“They look like they are both going to throw up.” he says to Evan, making them both laugh at us.
Evan’s hands begin to knead my shoulders. “Nothing to worry about, sweetheart,” he whispers into my ear.
“Who wants to go first?” Zander asks, his blue eyes looking at Derrick and me.
“Me.” I hear myself say.
“Good work; now make yourself comfortable on that chair, and show me what you want,” he instructs as his eyes drop down to my chest briefly.
Evan lets out a cough, catching Zander’s attention and glaring at him. Zander’s eyes remain above my chest for the rest of the session.
I hand him the quote that I had printed out earlier.
He looks it over and nods before taking it away, making it up onto the transfer paper. After a couple of minutes he is back. “So, where would you like it?”
Lifting up my shirt, to the man’s surprise, his eyes widen as I point to just under my bra, at the top of my rib cage.
“You will have to take off your bra but keep your shirt on so I can work properly.”
Looking at Evan to gauge his reaction, he nods but doesn’t seem happy about it. Thankfully I hadn’t gone for a white tank top today as I didn’t realize I would be braless. I slowly pull my bra off, through my sleeves, dropping it on the floor with my bag.
Evan’s eyes drop to the black lace material then back to me.
Giving him a quick smile, I jump onto the table.
Zander rolls up my tank top asking me to hold it in place. Pressing the outline onto my skin, he asks me to stand up to have a look in the mirror and see if the placement is correct. Once I am satisfied I lay down again and he starts working on my design.
Derrick holds my hand the whole time; I nearly break his fingers squeezing them so tight. The cut of the needle into my skin is agonising, but I grit my teeth through the half hour job. I’m amazed at myself as I can’t believe that I made it through my first tattoo. I stand and admire Zander’s handy work in the mirror.
“So what does it say?” Evan asks, curiously looking at the Arabic writing.
الجايات أحسن من الرايحات.
“What is coming is better than what is gone.”
Derrick and Evan stand in silence taking in the words.
“Fuck, Si, that is cool,” Derrick pipes up, giving me a grin.
Evan just nods, handing me a bottle of water.
“You’re up next, let me just clean up and get fresh supplies,” Zander addresses Derrick with a smile.
Ten minutes later it was Derrick’s turn to be in the hot seat. Laying on his back with his shirt pulled up, pants pulled down exposing his hip, he was getting the words ‘Suck my …’ you can guess the rest when your eyes fall to where that sentence finishes. He thinks it’s hilarious, as does Zander.
Meeting up with Vanessa and Isla, all of us tattoo virgins on a high, we show each other what we got. The guys high five Derrick on his tattoo as well. I think some of the boys were jealous of D’s idea. Isla got a cute little feather behind her ear, and Vanessa got blackbirds across her foot. Some of the boys even headed next door to the barber shop to get themselves cleaned up. Once we had all finished, we headed to the California Bros. bar. The other brother, Westin, ran the bar while Ash ran the barber shop.#p#分页标题#e#
“Do my eyes deceive me; am I being graced by the presence of Dirty Texas?” The guy, who I’m assuming is Westin, comes bounding over towards us. “Zander called and said you were coming in. Come on, follow me, we’ll set you up.”
Walking through the semi busy bar, out the back to some stairs, we entered a deck area which overlooked Venice Beach. “You shouldn’t be harassed up here. So, are we having the usual, fellas?” He asked, to which they all nodded.
“Ladies? Bottles of champagne, or would you like beer?” He asked, raising his eyebrows because I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting us to agree to the beer. He suggested sending up a tasting rack of their in-house beers for us all to try.
Westin’s eyes locked on to Isla’s. “Good to see you again, Isla.”
Making her blush, Isla mumbled a ‘hello’ to Westin.
“Still waiting for you to get back to me about that date,” he states, smiling at her.
“She’ll be busy, Wes. We are off to Europe soon,” Finn answers for her.
My eyes are bouncing between the two men.
Isla’s mouth gapes opened at Finn, before saying, “Ignore him, Wes, he’s just doing my brothers dirty work while he’s not here. Let’s catch up before I go, I’ll text you.” Her smile so bright it’s blinding.