Chapter 3 #5
Nicky snorts. “I’m a sexy guy.”
“I said sexist.”
“I heard you just fine, babycakes. Any idea what happened here?”
Ugh, he’s such a Dom, even if he keeps refusing the title.
“No. Alarm went off about five minutes ago. I was on the phone and had music playing so someone could have taken a jackhammer to it and I probably wouldn’t have heard anything.”
“Kinda looks like someone did take a jackhammer to it.” Nicky runs his thumb over the dented metal.
“Yeah, I’ll call a locksmith.” I turn back into the store to head into the office. “You wanna put the coffee pot on? And why are you here an hour early?”
“Peter-tingle.”
“Your what is tingling? Nicky, man, get that checked.”
He swats me on the ass and yelps when he encounters the metal in my pocket. “Fuck, Bren, what’re you wearing, ass armor?”
Chuckling, I fish out the brass knuckles and hand them to him. “I borrowed these. But ass armor isn’t a bad idea.”
“Like Old Blue Eyes would let you wear armor in his scene.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. It’s bad enough he disintegrates the panties he won’t let me wear every time he looks at me, but you cannot call him Old Blue Eyes. My gram-gram used to call Paul Newman that and the idea of being topped by Paul Newman, ugh, no, I’m not going there.”
“Liar, liar, leather pants on fire. If Paul Newman showed up right now and smiled at you with those blue eyes, you’d let him top you any way he wanted. Including up the ass.”
“Agh.” I wave my hands over my head. “Paul Newman died at least ten years ago, so you’re talking about necrophilia anal. Before I’ve even had coffee. Gross, Nicky.”
He chuckles all the way into the kitchen.
In my cubbyhole of an office, I finger-walk through the business cards in my desk drawer.
I haven’t needed a locksmith since I refitted the shop, and I don’t think I have a card for one.
I might have to resort to Google, which always makes me nervous.
My fingers pause on a plain cream card with black lettering.
“James Logan, Personal and Property Security.”
Emily’s daddy installed the shop’s CCTV system, way back when. Unfortunately, all the cameras are in the front, so I don’t have any footage of whoever tried to nuke my lock.
I pull out my phone, flip over to the contacts file I have for all the Blunts Doms, and scroll down to Logan’s number. I hesitate for a moment. Even though he’s being nice to me at the moment, Logan really doesn’t like me. Do I want to call him for this? Fuck it, I trust him more than Google.
He answers on the first ring. “Problem, Bren?”
“Hi, sir, I was just wondering if you could recommend a locksmith?”
“I can probably do whatever you need. What do you need?”
“The lock on my back door replaced.”
“What happened to the old one?” he asks.
“Someone tried to smash it.”
“Remind me, it’s a key and a deadbolt, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give me two hours. Did you get them on tape?”
“No, the cameras are all in the front.”
“I’ll bring another camera, too. I can’t imagine why I agreed to leave you without any cover in the rear, Bren.”
Because I was down to my last fifty cents when I refurbished Rufus’s shop, so my budget for the CCTV system was thin, and it never occurred to me to upgrade.
And because Logan never has liked me. But saying so will not improve his opinion and I don’t want him to stop me from seeing Emily.
Or bad-mouth me to Mac, although that’s not Logan’s style. “Sorry, sir.”
He grunts. “Two and a half hours. I’ll bring Emily with me and you know she’ll bring lunch, so be ready to eat.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See you then.” He hangs up.
Emily texts me before I even put the phone away.
Daddy says no charge. See? He likes you really.
Weeell, he might be warming to me a little.
I want meat for lunch, I text her back.
Meat for dinner. Meat twice a day isn’t good for you. Eggplant parm for lunch.
Fuck, I’d kill major portions of the greater New York population for Emily’s eggplant parm.
I hate eggplant parm.
I know. I’ll bring extra. I have cupcakes, too. But only if you eat all your veggies. That’s the rule.
Bitch.
If Daddy sees that, you’re in trouble. I’m deleting the thread.
A true friend is a friend who helps you hide the evidence.
I smile into the phone before I tuck it away and join Nicky in the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
My first client is in for more work on a chest piece that he’s been adding to for over a year.
It’s a massive piece, covering his barrel chest and gut.
Interlinking, black and white portraits of his whole family: kids, parents, brother, two sisters, grandparents.
He’s saved his right pec for his wife and I’ve been working on sketches for over a month. It has to be perfect.
