the overly bright kitchen with the now gleaming stainless steel appliances, shiny sapele (whatever the fuck that meant) mahogany cabinets, and glossy white and gray marble countertops—all of which I’d hand waxed that morning—I frowned. Cleaning was definitely not conducive to writing a book. Not to mention, when Linda came over—the woman who cleaned my condo weekly—she was going to give me a hard time again, claiming she had nothing to do.

Maybe
she
could write the book.

Or …
or
… perhaps my personal assistant, Josie, could, since, yes, I’d also managed to clean out most of the emails in my inbox and would likely get an earful when I saw her again on Monday.

Rinsing my cup and shoving it into the dishwasher, I turned around and studied the kitchen, beginning to fear I was going to find something else to clean if I wasn’t careful. Luckily, my phone rang again and I got sidetracked. Fishing it out of my pocket, I glanced at the screen and smiled.

“Abby! What’s up, kiddo?” I asked.

“Not much,” she replied, sounding happy.

The sound of her voice instantly made my night better. It didn’t solve my inability to write a damn thing, but I did enjoy talking to her.

“Shouldn’t you be out painting the town on Friday night?” I joked.

“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

“You know me. I’m old, tired.”

Abby laughed, the soft chuckle making my heart lift. A year ago we’d been having an entirely different conversation, and no matter how hard I’d tried, I hadn’t managed to pull a smile out of her for months, much less a laugh.

“You are that,” she said.

“I knew you’d agree. So what’s up? How’re things?”

“Good. I was wondering if you were coming by this weekend.”

I hadn’t planned on it, but that wasn’t what I told her. “I can. You need something?”

“No. Just wanted to check. Thought maybe we could go see that new movie that came out.”

“Please tell me it ain’t some sappy love story.”

“Not a chance. I know all about those sappy love stories you write.”

I hoped she’d heard that secondhand, because I knew what my books entailed, and no fifteen-year-old kid should be reading what went on in my warped and twisted—not to mention oversexed—imagination.

“When did you wanna go?” Even if I’d had plans, I wouldn’t have been able to tell Abby no. For the past year, I’d spent a lot of time with her. Whenever she called, I made a point to be there, and I always would. As I’d told Liz, Abby was doing better, but I wasn’t going to do anything that might trigger a relapse. The kid was making progress, but she still had a long road in front of her.

“Sunday work?” she asked, sounding doubtful.

“Definitely. I’ll swing by and pick you up early afternoon? Text me a good time for the movie, cool?”

We said our good-byes and hung up, which left me standing in my kitchen, still wondering what the hell I could do to pass the time. I knew what my plans were for Sunday, but I still had tonight and tomorrow to contend with, and since I wasn’t writing…

“Any suggestions, Cat?” The black-and-white bundle of fur reclining on my leather sofa didn’t so much as give me a second look. He had been a gift for my birthday last year—from my niece, of course. Since my sister wouldn’t allow Abby to have a cat, Abby had thought that getting me one would be almost as good. I didn’t agree with her, but for the most part, Cat and I got along. He ruled the house; I let him. Simple, as long as I understood the rules.

“Thanks for the help. I’ll just—”

A sound in the hall brought me up short. I stared at the door, then glanced at Cat, who didn’t seem to care at all.

Not surprising.

The noise grew louder and I realized there were people out there. Several, by the sound of it.

Not that it was any of my business, and it didn’t appear as though they were coming to my place, so I knew I should’ve left well enough alone.

And I would’ve … if I hadn’t been desperate for something to do.

Other than, you know, pretend to be writing when I really wasn’t.