Page 18 of Aries

“Oh, no. I’m not getting anything,” I said, shaking my head.

“You can,” Gael said.

“But I’d never be able to decide what I wanted,” I said. The truth was, I’d thought about it a lot. Some of the people I went to art school with were covered in tattoos, not as many as the people in here, but it also made me wonder if I would. In the end, my mind settled on never doing it because I couldn’t make a firm decision.

Ricardo pursed his lips and hummed. “You’re lucky,” he said. “Once you start, you can’t stop.”

I’d heard that a lot, and I didn’t want to be covered in anything permanent. The hickeys seemed quite permanent currently, but I knew they’d slowly vanish, and I was going to enjoy documenting their color journey on my skin while they did.

Once Gael started tattooing, the zip-zapping sound of the tattoo gun went through me. I could only look at it for a moment at a time before backing away with shivers travelling through me. I took a moment away from Gael’s side to explore the shop. There were two others tattooing at the same time in their cozy booths.

A woman with a tattoo on the side of her shaved head was sitting in front of the window. She looked up at me, catching my eye and smiled. “Hi,” she said, closing her sketchbook. “You must be Ash. I’m Jenny.”

“Word travels fast,” I said.

“Kelly is just a gossip.” She patted the spot beside her. “Besides, Gael stopped introducing us to guys he was screwing like two years ago.”

I sat beside her. “Oh.”

“I don’t think it’s for anything bad,” she said. “It’s probably more because of how annoying we were. Don’t worry, I won’t interrogate you.”

“Go for it,” I said, shrugging. “What do you want to know?”

“Age, net worth, and intentions with Gael.”

I stuttered to start, like she’d short-circuited my tongue and brain. “I’m 28,” I said. “And I do well for myself. As for Gael, I think we both have the same intention. We’re looking for fun.”

“What’s your star sign?”

“Um. I’m a Leo, why?”

She wiggled her brows at me. “Gael is an Aries, that’s a fire sign. You’re also a fire sign.”

“So?” I hadn’t been one to pay attention to zodiac signs and horoscopes before. “What does that mean to you?”

“To me?” she asked, placing a hand on her chest. “Absolutely nothing. But to both of you, everything. You’re gonna have a lot of fun together. Lots of passion, and you’ll both burn bright.”

I shrugged. “Oh.”

“Obviously, there’s probably more to it than just surface level, but the general vibe of it is going to be—fun.” Her gaze settled on the exposed hickeys on my neck. “And for what it’s worth, Gael is a great guy. He deserves someone nice, and someone who is easy-going.”

I found myself wanting to defend my qualities. I was nice and easy-going, but did that mean I was actively pursuing a relationship with Gael. We’d only fucked twice, and both of those times had rocked my entire world, but it wasn’t like any of this was planned. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her.

“Word is that you’re also an artist,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ve had a couple galleries show my work. I can show you some if you like, it’s mostly on the internet anyway.”

It was strange, I rarely got excited about showing my art anymore. But around these creatives, it was warranted, they were excited about art in a way that didn’t want me to get a melon baller and scoop my eyes out.

I showed Jenny my art through photos on the internet. She didn’t say a word, only gasp and coo. Those were the expressions I enjoyed, not an immediate spouting of intellectual bullshit-ism that critics came out with seconds after viewing a piece.

This place offered so much relief from the outside, I wondered if that was any draw people saw from getting tattoos. The temporary side effect of being around people who were genuinely interested in the art and skills it took to create.

Once Jenny’s client arrived, I headed back to Gael to see more of his process. It looked painful, for both him and Ricardo. Ricardo’s skin turned right, and rightly so it was being jabbed by a needle at the speed of light—or whatever.

“It must hurt your hand, right?” I asked him, trying to remember the feeling of using a vibrating toy on myself and how it left my hand with a strange sensation once I’d finished.

“That’s why I have good hand exercises,” he said. “If you want, I can show you what I mean later. I’m sure you’d love to take advantage of them.”

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