I held the pencil firmly in my mouth between my teeth, straightening the design I had just drawn up in the scanner. After so many years in the business, the loud hustle and bustle of a tattoo parlor didn’t affect my concentration any longer. I took a little pride in that — my ability to work through the kind of conditions that would throw most people off their game.

Besides, was worth it. For every shitty client I had, there were a hundred good ones. I got to spend my day drawing up skulls and dragons and, on occasion, the kind of weird stuff that a layperson would refuse to believe anybody would want permanently on their body.

As far as I was concerned, there was no finer job anywhere.

Mark called out from across the store. “You got that scaled down yet, Jack?”

“Give me half a minute. Shit.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have to do it for me if you’d just hire a goddamn apprentice.”

“You kidding? I spend more than enough time babysitting you.”

I winked at the kid Oscar had waiting on his chair. He looked like he had only just hit twenty-one, and here he was sweating into our black faux leather as Oscar freehanded a shark on his bicep.

“First tattoo?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. It wasn’t like I needed that answer. You could tell from the look on his face that he had no idea what this was going to feel like. I wondered how he’d looked when he confidently assured all his friends what he was going to get. For someone like me, covered almost head-to-toe in ink ranging from world-class to shitty, early self-inking practice? First-timers were kind of funny. I had to remind myself that I’d been in that position once.

Well. Maybe not sweating quite so badly.

“You’ll be fine,” I told him, keying new sizing options into the machine. “Although I have to say, you’re not starting in the shallow end, huh?”

“No, sir,” he said. At least he sounded pretty self-assured. “Gotta go big or go home.”

“Atta boy.” As I waited for the machine to print the new template, I took a few steps over to examine Oscar’s work. “Hey. Looks good.”

“Yeah?” said Oscar, turning over his shoulder to look at me. “Thanks. I had a good prompt to work with.”

“What’d you ask for?”

“Possessed shark,” said the first-timer. “With a trident in its side.”

“Damn,” I said, taking one last look before heading back to the machine. “I wish I had room for one of Oscar’s sharks. Biggest free patch I’ve got is about two square inches.”

“Where’d it hurt worst?”

I smirked as I took the template off the machine. “Eh. I forget. Might’ve been the right bicep...”

To his credit, he wasn’t too nervous to recognize a joke. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks, asshole.”

I laughed, heading back over to Mark.

“By the way,” said Oscar, lowering his voice. “It’s the nipples. Don’t even fucking think about it, kid. I’m serious. I have very few regrets in my life and that was one of them.”

Mark gave a tight smile as I approached with the new template, pushing his glasses up his nose as he reached out for the paper. He was blind as a bat without them, but I tried not to think about that, not knowing why it was. Anyway, he was such a serious-natured guy that it was practically his version of a bawdy laugh. “About time, boss.”

“See,” I said to the client lying face-down on his chair. “He thinks he’s smart, calling me boss and getting me to do all his bitch work.”

“But he does it anyway,” said Mark. “Imagine that.”

I flipped him the bird, heading back up to the desk to wait for my eleven a.m. appointment. Outside, the light morning rain was finally easing up. That’d make for a nicer walk out at lunchtime if it held up, but you couldn’t count on that in April. At least I could count on the guys in here making fun of me for whatever food I came back with. If I had a dollar for every time they introduced me as ‘the only vegan alpha in the continental US’ then… well. I wouldn’t be paying for my bean rice today, at the very least.

Still, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. They were the world, in a sense. No alpha could be anything without his pack, and for the past sixteen years they had been all that was left of mine. Mark was like a little brother to me. Though he was a talented artist now, and legally an adult at age twenty-three, I still couldn’t look at him without seeing the scrawny six-year-old I knew back then. Couldn’t forget the fear of not knowing whether or not he’d pull through. I’d never really know whether that seriousness of his was innate, or whether the difficulties in his early life had made him that way.