I’m still working, and in my zone, when Logan and Emily arrive. I hear Nicky talking to them, then Emily pulls the curtain around my station aside, sits in the guest chair, and quietly watches me until I’m done.
“That eggplant parm better not be getting cold,” I tell her.
“I can heat it up. Bren, that’s really beautiful.”
I wipe the fresh tattoo down reverently. Sometimes what comes out of my needle doesn’t even feel connected to me. It’s not something I’ve created. It’s something I’ve pulled up out of the skin. Something that was always there and just needed the percussion of my needle to bring it out.
“Want to see it, Bob?” I ask my client.
“Naw, Bren. I’ll see it in a couple days when I unwrap it. I felt it going down. I know it’s perfect.”
I smile at him. He’s had so much work now that he probably can feel it. I smooth gauze over it and tape it down before I hand him the printed card of aftercare instructions. He knows the drill better than I do, but I always give every client the instructions after I finish. No exceptions.
I close the shop for an hour so we can all go up into my apartment to enjoy Emily’s eggplant parm.
I have no doubt she brought enough not just for the three of us but for Nicky and my piercer, Jules, as well.
Hell, she probably brought enough for Bob.
But Logan doesn’t like strangers being around Emily, so I don’t invite Bob, even though the guy’s practically family at this point.
Over the Tri-State’s best eggplant parmesan, green salad with lemon vinaigrette, and tiny, grilled eggplant rolls stuffed with ricotta, Logan tells me he’s replaced the back-door lock with a double-deadbolt smart lock that can be operated from my phone or a key fob.
There’s no external plate, so even if the jackhammerer returns, there’s nothing to smash.
He’s also installed not one but two cameras, both of which feed into my phone.
Tears prick in my eyes as he shows me how the feed uploads to a cloud server, so it doesn’t chew up my phone’s memory.
I couldn’t deal with a Daddy Dom, but I have to admit that in less than an hour, he’s made me feel safer than I have since I first opened the shop.
“Thank you, sir. You have to let me pay for this.”
“We’ll talk about it later. Eat your cupcake.”
I bury a “yes, sir” in the cupcake and try not to sniffle.
I have a decent flow of clients through the afternoon and am beginning to regret agreeing to dinner and a scene tonight when I have to turn away two walk-ins.
One schedules an appointment with me but the other walks out in a huff.
While I’m brooding at the counter, Nicky finishes with a client, leans on the counter, and holds out his phone.
“Did you see this shit? Twenty bucks it was that skinhead.”
“Hmm?” I peer at the screen. It shows the name of my shop, a rating of 2.5 stars, and a one-star review posted three hours ago by someone called Patriot Warrior 99. “What the hell?”
“He says we refused to give him the tattoo he wanted, forced him to accept something else, and today it’s infected.”
“That’s bullshit.” I grab his phone and read the review, which says exactly what Nicky’s reported.
No one this month has asked for a design I wouldn’t do, other than the skinhead.
He didn’t even show up for his appointment, so we didn’t end up inking the little shit.
I scroll down past a five-star review from a lady I did a sleeve for last week, complete with a picture of the luminous koi and waterlilies and find three more one-star reviews.
Phil T. Sir Tatsalot. Regina Leona. I don’t recognize any of their names.
All complain that they had bad service, that their tattoo looks terrible, and they got infections afterward.
There are no pictures. Their reviews are almost word-for-word identical.
I can’t think of a client in years who has complained about infection.
I’m so fucking careful to go through aftercare and give them the instruction card.
“Nick, have you seen these?” I show him the reviews. “Do you remember any of these?”
“Naw. Haven’t done anyone by those names. Maybe Reena has.”
I pull out the tablet we keep our appointment calendar on and thumb through it. “Not in the last couple of months. That Phil T. review is from last week. That’s absolute bullshit. How do I get rid of these?”
“I don’t think you can, Bren.” Nicky takes the phone back and thumbs for a minute. “No, you can’t delete them. Only the person who posted them can.”
“Great.” I slap my hand on the counter. “More crap on this craptastic day. I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll lock up. Have a good time with Old Blue Eyes.”
I roll my own eyes at him and tuck the tablet back under the counter before I grab my bag and head out.
I steam the whole six blocks to Logan’s. So anyone and their lying, skinhead friend can put up a bullshit review on the business I’ve spent five years building and there’s nothing I can do about it? What fuckery is that?
When Emily answers the door, she takes one look at my face and drags me inside. “What happened?”