Nerves fought to take over as I set up my station and pulled all the sanitary packets from the cabinet.
I was tattooing my very first client today. Frankie and some of the other artists had pretty selflessly let me practice on them a few times, and I'd obviously practiced on myself, but working on a client was different. I didn't exactly think I'd fuck it up, but unlike what I liked to spout, it wasn't an absolute certainty that I'd be good at it.
My black mood probably wasn't helping things either.
"You ready?" Frankie asked, popping into the private room I was setting up in. My first client was a woman named Kristen. She'd come into the shop a week or so ago wanting some kind of custom book quote, and Frankie insisted this was the time. While he was a guru of portrait work, he felt like I had a gift for lettering.
Go figure. My everyday handwriting was shit.
"As I'll ever be," I answered with the best smile I could manage.
His smile, however, seemed unnecessarily bright.
"What's with your face?"
"Huh?" he said.
"What's happening here?" I asked, circling a finger around my face in explanation. "You're looking a little too much like the Joker."
"Nothing. I don't know what you're talking about."
"Seriously, why am I only friends with really shitty liars?"
He flipped me off. "I'll send her back if you're done."
"I'm done for now, but I'll get to the bottom of this eventually."
His smile grew even more demented. "I have no doubts you will."
"Whatever." I rolled my stool away and got my ink cups out for the colors I knew she wanted. I'd double-check everything before we got started, though. Women had a nasty little tendency to change their minds.
What? Don't even think about pretending that's not true.
I heard a knock on the open wood door. "Come on in-"
The ability to speak left me when I saw who it was, but the smirk on her lips brought my voice right back. For the first time in our relationship, I was in no mood to be fucked with.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her.
"I'm your first appointment," Cassie said, walking into the room and jumping up on the table in front of me.
"No. My first client is a woman named Kristen."
She shook her head. "Not anymore."
"I thought you had a photo shoot."
"Screw the photo shoot," I declared. "This is more important." I pulled up the right side of my shirt, exposing my rib cage.
It hadn't taken long after leaving Frankie to come to my senses. And to realize he'd been giving me a big fucking clue by telling me to bring the ring back myself. He'd looked downright elated when I'd walked in and raised a smirking brow.
Frankie had told me to think about what was important, and I had. He was the size of an elephant and had a trunk to rival all the others. And he was everything I needed in my life. He pushed me past my comfort zones at the same time he let me soak in them.
Thatch was my person.
He was my present and my future.
He was it for me.
God, I was such an idiot. I had risked all of that, my fucking happiness, Thatch's happiness, because I was too bullheaded and stubborn and couldn't stand the idea of someone else having control over me. But I was done with it now.
The funny thing about when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, is you don't want to waste another second of your life without them.
You want it all. Right now.
He stared down at me. "So, you're hijacking my first client's appointment?"
"She's not your first client. I'm your first client."
"It's bad for business for you to pull shit like this."
I don't care about anything but you.
I shrugged. "I don't care about anything but you."
My heart and brain were finally in sync.
A giant smile spread across my face, and I watched him intake a sharp breath. He stared down at his fingers while they fiddled with sterile packaging.
"You want me to tattoo you?" he finally asked after a pregnant pause. He searched my eyes for all of the answers I was willing to give. "Do you have something in mind? Remember, it's gonna be with you for life."
"I want you to choose."
"Are you crazy?" he asked sincerely.
I smiled at the irony and nodded. "You know I am."
"You're trusting me to pick out your tattoo?"
I shook my head and held his eyes with my own. I needed to make sure he got it. That despite everything I'd blown hot air about, I did need him. Because he made me a better version of me. Not different. Not worse. A newer, improved model. "I'm trusting you with everything."
He searched my unrelenting gaze for another moment, and then he turned away to prepare his station. He set up the ink and set out the needles, and I watched each movement as though it was gospel. I'd missed the sound of his voice and the sound of his laugh and all the little things that only I got to know about him.
"Everything is sterile," he instructed as he opened up each needle and turned back to me. "These will only be used on you, and then they'll be disposed of."
"Well, that's fantastic fucking news because I just want a tattoo, not Hep C," I teased, but my voice didn't hold any of its usual intensity. I want my giant back.
He smirked and gestured toward my exposed rib cage, but he didn't pull me into his arms and tell me he loved me either. I wasn't sure what to make of any of it. "This where you want it?"
I nodded.
"And you sure about this?"
I nodded.
He cleaned off my skin with a cool cloth.
"You're one hundred percent certain you want to do this?"
"One hundred and ten percent."
Ten minutes and several more "Are you sure?" style questions from Thatch, the sketch was on my ribs, and he slipped on latex gloves.
"Do you want to see it before I start?"
I shook my head and rested my head on the table. "No. I'll want to see it for the first time when it's done."
The very edges of a smirk graced his lips as he held up the tattoo machine for my eyes. "I'm going to do a dry run so you know what the needle feels like."
"Test away," I said and shut my eyes. The initial sting of the needle made me flinch, but otherwise, it wasn't too awful bad.
"How does it feel?" he asked, the edge of his glove-covered thumb skimming softly over the surrounding skin.
"Like you're about to create something amazing for me." I peeked out of one eye and caught his tender smile. It felt like I could breathe for the first time.
"You ready, honey?" he asked on a whisper, and I had to fight the urge to burst into tears at the sounds of his sweet endearment.
Honey. I'd missed that so much.
Taking several gulps of newfound air, I nodded my head enthusiastically. "So ready."
"Okay, Crazy. Just try to sit back and relax."
His latex-covered hand rested on my side as he leaned forward and put the tattoo needle to my skin. His face was mere inches from my ribs, and I could feel his warm breaths ease in and out from his lips and brush against my skin.
The room stayed silent, only the buzzing of the gun filling the space. I winced when the needle pushed against a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves.
"Just relax. You're doing great," he encouraged.
I closed my eyes and let Thatch work his magic, and forty minutes later, he was cleaning off my skin again and announcing, "All done."
I looked up at him and smiled. "Really?"
He nodded. "Yep."
"Can I look at it now?" I asked with excitement.
He nodded, snapped off his gloves, and helped me off the table.
I walked over toward the floor-length mirror and turned to my side.
The second my gaze caught sight of the black words etched across my reddened skin, tears filled my eyes.
She was crazy. Wild.
Chaos & beauty.
My heart.
Mine.
He stood behind me, watching my reaction in the mirror.
"For most of my life, I had only been sure about one thing," I said quietly and glanced back down at the beautiful tattoo he had created for me. "Photography was my one sure thing. I loved the control it brought me," I admitted. "For as long as I can remember, I had always hated not having control of my choices. It's just the way I was. I needed it. I needed the freedom to go and do and be whatever I wanted."
He started to speak, but I put a finger to his lips as my gaze met his. "But then I met you.
"You're the one and only thing I'm sure about. Everything else is just details. Because you're it for me, Thatch. And I trust you with everything because I know you trust me back."
I closed the distance between us. "I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for jumping off that cliff. It was selfish and cruel, and I'm so sorry I hurt you like that. When you begged me not to do it, I should have known you weren't trying to control me, you were just trying to keep me safe." I reached up and touched his cheek.