Whichever it was, I didn’t think either of us would have managed without Oscar. He was a pretty passive guy. As soon as Mark was old enough to take up the mantle, Oscar had passed on the title of second-in-command right over to him — not that there was much need for strict pack hierarchy in a tiny group like this. Without his solid and steady guidance, I was pretty sure I’d have rage-quit even trying to secure a license for this business. Of course, if he agreed, you’d never know about it. For as much as we all teased each other here, back and forth, Oscar was filled with quiet respect. Sometimes I wondered whether he missed the broadness and support of a traditional, big pack. Whether his loyalty to me was holding him back from finding a new one, and the happiness that came with it.

Being their alpha was a burden in some ways — but it was also the greatest honor of my life. To have wolves like these following me, I knew I had to be doing something right.

Even if fate hadn’t always been on my side.

“All right,” I said, as that eleven a.m. client showed up just on time. “A-plus for punctuality. Let me show you what I’ve drawn up.”

By the time I finished up inking up his thigh with a lovingly rendered portrait of Bert and Ernie, it was well into the afternoon, and about time for me to head out. I acknowledged the pangs of hunger, and picked up my jacket from the stand. “All right,” I called out. “Lunch break. Mark, man the desk. Anybody want anything while I’m out? That includes you,” I said, gesturing to the shark kid in Oscar’s chair. “Since you’re sitting like a champ.”

There was no better compliment you could give a nervous kid on his own. I could practically see him grow a few inches taller in the chair. “If you’re getting coffee?”

“How d’you take it?”

“Flat white?”

“Here we go,” said Oscar, under his breath.

“Are you cool with soy milk?” I asked, ignoring Oscar. “I don’t buy animal products.”

“Sure,” said the kid. As far as I could tell, he had no idea what soy milk was. Fine by me; I couldn’t be bothered to explain. “Thanks.”

“You’re going to poison my client with your shitty coffee.”

“I’m sure he won’t taste a difference.”

“You know,” said the kid, cutting in. “I thought I heard tattoo inks weren’t vegan one time.”

“Not ours,” I said – at the exact same time as Oscar, doing a frustratingly good impression of me. I threw him a withering look. “Some inks do use non-vegan colorants, but I make a point of buying brands that don’t.”

“Huh. Cool.”

“Please don’t encourage him,” said Oscar, sitting up stiff-backed up to pull a long, straight line. “He’ll try and convert you. It’s a plague.”

“I’ll pay for half your tattoo if you swear to try it for a month.”

“He’s kidding,” said Oscar.

“Am I?” I shrugged. “We’ll see. Oscar. Mark. Want anything?” Seeing only shaking heads, I headed to the door. “For the record, you’re all missing out. I could be bringing you the best hummus in Seattle thirty minutes from now.”

“The thing is,” said Mark, settling at the desk with that serious voice of his. “The best hummus in Seattle is still hummus.”

“Your loss!”

I headed out into the light rain, shoving my hands into my pockets against the cool air. I’d never get through the day if it wasn’t for this back-and-forth. Frankly, I had a pretty happy life here. I didn’t miss animal products from my diet, no matter how my pack might mock me for it — and I didn’t miss having a partner, either.

There were an awful lot of implications around that an alpha could only be happy with an omega in tow. Of course, I’d done my fair share of screwing around over the years when the need got too strong, but that was just sex. The long-term commitment that you were supposed to long for? Well, I’d never really felt a need for that. By this point in my life, I was pretty sure it was bogus — a lie fed to people to keep them searching for something that was nearly impossible to find. Sure, I knew of people who had fallen head over heels in love, and who had found happiness like that.

I knew far more who’d endured anger and betrayal and misery.

Far as I could see? It just wasn’t worth it.

Not that I wanted it anyway.

One trip to my favorite vegan cafe later, I slipped back into SeaTac Tat — two coffees in a tray in one hand, and a bag containing my veggie burger in the other. Heaven in a recyclable cardboard tray.

