Cole
“So, this is your first tattoo?” I asked the beautiful redhead fidgeting nervously in front of me. She pushed her curly red hair out of her face and looked at me with her moss green eyes.
Her skin was porcelain, untouched, unblemished. Her eyes were innocent and inexperienced, but there was a nervousness there that hinted at something deeper than just being anxious about talking to someone about a tattoo. She blushed at my question.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I told her. “Everyone with a tattoo has to have a first one.”
“I know, but I don’t know what I want. I know I want to do something, but that’s about as much as I’ve planned,” she admitted with a nervous giggle.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s sit down and take a look at some flash to see if we can get you an idea of what you want.”
I started to walk her over to a bench near my workstation, where I had a couple of binders of work I had done, and a flash I had drawn for the shop. We sat down next to each other, and she briefly brushed my arm with her hand as she reached for the binder that I had pulled down. Her touch was electric, sending ripples of pure desire through my body. I cleared my throat to mask my real reaction to her.
“I’ll just be over here,” her friend said, almost as an afterthought, stepping over to the opposite wall to look at the flash art that reached up to the ceiling. Lilah barely looked up to acknowledge her before returning her attention to the binder in her lap.
“Where do I even start?” she asked me.
I couldn’t believe my luck. There was a gorgeous, tiny redhead sitting next to me in my tattoo parlor. She’d never gotten a tattoo before, and she was asking for my advice. It had to be a dream. There was no way my luck was that good. No way. She pushed her hair back again, and I caught a glimpse of her fair neck and shoulders. Her skin was a blank canvas unmarked by tattoos, scars, or even freckles.
She turned her head and looked at me with those big green eyes of hers. Her gaze shocked me back out of my head. I shifted my weight and dared to put an arm along the back of the bench, behind her.
“A lot of people choose something that has meaning for them,” I explained to her.
“No offense, but butterflies, hearts, and dragons don’t really hold any meaning for me,” she murmured.
“No one is saying you have to get one of these. Flash art works for a lot of people and, for some, it helps them get a better idea of what they want, even if they don’t choose one of these. Think of it as a conversation starter.”
“It’s definitely worked for that, hasn’t it?” She steered her eyes toward me and gave a suggestive little smirk.
She was perfect. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to pick anything out right away, and I was fine with that. With her perfect skin, I wanted her to make sure her first tattoo was exactly what she wanted before I put it on her. She had seemed so nervous and almost scared at first, but she was starting to warm up to me. If she knew she wanted a tattoo, I wanted her to also know there was really nothing to be nervous about.
“It has. So, tell me a little bit about yourself. What made you decide to get a tattoo in the first place?” I sat back, turning my attention completely away from the binder and giving it all to her.
“I decided it’s finally time, you know?” I could tell from her tone that she had experienced a crucial change in her life to want to get inked.
“What happened?” I asked, following her lead.
“Are you sure you want to go into my life’s story?” She looked at me with skeptical eyes.
“As much as you feel comfortable telling. Whatever will help us decide what you want to wear on your body. Your first tattoo can be the most important one. It can remind you of why you got it in the first place and why you chose to get more, or it can remind you of that time you made a rash decision and did something you later thought was pretty stupid. I, personally, would like you to look back on it as the moment you turned your life around,” I explained, trying to encourage her.
It didn’t hurt that I wanted to hear everything she had to say. We were sitting on a bench in my shop, and it was a pretty busy evening. Several needles were humming at the same time. People were talking in the front. Gina had the music up a little louder than usual, possibly to drown out all the talking in the front as people waited on their friends or tried to decide on what to get. But the beautiful redhead next to me, Lilah, could have been the only person in the room. I wasn’t going to let her get away without either making a decision or promising to come back after thinking about it a bit.
“I recently got divorced,” she said. The words fell out of her mouth like she was trying to say them all at once before she decided not to tell me anything.
Then, I remembered that I had to say something else. I had been on the edge of getting lost in her beauty when she spoke. Her voice brought me back, but it took me a moment to find the words.
“Okay, that’s a start. Do you want to tell me more about the divorce? Why does the divorce make you want a tattoo?” If she already had tattoos, it would have made perfect sense to get something new to commemorate that change in her life, but something had to have changed with the divorce to make her want her first tattoo.
