Chapter 1
“Are you staying late?” With hands planted on her hips, she leans back and stretches, cracking her spine after a full day of work.
Seven o’clock, closing time. The setting sun shines through the two big picture windows on either side of the front door, casting a warm glow inside the shop.
She chuckles. “What am I saying, of course you are.”
I grin and return to the shop’s overflowing inbox asking when our artists’ books are reopening and if they would make any exceptions. I’m willing to take commissions on the days we’re closed if the client is willing to pay one and a half times my normal rate.
“I was thinking of ordering some food . . . Wanna get in on that?” she asks.
When I glance up, she’s got her elbows planted on the front desk, hands propping up her chin. She bats her lashes, showing off her bright-green eyes, and tosses me a hopeful smile.
The corner of my mouth turns up, and I sigh. “Yeah. I suppose,” I grumble, typing out replies to hopeful client emails at the front desk. I could be doing this from my office, but she just finished up with her last client of the day, so I was covering the desk until we closed at seven o’clock p.m.
These days I only tattoo four days a week, but still, I find myself here almost seven to make sure things are running smoothly.
I inherited the shop almost five years ago and still haven’t mastered the work-life balance.
Not sure I ever will. Maybe someday I’ll hire a shop manager, but it would have to be someone worthy, and I doubt I’ll ever trust anyone enough to give them control of the reins.
This is too important, and I can’t risk it ending up in the wrong hands again.
This isn’t just any tattoo shop, it’s Clyde Everhart’s studio, Black Rabbit—and the woman standing in front of me is his one and only descendant, Kelly.
She rounds the desk and looks over my shoulder. “Hey, are you going through emails? That’s my job, get outta here.” She shoos me away and slips into the chair I was sitting in.
Kelly is still wrapping up her apprenticeship, so she previously managed our inbox as one of her duties, but technically, Francesca—Frankie—handles the front desk on the days we’re open, Tuesday through Saturday.
I hired her about eight months ago to answer phones and schedule appointments.
She is great at keeping us organized. However, her work days usually end around six o’clock, so anything important outside those hours is done by me or Kelly.
“But first, I’m putting in a dinner order,” she announces, pulling out her phone.
“Expense it,” I tell her.
She spins in the chair to beam at me and says, “Don’t worry, I am,” then rotates away from me.
I hover behind her as she scrolls through restaurants listed on one of those food delivery apps.
A text notification pops up at the top of her screen.
Jason
Hey beautiful. How was your day?
She squeals.
This fuckin’ guy.
“I love that he texts me to ask how my day was,” she says, opening the text thread and tapping out a response.
“Yeah, Chaos, his chivalry is really breaking new ground,” I grumble. She doesn’t even hear me.
I can’t watch this shit, so I step away and cut open the boxes from our earlier delivery. This woman occupies way too much real estate in my brain, especially considering she has a new boyfriend—the man is a complete waste of her time. He doesn’t know how to handle a woman like Kelly Everhart.
Kelly is five feet, two inches of pure edgy adorableness, with her black hair, black nails, tattooed arms, and nipple piercings that occasionally poke through her shirt just to torture me.
Not to mention those thick thighs and hips that I’m dying to sink my teeth into. Jason, you lucky son of a bitch.
She’s kind and sweet, always making sure everyone she comes in contact with feels appreciated and welcome. Though if it were up to me, her gorgeous smiles would be exclusively mine.
Jason is the most milquetoast motherfucker I’ve had the displeasure of meeting.
Unfortunately, she’s been with so many clowns over the years, this guy’s stock features—like asking about her day—have somehow been twisted into grand romantic gestures.
I have no idea why she puts up with him.
He’s a cold sore personified, annoying, and hopefully just as temporary.
She giggles, smiling at her phone screen, and I roll my eyes, pulling out the boxes of blue shop towels from the shipment.
They’ve only been seeing each other for a month and a half.
Eventually, she’ll come to her senses. Until then, I will continue to bide my time as her best friend.
Our close friendship provides me with special privileges, which is enough to hold me over.
The line of more than friends has never been breached outside of my thoughts.
I’m pretty sure she sees me as an older brother—or worse, an extension of her dad.