“One coffee,” I said, handing shark boy his drink. I watched carefully for any signs of disgust, as did Oscar — but if he didn’t like the taste of soy coffee, then he had a damn good poker face to pull over it. I liked this kid. “Enjoy.”

“Yeah, it’s great. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. How’s your afternoon looking, Mark?”

“I have a couple of quick appointments later. Free for walk-ins until then — although if you’re going to eat that near me...”

“What? It’s just a burger.”

He sat back down in the reception chair. “Okay, good. I thought it might be the mushroom biryani again.”

“Their mushroom biryani is better than anything you’ve ever eaten.”

“Well, maybe, but it smells like a corpse.”

I snorted, heading out to the kitchen to plate my food up.

“What about you, Jack? Appointments today?”

“I had a 4pm, but she canceled. Guess I’m open to walk-ins too, if they’re interesting.”

“Shop owners can’t be choosers.”

I poked my head out of the kitchen to wag my finger at him. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. That’s what I love about this place. If I don’t like it, I’m not going to do it. End of fucking story. When some asshole comes in wanting his name on his reluctant girlfriend’s neck? Nobody’s getting fired for saying ‘hell no’.”

“That happens?” asked the shark kid, lifting his head up in surprise.

The three of us answered in unison. “Yep.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Mark, folding his arms. “But you can’t turn everybody down. Won’t make any money that way.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I just like having the option. I’m not built for doing as I’m told.”

“You’re an alpha,” said Oscar. “Isn’t that the point?”

“I guess you’re right.”

I was heading back out with my burger when a miserable-looking guy approached Mark at the desk. “Man, you’ve got to help me.”

“Who’s following you?”

The newcomer gave Mark an odd look. “Nobody,” he said. “But you’re Mark Colby, right?”

“That’s me.”

I rested my plate on the counter, interested to see what he needed.

“My buddy Carol told me you’re known for doing cover-ups.”

That was true. Although he was a very young artist, Mark had a natural gift for cover-up work. Something in him was just good at solving the puzzle of how best to camouflage an old design inside a new one — exactly what sizes, shapes and colors he’d need to mask a bad decision, even once it healed and started fading. This guy had come to the right place.

Mark nodded. “Uh-huh. What you got?”

The guy pulled up his chest to reveal a very ugly, very large graffiti-style name. Emily.

“Yikes,” said Mark.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “My girlfriend’s name is Violet. And she’s coming home this evening.”

Mark and I exchanged a look.

“Listen,” he said, dropping his shirt and holding up a hand. “I didn’t do anything. I was just thinking about my ex a lot last night. I was really drunk. I guess I was talking about how she broke my heart. My buddy is learning how to tattoo, so...”

“So that happened,” I said, nodding at his chest. “Show us again?”

He did. Both Mark and I winced.

“Please,” he said. “Can you help me, or not?”

Mark turned to me. “Jack. You want to take my appointments? Only little ones.”

“Sure. You go ahead.”

The color started returning to Violet’s boyfriend’s face. “Thank God. Shit. I don’t even care how much or what you put there. Let’s just get it covered.”

They disappeared into the back room, apparently out of some vague concern that ‘Violet has friends with tattoos’. With no walk-ins to occupy my time, the afternoon crawled by — right up until the bell rang. One of Mark’s appointments must have arrived.

I turned to face the front.

At our door stood a real tall glass of milk (definitely soy). Blond and wiry and effortlessly well-kept, he brushed his hair back into shape now that he’d stepped in out of the wind. He looked like another first-timer if I ever saw one. Tattoos weren’t a taboo thing any more, and lots of different kinds of people had them these days. I knew that better than anybody — but nothing about this guy told me that he had ink, or that he would even want any.

Maybe he could be persuaded to want something else.

“All right,” I said, swooping a hand through my hair. Best foot forward. I cared about all of my clients, but… well. Who could help caring a little extra about a client that looked like this? “Welcome to SeaTac Tat. How can I help you today?”