She took a deep breath, and then she told me all about her ex-husband and their son. “He has him every other weekend, but begrudgingly, you know? I think he only takes him because he knows I can’t stand letting him see Micah at all.”
She told me about how he was controlling and manipulative and had made it known that anything slightly out of the norm wouldn’t fly with him. Of course, talking to someone with as much ink as I had, his definition of norm was very different from mine. I lived in a world of tattoos, piercings, and body modifications of all kinds.
“Did he have any tattoos?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “None. He thought they looked trashy.”
“Do you think they look trashy?” I held out one of my arms so she could look at the work I’d had done on my sleeve. It wasn’t complete – since I wasn’t going to fill my arm in just to say I’d done it.
“I’ve seen people with trashy tattoos, but I’ve seen people with amazing tattoos like yours. There’s something free and liberating about them, I think, and that’s why I want to get one. I’m finally free to live life on my terms, so it’s time to start doing it. The tattoo is going to be my first act of independence,” she said confidently.
“Now you’re speaking my language,” I cheered. She was fresh blood and appeared like she’d lived a sheltered life, but she seemed ready to venture out of her comfort zone. Talking about finding her independence and being liberated made her sound a lot like people who wound up in the MC. I wondered how the hell I got so lucky.
“Everything in my life has been so prescribed, you know? I went to school, went to college, got married, had a kid. I worked until Micah was born, and then my ex told me I didn’t have to go back to work, which, for him, meant that he didn’t want me to. Now I’m working again and trying to adjust to being a single parent. I did everything I was supposed to do, everything that was expected of me, and here I am,” she gushed.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a librarian. I work full-time at the library. It’s what I did before Micah was born, so I went right back to it when I was released from being a housewife.”
“So, you’re the lady who sits behind the big desk and shushes people,” I said with a chuckle. Man, if she’s the librarian, I need to start going to the library more.
“Hey, now, there are other duties, but yeah, pretty much. Doesn’t that sound exciting?” She clapped her hands in mock excitement.
“Libraries are important,” I told her. “You’re fighting the good fight by working there.”
“Thanks. I do love it, in general, but when I look back at the choices I’ve made, it’s just another quiet, safe decision that doesn’t make any ripples, in my life or anyone else’s. I want to make some ripples.”
There was a fire in her eyes when she looked at me. There was a wild streak in her, and she wanted desperately to let it out. I wanted to be the one to let it out for her. I wanted to help her and guide her. So what if she had a kid? Kids were alright. I could deal with a boy. She may have thought her life was boring, but I could tell she wasn’t.
“We can definitely make some ripples,” I told her.
I took away the binder of flash art and opened the binder of work I’d done and turned to a photo of a quote I’d tattooed on someone’s side. It was a paragraph they’d pulled from a book. There were a few different variations of the same theme on that page, and I hoped she’d find something she liked there. I’d never wanted to impress a woman so badly.
“Oh, wow,” she said as soon as she saw it.
“I don’t remember the author or the book – something I’d never heard of. And come to think of it, I meant to read it after they told me. Guess I should have gone to the library to pick it up, huh?”
She blushed. Score. She didn’t say anything in response, but she looked over the pictures of the passages and quotes I’d done like she was finally starting to get an idea of what she might want.
“I was thinking maybe you’d like something like this – a meaningful passage that you feel maybe represents you, this stage of your life, or whatever.”
“I don’t know,” she said with reluctance. “Maybe I should have thought this through a little more.” I saw she was starting to get overwhelmed again, just as she had been outside. I knew if I didn’t make a move, she was going to leave, and I’d never see her again.
“Well, if you need more time to think about it, I understand. If you’d like, we could get together sometime and talk about it. Maybe over coffee or a few drinks?” I suggested.
She looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take up too much of your time. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I really should be going,” she said, her words coming out frantically, as she shoved the binder into my hands and got up from the bench.
By the time I closed the binder and stood up to follow her, she was out the door. Her friend was right behind her, hurrying to catch up and shooting me a nasty look. I had been too eager, and it had cost me not only a customer but a chance with the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.
A handful of eyes in the shop turned to me. I just shrugged and put the binders back in their spot along the wall. As I started back towards my workstation, I noticed a small purse sitting on the floor underneath the bench. I hadn’t noticed that she’d been carrying a purse when she came in, but I knew it was hers in that inexplicable way that everything just makes sense sometimes.