We work for the rest of the afternoon. Her on some new client work that she has due soon and me on prepping everything for tonight. I make my own guacamole and queso, then move on to making taco shells.
It’s starting to get late and Sayler puts her laptop away and pulls over the iPad and little card reader that we use to collect payments.
“Are you staying to help?” I ask her and she nods.
“Yeah, I have a feeling that you’ll be busy. Besides, maybe your tattooed hottie will come by and I can see if he has any friends.”
She gives me a wink and I laugh, passing her another taco as our first customer of the night comes up to the counter.
THREE
Harvey
“It looks so hot, right?”Sally, or Susan, asks as I finish up with her lower back tattoo.
“Totally,” I say unenthusiastically.
Sharon, or whatever her name is, giggles, wiggling slightly and I try to hold in my sigh as I stop tattooing her yet again. This girl, whose name I could swear starts with an S, can’t stop moving. She whined and shifted for this whole freaking session and when she wasn’t whining, she was trying to flirt with me.
I’m used to this.
I’ve never been that interested in dating. Being a tattoo artist always attracts the girls looking for a fling with a “bad boy” and working at a tattoo shop called Eye Candy Ink might actually encourage it more. I know that most of the women that walk through the door are only interested in a fling and I didn’t want that. I want the real thing. I want love.
I finish the last of the shading and turn off my tattoo machine, grabbing the ointment and bandages so that I can get what’s-her-name out of here.
This is my last client and I can hear the other tattoo artists getting ready to close up and head home too. I drove Rooney and I to work again today so I know that he’ll be hanging around until I’m done. I wonder if I can convince him to grab some dinner from The Culinerdy Cruiser.
I haven’t been able to get Coraline out of my mind. Her food had been delicious but it had been my reaction to her that had stuck with me for the last twenty-four hours. I even dreamed of her last night.
“You’re all set,” I tell my client as I snap off my gloves and stand from my chair.
She takes her sweet time standing up from the table and gathering her purse from the chair in the corner. She bends over, giving me a good look at the bandage above her ass and I roll my eyes, turning away from her and stepping out into the hallway.
Rooney, Gray, and Banks are all cleaning up the front waiting area and I lead my client up there, hurrying through the payment process. Gray offers to walk her to her car for me and I give him a grateful smile as he leads her out.
Rooney and Banks follow me down the hall to my room and lean in the doorway as I clean up the mess from my last tattoo.
“Did she ask for your number?” Rooney asks as I wipe down the table and I roll my eyes.
“No.”
“Did she offer you hers?” Banks asks and I flip him off as he laughs.
Banks, Rooney, and I have been friends since birth. Our parents are all super close and they all worked at the original Eye Candy Ink tattoo shop. Uncle Mischa, Rooney’s dad, and Uncle Nico, Banks’ dad, still work over at the other location.
Banks’ real name is actually Zeke but with our uncle Zeke, it got too confusing. We used to tease him, asking him if he was the street artist Banksy. We could never prove it either way and since we needed a nickname, Banksy was shortened to Banks.
I finish cleaning my room and grab my backpack, trailing after Rooney and Banks as we head up front. Gray is back, typing away on his phone. He’s probably texting Nora, his roommate and best friend. Those two are inseparable… and perfect for each other, although neither of them seems able to see that.
“You guys want to grab a late bite to eat?” Banks asks as he digs his keys out of his pocket.
“Yeah, I’m headed over there,” I say, pointing across the street to the food truck.
“To see your girl or to grab something to eat?” Rooney asks and I grin at him.
“Can’t it be both? You know how I love to multi-task.”
Everyone laughs at that. I’m a notoriously horrible multitasker. I just like to concentrate on one thing at a time so I can make sure that I’ve done it perfectly. It does make things hard though. I mean, I can barely walk and talk sometimes.