Page 7 of Love at First Ink

But maybe she had been too hasty in her decision on getting a tattoo. She couldn’t recall what possessed her to tell her sister about her secret desire, but she did, and now she was in this situation.

Marisol knew she looked odd, standing outside the tattoo shop, clutching her purse like a weapon. She looked between the shop and her car, her body unsure which way she should go. The phone in her pocket buzzed before a decision could bemade, and she reflexively reached for it. She wasn’t at all surprised to see her sister’s name pop up.

You better not chicken out. It’s already been paid for. Think of it as a present from your niece and nephew.

Well, when she put it like that…

Times like these, Marisol wished she had a group of girlfriends to push her out of her comfort zone. Lola was the closest thing she had to a friend, but there was still so much trauma separating the sisters that couldn’t be repaired overnight. Their hangouts usually took place at rage rooms where they could break shit and feel better about it.

But Marisol was trying to prove she could be an independent woman who could think and make decisions for herself, and getting this damn tattoo was the first hurdle.

She could do this.

Taking a deep breath, Marisol pushed open the doors to Golden City Tattoos and stepped inside—only to collide with a petite teenage girl.

The girl raised an eyebrow and smirked. “I thought you were going to stand out there all day. I was just about to come check on you.”

Well, that’s embarrassing. She hadn’t realized anyone was watching her freak out, and she silently thanked the heavens she didn’t go back and forth from her car to the shop like she really wanted to.

“I guess I’m a little nervous.” She tried to convince herself it wasn’t actually a big deal, and she most definitely wasn’t about to bow out now.

“You don’t say,” the teenager said, deadpan. “You must be C’s twelve o’clock. What’s your name?”

“Marisol,” she said automatically.

The girl nodded, went back behind the counter and clicked a few buttons on her keyboard. Finding whatever she was looking for on the computer, the girl nodded again. “So, looks like your sister called or something? Do you, like, have an idea of what you want to do?”

Marisol had a few ideas, but no reference pictures, and she lacked the words to properly describe what she wanted. She should have had something ready, but she hadn’t honestly thought she would actually get to this point.

“Do you have something I could look at?” Surely they’d have a book of designs or something like her sister mentioned.

The teenager nodded. “Yeah, it’s right over here.” She gestured to a large black book at the end of the counter.

Marisol nodded and noticed the girl’s name tag:Lyanawith the wordTinyin parentheses. “Erm, thanks.”

“Sure. Tell me when you find something you like. Then I’ll tell C you’re waiting on him.” Lyana plopped back down on her chair and focused on her computer again, leaving Marisol to search privately.

She picked up the large book and settled onto a couch near the desk. Her sudden entrance into the shop had left her no time to take in her surroundings. Now, as she looked around, the receptionist area reminded her of a speakeasy. The room was dimly lit, with deep purple walls, black artwork, and a low-hanging black chandelier adorned with faux red candles. Despite the dark decor, the atmosphere wasn’t eerie or gaudy. Marisol felt surprisingly at ease.

Soft rock music played through the speaker—a band she would never admit to liking but had discovered recently while listening to a local radio station. The soft rasp from the leadsinger scratched her brain perfectly, and she took an instant liking to it.

Marisol crossed her legs and balanced the book on her lap. She slowly flipped through the pages. It was easy to spot designs she didn’t like. Most with skulls, large animals, or super-intricate and time-consuming designs were not her style. She also didn’t want something big that would take up her entire thigh—which was where she settled on getting it. It would be covered by her clothes, even the tiny skirts she had in the back of her closet. If a bit of the tattoo peeked out, she’d just be sure to wear jeans or longer dresses around her parents.

The more she flipped through the pages, the more confused and overwhelmed she got. She felt Lyana’s eyes on her, silently telling her to hurry up. But every design she thought she loved, she would either find something small that bugged her about it or second-guess herself to the point where she ended up hating the tattoo altogether.

A floral design was a safe bet, but did she really want flowers for her first tattoo? Maybe as accents, but not the entire piece. There wasn’t anything wrong with a floral tattoo, but it seemed too cliché to have as her first. She wanted something with a little more story behind it. She also liked the cute characters based on her favorite childhood movies, but she didn’t much want to look down and see a character she loved when she was five on her thigh.

Marisol was losing hope fast and nearly closed the book until she came to the final few pages. Her fingers hesitated before tracing the design on the page. It was of a woman’s bust, but not any woman. This was a sprite or maybe a fairy goddess. Her hair was composed of long, beautiful strands that turned into flowers and twigs. Her hand reached out, holding something that looked similar to a planet. Earth, perhaps. She wasbeautiful, but more than that, the goddess was fierce and confident, all the things Marisol pretended to be. And maybe one day she could be—just like the woman on the page.

“I want this one,” she said. Her voice was the most stable and certain it had been since she entered the shop.

Lyana pushed herself away from her desk and rolled over to her in the chair. She looked down at the piece Marisol settled on and nodded. “Oh, nice. That one has been in there forever. I’ve been dying to see it.”

Having Lyana like the tattoo filled her with a newfound confidence and solidified her decision. “Yeah, I really like it.”

“Black or color?”

“Hmm?”

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