Under Locke(5)

Huh.



"It smell in here or somethin'?" that deep, husky voice I'd heard for the last hour asked from the door.



I looked up at him and smiled. Did he smile in return? No. But I brushed it off and lifted a shoulder. "Do you smoke?"



Dex took a breath so deep and long that it seemed to last a solid minute in length. "When I want."



I almost scrunched up my nose. Almost. Because I hated cigarettes though I doubted the barely-there trace would bother me. I nodded at him again, taking in the dark Rangers cap he had pulled down tight over his head, the ends of his raven hair peeping out in tufts. Realizing that my hands were still damp, they hadn't stopped sweating from the moment I'd been in the car, I wiped them over my pants.



He blinked, breaking the silence. "You got legal ID?"



There were illegal IDs? Yeah, I wasn't going to ask for clarification.



~ * ~ *



I left Pins and Needles at seven that night. In a little more than three hours, we’d crammed a tutorial on how to use the appointment log and calendar on the computer by communicating via two-word groupings of instructions and grunts after our marathon accounting overview and paperwork for payroll. Dex had then pointed at a digital camera sitting on the edge of his desk and said I needed to upload pictures onto the computer and hard drive daily.



Did I ask where to upload the files? One look at that twist of his mouth had me agreeing to the job. Nope.



I learned where everything was hidden in the studio by watching where he pointed: inks, needles, gloves, water bottles, paper towels, disinfectant, cleaning supplies, everything. Dex briefly explained how to time appointments. How to handle walk-ins in every situation. What to say and not to say to clients. He mentioned that there were four tattoo artists that worked in the studio including himself. The only other person I got to meet was a nice bald man named Blake, who had a double piercing through thick black eyebrows and multicolored tattoos that went up to his jaw.



Everything seemed easy enough.



I still couldn't get a solid feeling about the job and much less Dex since he hadn't so much as smiled once, but oh well. The job wasn't worth jumping for joy over but I wasn't exactly dreading the idea of going back. And it wasn't like I had any other option after looking at my bank statement.



I'd take what I could get, damn it.



Plus there was something about the shop that called to me. Maybe it was because I'd been expecting some seedy place with customers that were stinky, old men that got into fights over old ladies, and had more body hair than I had on my head.



Then again, was Sonny what I'd imagined a biker to be? Sonny with his gaming system obsession. Sonny who I'd caught watering his potted plants one morning. Sonny who made me tofu recipes without batting an eyelash.



No. He wasn't.



So I tried to push my worries to the back of my brain, accepting the fact that maybe I'd been wrong to be worried. Maybe.



~ * ~ *



Sonny’s bike, a sleek deep red Harley that cost as much as my car, was in the driveway when I parked in front of his house a few minutes later. Sonny's bungalow was small and located in an old, lower middle class neighborhood. Families and young couples populated the homes up and down the block, loud and constantly in motion.



It was nice and I liked it. After living in an apartment where the walls were so thin I could hear every television show my neighbor watched, his place was friggin' great. The house was painted a deep tan with a front yard that would've been nice if he mowed it more often than every leap year, and comfortable. It wasn't exactly what I'd envisioned him living in before I'd punched his address into my GPS. While he wasn't necessarily neat, it wasn't a pig-sty but it was nicer after I'd spent two days cleaning the floors for what seemed like the first time since he'd bought it seven years before.



I whipped out the key he'd given me the day I showed up, and let myself in. The television blared from the other side of the wall.



Sitting on his favorite recliner, Sonny grinned at me the minute I closed the door. He leaned forward, clutching the remote to his PS3 in one hand. "You survived, Ris?" he asked, his grin widening so much it made his thick, auburn beard twitch with the movement of his facial muscles.



The resemblance slapped me out of the blue. When had he started looking so much like our dad? Not that I would ever ask that out loud while he was around unless I was in the mood to get pinched.



Instead I smirked, plopping down on the couch perpendicular to him. "Barely."



He laughed, loud and deep. Curt Taylor all over again. I wonder if he even knew how much alike they were? Probably not. I'd only gotten ten years out of the old man before he'd taken off, and that was ten more years than Sonny had gotten. And while I wasn't exactly our dad's biggest fan anymore, Sonny had fallen out of love with him a lot sooner than I had. A shitty father who only showed up once a year wasn't going to win any awards, much less one that disappeared out of the blue leaving a wife and two kids behind.