Unrequited(19)

"Yes, single."

"Do you eat?"

"Um, yes." I wrinkled my brow.

"Great, how about I take you to lunch?"

I glanced at Tucker, wondering if I said no whether I'd lose a three-thousand-dollar job for the shop. Unfortunately he was busy working on a back tat for our local celebrity, Devon Jones—a superior high school athlete now a Pro Bowl tight end on a Super Bowl winning team. Other than his size, though, you'd never know he was a rich and famous athlete. He still wore his John Deere cap and high school sweats around town.

Omar had an attorney in his chair. They were doing a koi fish on his arm. I couldn't remember his name. It was Sven or Eric or something suitably Norse in nature. Privately, I referred to him as the Viking because he was big and blond.

Gig was manning the front desk, selling body jewelry and rub-on temporary tattoos and making appointments.

I was on my own. "It's against work policy to date customers," I said as politely as possible. While Dorsey had a great smile, he didn't make any of my body parts tingle—not like Finn did. And even if I knew Finn was bad news, I wanted to be with a guy who made me hot and bothered when he just looked at me.

Dorsey shrugged, looking philosophical and not annoyed at my refusal. "It never hurts to ask."

"Still want to talk about the tattoo?" I held my breath.

"Yeah, tell me about the four parts and what the blank spaces are for." He spun his finger in a tight circle as he pointed to my sketch.

I managed to exhale without showing too much relief as to be offensive and started talking. "The gauntlet can cover the fingers and the wrist, but go higher. Then there's the vambrace that covers the forearm and the upper arm. You have the cowter, or elbow piece, and then the shoulder part which is called the pauldron. If you had true armor, there would be pieces that would go over the cowter and pauldron too, but I think that would look unwieldy in a tattoo." I moved my pencil over the different portions of the design. "And the blank spaces are for you to personalize. Maybe you want to put your shield on the pauldron so it covers the apple of your shoulder here and then down your upper arm." I pointed to his uniform-covered arm with the butt end of my pencil.

He looked amused at my attempts to not touch him, but I wasn't going to give this guy any ideas—or rather, any more ideas than he already had.

"I like it. I like the shield idea. I like all the different pieces and textures. I like having a word under the shield, maybe the Chinese word for strength?" He raised one eyebrow as if he wanted a cookie for guessing my nationality correctly.

I ignored his light flirtation. "Sounds good. Let me finalize the design."

"How long will the tattoo take?"

"Probably twenty hours."

His eyebrows shot into his forehead. "That's a long time."

"You don't want to rush a tattoo," Tucker said, appearing suddenly before us.

"And will you be doing the tattoo?" Dorsey asked me. "Because I think twenty hours of you touching me sounds like a pretty good way to pass the time."

A throat cleared and two heavy work boots entered my vision. My gaze ran along a dusty pair of blue jeans—nicely worn around the crotch—up past a tight fitting heather gray T-shirt to a thunderous pair of gem blue eyes.

"What are you doing here?" I gasped.

"I'm your next consult, baby."





7





FINN


At Winter’s glare, I knew my ham-fisted attempt at marking my territory hadn’t gone over well. It was definitely a case of speaking before thinking. When Adam had called me for lunch, I’d suggested the East Village. I’d figured it wouldn't take much effort to convince him to stop by Atra since Adam's numerous tattoos and piercings had to be at least partially responsible for Atra's existence. He wasn't dumb though and knew exactly what I was about when I-oh-so-casually suggested a walk from the sub shop down the street.

“Did you suddenly get over your fear of needles?” he asked.

“I used your name to make an appointment,” I replied easily.

"You could just ask her out."

"Already did," I said.

"Got shot down, huh?" His tone was less a question and more of this doesn't surprise me at all.

"You sound like you expected that."

He shrugged and before I could punch him added, "You've never had to ask any girl out."

"So?"

"You're rusty. Your game is rusty. All you've had to do in the past was show up, and now you have to work for it. Give me your pitch."

"My pitch?" After about five steps, I realized Adam had stopped walking. I turned back and raised my hands in a what's up gesture.