Chapter 2
Two
VIC
Metal music blares from the speakers of my tattoo shop, and the steady buzz of machines fills the air, along with the gritty bass and drums. The tattoo pen is steady in my hands as I follow the curve of the skull’s outline. My client shouts, and I pause, pulling the tattoo pen away from his forearm and glancing up at him. His face is scrunched in agony, and his eyes are pinched so tight, I worry he’s about to break a blood vessel.
“Ready for a break?”
“Yeah,” he groans.
Controlling my face, I nod and set the machine aside and throw out my gloves. I pat his shoulder as I push out of my stool. “I’ll be back in fifteen.” The way this sitting is going, it’ll take him another session to get through the relatively small piece.
Honestly, he’s being a baby about it.
Not everyone handles pain the same way, I know that, but I’ve barely made it through the first quarter of the line work, and he’s already had two breaks. Fucking waste of my time, but he’s paying by the hour, so it’s his problem, not mine.
Dawg’s client looks up as I pass by his station. “Oh my god, hi,” she says in a rush. “I saw you at the Tattoo Expo last month, and can I just say, you’re fucking amazing.”
Dawg rolls his eyes.
Ever since I was named the top tattoo artist on the East Coast, he’s been salty. It probably doesn’t help that his client is practically salivating over me while he tattoos her. Dawg is really fucking good, too, and I understand why he’s annoyed. If my client was practically worshiping another tattoo artist while my needles pierced their skin, it would hurt.
“Thanks,” I tell her with a polite smile. “I’m taking fifteen,” I tell Dawg.
“Again?” he asks, eyes focused on the needles running over his client’s skin. He might be annoyed by my newfound fame, but he’s focused on what matters.
“Low pain tolerance,” I explain.
Dawg leans back and refreshes the ink. “She’s sitting like a dream.”
His client bats her eyelashes at me, and I clench my teeth and walk away. One thing I hate worse than the ass kissing is the flirting. I might be single, but I’m not on the fucking market. Not now, probably not ever. Tell that to the groupies, though, and they’ll take it as a challenge.
Unwanted attention aside, I’m proud to be a Mexican American tattoo artist with national recognition. It’s a big achievement. Dawg can be annoyed by his client fawning over me, but even he knows the recognition I received has brought everyone in our studio more business. Unfortunately for me, today my client is weak and probably shouldn’t be getting a tat if he can’t sit through more than 10 minutes of work at a time.
I stop at the front desk, nodding at Alex, who is busy helping a client pay, and grab my phone before slipping into the back room. The break room is an instant relief. Low wattage lighting, chill lo-fi music, dark blue walls, and most important of all, no clients.
Even before winning the number one spot, being on the floor was like being on stage. Clients are always watching, like we’re magicians about to put on a show. It comes with the job, but sometimes it’s overwhelming, especially for someone who generally doesn’t like people.
A steady stream of lavender-scented mist shoots from the diffuser I got from a shop that specializes in making perfumes for packs or omegas missing their mate. I breathe in the floral-scented air and try not to scowl at the thought of my old pack and mate.
I guess, technically, Felicia never considered me her mate. I was a nuisance. She only wanted alphas, and me being a beta was an inconvenience she suffered through to have Kai and Lincoln. Even though I tried to make it work, to play nice and get on her good side, she made my life hell until she eventually left and broke our pack in the process.
“ What is the point of a beta in a pack?” she asked on a day when she was feeling particularly aggressive.
“Felicia,” Kai warned.
“No, seriously, why is he even here?”
“Because we’re a pack, Fe, you know this.” Linc glanced at me. “We’re family.”
At least, we had been. That was years ago, though, and while I still show up for our son’s birthday, family is the furthest thing from what we are now. My gut churns and my chest aches.
What the fuck am I doing? Torturing myself with memories?
Shaking my head, I shove that all to the back of my mind, where the pain is far out of reach, and scroll through my missed messages. A few from clients. A reminder from Alex...and a message from Kai.
Grinding my jaw, I tap into that conversation, bracing myself against the grief that accompanies our interactions.
Kai
Are you still good to attend the launch of the line tonight at After Dark?
We started the company, Good Vibes, when we were in our late twenties, and we’d tried every product out there to get Felicia excited about me sharing the nest. After going through a couple dozen toys, we quickly realized they were all shit and there was an opportunity.
And maybe us creating all sorts of products to try with Felicia was a last-ditch effort to finally make the pack work like it should. When an omega goes into heat and she has a pack, all she cares about is having them with her, but with Felicia, half the time, she pushed me out. Demanded I leave the nest.
The phone buzzes with a new message.
Vic? You good?
I said I was good when we set the date.
We haven’t talked in a month.
Yeah, that’s my fault. Just like Felicia leaving was my fault. But hey, I’m used to being blamed for shit, so it’s not like I care.
I’ll be there.
Since the pack broke up—or rather, since I left the pack—I’ve distanced myself from the company, but the public marketing side of things has always been my job. As much as I hate being around people, I know how to sell shit.
Okay. Dinner next Friday?
I have a session.
Saturday?
Why?
The bubble that shows he’s typing appears and disappears a few times before Kai finally sends a message back.
Let us know how the products are received tonight.
I grunt and toss my phone onto the couch. What did I expect? Some heartfelt reason for them wanting to get together? We’ve never been like that, and we’ve never discussed what happened. Almost like my leaving wasn’t a big deal.
And that, more than whatever Felicia said or did, really fucking bugs me.
Kai and Lincoln were like my brothers. Ever since we bonded during a spur-of-the-moment skydiving adventure in college, hell, even before then, we were tight. Best friends since private school. Our families vacationed together in the Hamptons. We got into so much shit together, our becoming a pack was inevitable.
Falling apart . . . well, no one saw that coming.
The diffuser sputters out, and I sigh, grabbing the vial of perfume and the jug of water from the supply closet and refilling it. I close the lid and turn the machine back on, leaning over the mist and inhaling.
Felicia smelled like sugar and chocolate, sickly sweet.
I never loved it, but she wasn’t the pack’s scent match, and it wasn’t repulsive. But this scent, the floral, almost earthen, richness of the lavender? It does something to me. My skin practically buzzes in approval, and I take another breath, exhaling and making the mist billow for a moment.
Glancing down at the vial clutched in my hand, I read the label. On the site, each perfume or diffusing oil has a name. I’ve explored a few other products from the shop, but I always come back to Fragrance D.
The Confident Omega , the label reads. Lavender—an earthen floral with soft notes of powder and smoke—will leave you soothed and ready to fall in love.
I roll my eyes at the last part, but maybe it’s not so off the mark. I’m not ready, nor do I want a relationship of any kind, but I’m more than a little obsessed with the perfume.
Maybe it’s what our scent match would smell like.
Clutching the vial, I shut down all those thoughts before I go to a dark place and put it and the jug of water back into the supply closet.
I’m definitely not in the mood to go to After Dark, but it’s business, and I’m not about to give the guys a reason to give me shit. I’ll talk up the products with the clients at the club, get people excited and experimenting, then leave.
With a club full of eager participants, I should be excited. I should want to have some fun.
Maybe I’m broken.