“Okay, we’re getting burritos,” she announces. Kelly leans back in the chair until her head is practically upside down, plush lips slightly parted as she glances up at me. “What do you want?”
To see your head hanging off the edge of my bed, just like this, before I fuck your pretty mouth.
The scent of her perfume wafts in my direction, and my gaze finds hers before returning to those goddamn lips. I envision grasping her chin and taking her in a firm kiss. What does she taste like? Is she eager and greedy or shy and submissive? Are her lips as soft as I imagine them to be?
“I’ve got to put this stock away. Order me whatever you’re having.” I retreat a couple steps to keep from doing something stupid.
“You don’t even know what I’m getting,” she counters while I load the remaining boxes into my arms and put some distance between us.
“Carne asada, beans, rice, cilantro, lime, onion, salsa,” I call in her direction as I head toward my office.
She laughs. “Freak!”
As if we haven’t had enough burritos at this point for me to not memorize her order, as if I didn’t commit it to memory the first time she placed it.
In the stock room, I stack the boxes of towels on the shelf, then take a deep breath, dropping my head and shaking it. We’ve been friends for years, and friends know things about each other—but there’s nothing friendly about the way I feel toward her.
We first met when she was a teenager, and it was like having a goofy kid sister in the shop.
Being Clyde’s kid, she earned the nickname Junior, which still carries on with our other two tattoo artists, Casper and Thor.
It was fitting. She made me smile with her stupid jokes and quirky antics.
After she left Minnesota for college, I continued to focus on my apprenticeship with Clyde, occasionally seeing her when she came home during breaks and holidays from art school in New York.
It wasn’t until she graduated and moved back home that we really became friends. I had gotten out of a toxic relationship that almost ended my career, and despite Kelly being six years younger, she had matured a lot over the years.
She learned to hone her natural talent in art school, returning home with remarkable dexterity compared to when I’d first met her years prior.
She’d also completed a piercing apprenticeship while out east and convinced Clyde to let her pierce at Black Rabbit.
It was an easy sell; he was always so proud of his daughter, and rightfully so.
She’s a skilled body piercer, but when armed with a pencil and pen, the woman is fearless—which is why she became Clyde’s newest tattoo apprentice almost immediately.
Despite being only twenty-one years old and having her dad as her mentor, she understood the significance of the opportunity and made every effort to practice her technique. Kelly may float through life as carefree and lively as a leaf in the wind, but she doesn’t fuck around when it comes to art.
The shop was always chill whenever Kelly and I worked the same shift.
Clyde loved having her around too. We talked mostly about our favorite artists, tattooing, and random shit.
Our friendship was exactly what I needed.
Her heart of gold was so bright in comparison to my dull black one—and she possessed the same creative mind Clyde had.
It was inspiring to watch her genius unfold.
Her style had evolved into something beautiful, reminiscent of her dad’s early work.
After a few months, I began to notice her more.
Paying attention to things I hadn’t previously cared about, like the small birthmark on the back of her neck, or that her natural hair color is a warm chestnut brown—not the black she dyes it every eight weeks—or her burrito order.
That was when I stopped calling her Junior and started referring to her as Chaos.
Because that’s what she was, my own personal chaos.
Somehow, the girl who was once like a kid sister had returned from school a completely different woman. One who sent my head spinning with how confident, creative, and gorgeous she was.
Apparently, I wasn’t good at hiding it back then either, because I’ll never forget the day Clyde cornered me in his office.
“What’s going on with you and Kelly?” he asks, shutting the door behind him.
“What?” I’ve been asking myself that same question for weeks.
“I’ve seen the way you watch her . . . In case no one’s told you, you’re about as subtle as a shotgun.”
“You’re losing it, old man.” I avert my eyes and chuckle, then try to change the subject. “Hey, I’ve got some questions about those forms Billy is supposed to be submitting. Can we chat later today?”
He stares at me, and I gather every ounce of denial I have to stare right back. Our standoff seems to last forever, but once he’s decided I’ve been tortured enough, he speaks. “Give her a chance to grow up first, yeah?”
The son of a bitch is astute, I’ll give him that.