Such a beautiful man, and he was a complete friggin’ asshole. Go figure.
Only a very small part of me wanted to drop the issue. Pretend that he hadn't lost his mind briefly and said something that I'm sure Sonny and the rest of the Widowmakers more than likely said casually. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. When had I become the type of person who couldn't let things go, I had no idea.
Even when Lanie had taken my car without permission and wrecked it, I hadn't stayed mad for more than a couple of hours. When Will lost my cell phone, I think I'd gotten mad for all of an hour. And when I'd gotten fired, I'd been more sad than mad. Stuff was replaceable, so I didn't bother holding onto my frustrations.
Except every time I saw him, Dex, something ugly churned inside my chest.
I only let myself look at him below the face when he’d walk by, and by that I mean that regardless of whether he was a dick or not, I considered looking at his tattoos—and body—as a lesson in learning about body ink. You know, occupational research and all. After occasional and close observation, I was able to figure out that his sleeves were complete opposites.
His right arm was a matting of solid black ink, broken up by a spiral of rectangular tiles surrounded by an inch of the most beautiful black, gray, and skin tone flower outlines. Outside of the flowers it was flat, almost shiny black ink that made my arm hurt to look at.
Dex’s other arm was as colorful as I figured a guy who wore black shirts three days in a row could be. Trying to be discreet wasn’t exactly a strength of mine, so what I was able to distinguish were the tracings of what seemed to be a black wing that wrapped around his bicep and the upper part of his forearm, with the brightest red, blue, and gray triangles that clustered together at the shoulder and eventually faded out toward his wrist.
I’m not going to lie. The tattoos on his arms, the only ones I was able to see but had a feeling were only the beginning, were really hot. And I mean really hot.
But it didn’t matter how attractive his ink was or how corded and ripped his biceps were when he had his tattoo gun to someone’s flesh, or even when he was just standing with his arms over his chest while I tried my best to ignore him—Dex, my boss, was a prick. And I wasn’t going to pretend like his douche-baggery didn’t bother me. I hadn't seen him crack a single smile or say something nice to anyone but his clients. It was like Blake and I didn't exist, but me especially.
In front of clients, he was relaxed and easygoing. A completely different person. If I wouldn’t have been on such a one-way track with thinking I disliked everything about him, the things he said randomly would have made me laugh.
But I didn’t let myself.
So in my head it made sense that my work day had been spent A) ignoring Dex, B) avoiding Dex, and C) getting to know my coworkers slowly.
On the brief occasion that we’d speak to each other, I’d look at his right ear. Another time I looked at his left. Then I’d focus on the tiny, barely noticeable scab he had on his eyebrow, because I couldn’t bear to look at his face without my heartbeat accelerating. The traitor.
I blamed my period. It was coming and it made my hormones get all out of whack. It’s true. It had nothing to do with his jaw or the fact that I could see the outline of his lateral muscles through his t-shirt when he bent over my desk to type something on the computer. It was my crazy ass hormones. I swear.
Maybe it was childish, but I couldn’t help it. I had hope that in time, I’d forget what I overheard. But obviously, it was going to take some time to let it go and I wasn’t in the mood to rush things with my PMS on the way and all.
And by some time, I estimated it would probably be closer to my retirement age before I purged that moment from my brain.
Instead, I focused on trying to find another job. Which had been useless. Everything I found was too far away or didn't pay enough. All that meant was that I needed to look harder to find somewhere else to work.
What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the two other tattoo artists that worked alongside Blake and The Dick. Slim was a cute, lanky, tall redhead who greeted me warmly. He seemed super sweet and outgoing. Blue, the other artist, was a woman a few years older than me with pink-highlighted hair, so soft spoken I had a feeling I was going to learn to read lips before I quit to understand what she was saying.
The only thing I let myself stew on was Dex The Dick and the fact that I was bumbling around trying to figure things out so that I wouldn't ask him for help.
Friggin’ asswipe.
It was easy to pretend he didn’t exist during the day before work. I’d kept busy cleaning up Sonny’s house slowly, carefully and thoroughly. I think the last time someone had dusted his place had been before he bought it. The dust, unorganized DVDs, and randomly strewn laundry nipped at my borderline obsessive cleaning tendencies.
My day at Pins had at least, while embarrassing the shit out of me, warmed me up to the people I’d be working with until I found another job. Slim had finished up with a customer and sat down on the edge of my desk, crossing one leg over the other like I’d seen him do while sitting at his station alone. I liked this crossing-his-leg thing he had going on.
“Iris, right?” he asked.
I nodded, smiling just a little. “Yeah.”
“First time working at a tattoo place?” He’d smoothed his hand over the longish red hair that curled at the ends.
For some strange reason, I felt comfortable around this guy from the get-go and it might have been his crazy natural red hair, the Harry Potter lightning bolt he had tattooed right smack behind his ear, or the fact that he crossed his legs, but I’m not positive so I blabbed. “My fourth time in a tattoo parlor, but don’t tell anyone.” I bugged my eyes out.
He sucked in a sharp intake of breath and if it wouldn’t have been for the amused grin on his face, I would’ve worried he thought I sucked as a human being or something. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
Slim had shifted his hips to face me more comfortably, one leg still tossed over the other, the coy fish tattoo on his forearm right in front of my face. “No tats?”
I shook my head, a little embarrassed.
“Piercings?”
My face flamed, but I shook my head anyway. “Do my earlobes and cartilage count?”
The grin on his face spread so wide I thought it’d be painful. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” The infectious grin contaminated me. "How many do you have?"
"Not that many." Slim pointed at the wide gauges stretching his earlobes. "Two." He stuck his tongue out. "Three." Luckily, he just pointed at the right side of his chest. "Four."
My eyes went wide.
"Blake! How many piercings do you have?" he yelled, trying to get Blake's attention from the other side of the divider.
"Seven!"
Slim nodded. "Blue doesn't count because she has at least ten, and I think Dex only has three now." He tipped his chin up, giving me a teasing smile. "You should think about getting one." He paused. "Or three."
I put my palms up and shrugged. "Maybe." I almost told him I had been thinking about getting something, but I kept my mouth closed.
He slowly got to his feet, patting around his back pocket. "I'm gonna go get a sub from the deli next door. Want something?"
"No thanks." What a nice guy.
"Blake, you want something from Sal's?" he asked.
"Six inches," was his initial reply before adding something like "salami" at the end of his request.
I didn't hear that though because that was when I did it.