Page 1 of The Devil's Tattoo
Chapter1
Wanderingdown the clogged Melbourne city street, I smiled when I heard the docile tones of a busker playing a cover of The Doors’ song ‘Riders on theStorm.’
Crossing the flow of foot traffic, my grin widened when I caught sight of my best friend, Dee. He was standing at his favorite busking spot, guitar in hand, playing to a group of pretty girls who’d stopped to check him out.Typical.
When he saw me coming, he winked. I hung back, waiting as he finished playing to hisadoringfans.
When he was done, he set down his guitar and wiggled his eyebrows at me, making my cheeks flush as the group of girls glared with unmasked jealousy. “Hey,hotlegs.”
“’Sup, Dee, making any cash today?” I nudged his open guitar case with the toe of my scuffedcombatboot.
Pointing to the blue velvet interior, he said, “There are a couple of tenners in there, Zo Zo. The people have been showing me the love.I’m too hot tohandle.”
He threw an arm around me, tugged on my hair, and planted a kiss on my cheek. I breathed in his familiar scent of leather and musk as I pushed him off with a playful shove. I had long, dark-brown hair that hit my lower back, and wearing it in a braid was better than brushing it most days when I rolled out of bed at five a.m.forwork.
Dee and I have been best friends since our first year of high school when we were both twelve, and time had done nothing but solidify our friendship. Back then, we were both awkward outcasts, and we just fit together when we didn’t fit anywhere else. We ended up in different classes but still managed to hang out every chance we got. Now we were both twenty-four, and I couldn’t remember a week going by where I didn’t speak to him. I can’t even remember us having a fight that lasted more than anafternoon.
The brisk mid-afternoon Melbourne swelled around us along with the sickly-sweet smell of the natural cosmetics and soap shop Dee was currently out front of. How he managed to sweet-talk the girls in there to plug in his amp for free, I’ll never know. I’d bet anyone a million bucks that they all have an epic crushonhim.
Dee busked here almost every day. He was the die-hard musician type—always on the lookout for his big break into stardom—with the charisma to match. Truthfully, he earned a bucketload playing for strangers on the street, but that’s the reality of being Dee. The awkward kid from high school grew up to be a smooth-talking, handsome, tattooed man.When the hell did thathappen?
“You off work for today?” he asked, propping his guitar against the shopfront.
“Yeah,” I said, burying my hands into the pockets of my leather bikerjacket.
I worked in the mailroom of a building on William Street—the business end of the city—for the past year and a half, sorting letters and packages for a law firm. It wasn’t glamorous, not like the hairdressing job I’d quit before it, but they didn’t care what I wore or that I had an arm full of tattoos as long as I did my job and exited by the side door. They learned quick smart that I put my head down and worked. For what must be the first time in history, they rewarded me with a slackeneddresscode.
“Wanna play with me? I’ll take vocals,” heasked.
“Hell,no.”
The last two years had been hard, and everything had taken a massive hit, including my confidence. The only thing that kept me on the up and up was my guitar. I just couldn’t face the world anymore—resulting in me quitting my old job, cutting ties with everything I once was, and moving to the other side of the city—and the only one who stuck around was Dee. He gave me his beat-up black Stratocaster to practice on, promising it would take my mind off all the bullshit that had happened, and he was right on themoney.
I played every day, getting blisters on my fingers from nutting out some silly chord progression that should have been simple until I got it. I moved onto harder things and worked those out on my own too, and soon enough, life got a little easier, as well. I still hid from the world in my own shell, but I didn’t dwell on those thingsasmuch.
As I got better and better with the guitar, I decided to buy my own and give Dee’s back. I now had a matte black Epiphone Les Paul with a pedal collection to rival Jack White’s, and Dee was jealous as hell. He still tried to get me to busk with him, and I still declined, but it had become a running joke now.Hey, Zo, wanna play with me?Hell,no.
Dee laughed and shook his head. “One day, I’ll have you up there on a bloody stage,chicken.”
“In your dreams,buddy.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at me again. “I have the best dreams. Wannahearone?”
“Ugh.” I screwed up my face in disgust. “Nothanks.”
He bent down and started collecting the coins and notes from his case. “I’m cutting it early today. Are yougoinghome?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Do you wanna go get a drinklater?”
“Sure. Anything to spend time with a hotwoman.”
With a mouth like that, it was no wonder girls fell over themselves when he was around. “You’ll never get a girlfriend if you keep flirting with me like that. You know I’m adeadend.”
“If I’m still single at forty, I’m proposingtoyou.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as I went to retrieve the other end of the amp’s powercord. “Deal.”
After Dee was done blowing kisses to the girls in the shop, we walked the three blocks down to Flinders Street to catch the train home—Dee with his guitar and case full of shrapnel and me with the amp. It was only a small thing that weighed next to nothing, so I didn’t mind carrying it to thestation.
