It only took a moment before he blew out a stream of air through his nose, cursing under his breath.
Bingo.
“You don’t even know what you want,” he accused, in a clear last-ditch effort to get me to leave him alone.
“A storm,” I replied, pulling the idea from nothing. “Dark, rolling clouds. Lightning. Sky.”
“Damn,” he frowned. “Not even something simple?”
“Do I seem like a simple girl to you?”
He chuckled, his gaze dropping to where I was still holding on to his wrist. “Nah. You seem difficult as fuck.”
“But you’re gonna do the tattoo?” I asked, giving him the full-blown puppy-dog eyes I’d never met a man who could resist.
A deep sigh lifted and dropped his broad chest, and he shook his head – not in answer, in resignation.
“Come on back.”
“You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
I lifted an eyebrow at him as he gestured to the place in his inking room where he wanted me to take a seat.
“No.”
“Did you eat before you arrived?”
“Should I have?” I asked, thinking about the big ass honeybun I’d ventured out for to serve as breakfast, and had subsequently served as an all-day meal.
He looked up from a wall of different colored inks he’d been choosing from to tell me, “Yes, probably a good idea. You might be here a while.”
Oh.
Good thing I had nowhere else to be.
“How long did the rose take?” he asked, as I shifted my attention to my other surroundings – his private space was much more refined than the general area of the shop. There was the ink wall, a stainless-steel sink and a bunch of storage, a gallery wall of ink I assumed he’d done, and an unfinished mural of a woman’s face.
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t answered the question. “I can’t remember.”
Not exactly a lie, but… not quite the whole story, either. I had very specific flashes of that day – the day I “got” my rose, supposedly something to be proud of. None of the details would come through clearly for me though.
“Why no drinking?” I asked, trying to shift the subject.
“Uh… lack of judgment is part of it,” he told me, sounding half distracted as he dug through one of the storage drawers. “But mostly, because it thins your blood, makes it harder to get the ink to take, yada-yah.”
I watched as he stopped what he was doing to stretch his long, muscled limbs – an act that made me remember what “Pri” said about him before she’d gone to find him for me.
“Am I fucking up your flow or something? You were about to call it a day?”
A grin played on his lips as he kept gathering his tools and supplies in what I assumed to be a sterilized tray. “Nah, sweetheart. Every artist on staff has to put in a certain amount of hours for drop-ins. You got lucky.”
“Stop calling me sweetheart.”
He glanced up from transferring his supplies to the cart by the table. “What would you prefer?”
“My name.”
“Which is…?”
Shit.
I guess people wanted that, huh?
Usually, if I were out amongst the public it was with a firmly planted identity in mind – I wasn’t “playing” someone else.
I was someone else.
That wasn’t an option anymore.
Now, I was just… me. Nothing to hide behind, no intrepidly detailed fictional backstory to lean on.
“Tempest,” I said, introducing myself by my own name – the only one I’d ever known, at least – for the first time.
He smiled. “Nice. The “storm clouds” thing seems much more fitting now. I’m Tristan,” he said, offering his hand, which I accepted.
His fingers swallowed mine in a firm grip, and the same get closer urge I’d felt earlier returned.
A feeling completely foreign to me.
I didn’t let that handshake linger.
If he minded the abrupt way I pulled back, he didn’t mention it, dropping onto some strange stool-contraption and wheeling up to where I was seated.
“I’m gonna have you take your arm out of your tank, and your bra strap, if you’re wearing one,” he said, switching to a very professional, matter-of-fact tone. “I need to shave that area, just in case, and sterilize it, so your clothes might get a little wet. And you might leave here with a bit of ink on them. Is that gonna be a problem?”
I glanced down at my cut-off shorts and the plain tank top I’d tossed on. “No. I can keep my titty covered, right?”
Tristan’s eyebrows went up. “Uh… yeah. I mean, unless you want the tat to go down that far.”
“No. Just what’s needed to cover the rose,” I affirmed, then looked up to stare at the black-pained network of pipes that comprised the ceiling.
“You’re not gonna run out of here and stiff me, are you?” he asked, in a tone that was only half-joking. “Pri didn’t take a deposit, have you sign a waiver or nothing, did she?”
“No. And no. You’re not gonna give me a fucked-up tattoo, are you?”
He scoffed. “That ain’t even possible, swee—Tempest,” he corrected himself.
“Well then… unless you’re gonna have me go back out front… I guess we’re trusting each other.”
I dropped my gaze to meet his, and he nodded.
“Let’s get this started.”
The heat of the needle against my skin was… blissful.
With my gaze focused on the gorgeous mural decorating the opposite wall, I forced myself to feel it all – every prick of blazing hot metal, the filling of my pores with ink, the featherlight touch of Tristan’s hand as he moved.
As he facilitated step one of my reinvention.
Make no mistake – I was a woman who required reinvention.
Intervention.
There was no real circle of concerned friends or family or coworkers for me, though.
I had to do it myself.
Starting with the obscuring of the red flower that had been part of my identity for much too long.
Burned into my skin, a permanent designation of who I was and why I existed.
A condemnation I’d lived with since… pretty much since I could remember, which wasn’t saying much. My very, very earliest memories, the ones I
