Chapter 4Ivy doesn’t give a crap about who I am.
FOUR
Ivy doesn’t give a crap about who I am.
Trace
“Here?” Corinne questions, pointing at the stop sign through the windshield. “Turn right here?”
Is it possible for someone’s voice to make you nauseous? I mean, seriously. Something about the elevated pitch of her voice, and the way here sounds like “here-uh” has my stomach collapsing in on itself.
It ain’t that single drink from last night, either.
I did have one drink—whiskey. I just so happened to finish the bottle.
“Yeah,” I groan, catching my head in my hands as nausea bullies me, causing me to go fetal for a moment in the passenger seat of her Dodge Charger. She flicks her blinker on and the slow tick, tick, tick of the turn signal has me ready to tear my face off and jump out of this car, I swear. Everything is on my nerves this morning.
Mostly me.
“Okay, hun,” she sings, popping her bubble gum. “We’re here.”
“How can you chew fucking Dubble Bubble at nine in the morning?” I crow, collecting my wet hair from my shoulders to tie it behind me in a messy bun.
“I don’t drink coffee. It’s my morning sugar,” she says, reaching across me to pop open the door. “Call me?” she asks while also eyeing the sidewalk, hinting for me to get the fuck out.
I lift my shoulders. “I probably won’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
The effort to get out of the car feels risky, as last night’s booze churns in my gut. I attempt to shake my head, but the hangover renders me almost motionless. “Close the door so I can get to work,” she says, tapping her long fingernail against the gold-plated name tag on her chest.
Corey. Fuck, did I call her Corinne or just think it? I bring my hands to my throat, where I close the last button on my long-sleeved black shirt. “Sorry,” I mutter, pushing the door shut lightly so I don’t turn the sidewalk into artwork with my brains splattered everywhere.
Hangovers aren’t as easy as they were seven years ago.
Somehow it doesn’t stop me.
Corey pulls away, and I turn, blinking up at Ink Time. The lights are on, Deuce’s pickup is here, and the other artist I met a month or so ago is here, too. I see him crouched over his desk with a small lamp illuminating his private workspace. Slowly, I enter through the back and find myself in a small, dark hallway, face to face with my best friend.
He drops a hand to my shoulder softly, as if he knows I can’t stand a jarring movement. Something in my toes tingles, snaking a hot line up my calves and thighs, scorching my gut.
Fuck… I grab the back of my neck and pull at it as I look into Deuce’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” I admit, the words quiet as the feeling in my stomach registers.
Guilt.
I feel guilty.
Deuce’s lips twitch. “It’s fine.” He looks over his shoulder to the place where the wall curves, and the hall opens into the studio. “Ivy’s pissed, though.”
Just hearing her name with the word “pissed” has a smirk curling my lips, and I don’t know why. Something about that Firecracker always being angry—maybe I’m a masochist but it’s some kind of fucked-up turn-on. I like it. Then it dawns on me. When Deuce drops his hand from my shoulder, I cup mine on his. “She came to my place last night, told me I’d get fired if I didn’t show up.”
“She cares, and she takes her craft seriously,” Deuce replies just as the front shop door chimes with a new customer. “Make it up to her today by being a good mentor.” I follow behind him to the front counter, where he hands me a stack of papers. “The tentative schedule for you and her. Follow it or don’t, just make sure at the end of the twelve weeks, you’ve worked with her on all the main things here.”
I don’t get a chance to look at the book of shit he’s placed in my hands because a woman is clearing her throat in an “ I need your attention ” type of way.
I get that a lot.
Only I’m startled to see it’s—“Corey?” I look at her name tag for good measure, and she catches me, rolling her eyes.
“Did you really need to read my name tag, asshole?” She steps toward me, lowering her voice to a scathing hiss. “We had unprotected sex last night and now you need a name tag to know who I am?”
From behind me, Deuce clears his throat. “I’ll give you a minute,” he announces, but Corey likes an audience.
I’m not into voyeurism.
“This won’t take long.” She brings her gaze back to me, still chewing that awful pink gum. “I just realized I need the morning-after pill.”
I blink at her. “So get it.”
Deuce clears his throat, and Corey’s return makes sense. I dig into my pocket and fish out my wallet where I pinch a twenty and pass it to her.
“Good thinking, Corey,” I tell her, watching as she curls the bill and slips it between her breasts.
Out of nowhere, Ivy appears, her jet-black hair a vivid contrast to Corey and her blonde locks. She takes the twenty from between Corey’s breasts, officially locking my attention on them. Ivy takes Corey’s hand, and places a one-hundred-dollar bill in her palm.
“Get the morning-after pill, get a nice breakfast, and some heating pads.”
Corey stares at Ivy blankly for a few seconds before popping her gum and saying, “Thanks. Are you like his sister or manager or whatever?”
Ivy shakes her head. “Nope.”
Corey rolls the hundred, slipping it between her breasts again. She loops her arms around Ivy, her eyes squeezed shut as she embraces her. “Thank you, girl.”
Then the door is dinging and Corey is gone.
I look between Deuce and Ivy. Despite the fact I’m showered and mostly sober, both of them look tired and unimpressed.
That sour feeling of guilt returns, and I realize I like the way it feels even less than being hungover. Deuce leads me to the lighted sketch table in the back, and Ivy follows.
“Line work. Second half of the day is booked with a client. Line work until then,” he says, rocking on his boots.
“I thought you said I could decide the order as long as I did all the shit on the list,” I argue, hating being told what to do by anyone. I knew working for Deuce meant he’d technically be my boss, but I never expected to actually be bossed.
Can’t say I enjoy it. I’m the guy who’s in charge. That’s how I roll.
“You can. But line work is where every apprenticeship starts. Don’t you remember?”
Our eyes hold. I don’t know if he’s asking me to go back to the start, to revisit who and where I was when I began my journey as a tattoo artist. If he is, he’s asking me to jump back into the pain, either as a punishment or a reminder. I can’t decide.
My voice is hoarser than I’d like when I reply, “Yeah, I remember.”
I’ve been spending years trying to forget who taught me, and how much she meant.
I turn to face Ivy, whose black hair is knotted into two long braids, her eyes lined like a cat, large gauges filling her ears. I know it’s wild to think considering my career but I’ve never traditionally been into goth chicks.
Something about the way she’s glaring at me has me a little bricked up, though. I can’t deny that her hate is attractive, and if that doesn’t sum up my psyche, I don’t know what does.
“You ready to do some line work?”
Her face and her tone bear no emotion when she says, “I was ready yesterday.”
I cut my eyes to Deuce, then back to Ivy. I’ve apologized to my friend. He owns this place, he’s the one who brought me here. I owed him an apology and I paid my debt. I don’t owe her shit. Something tells me a smart-ass comment isn’t my play with a girl like Ivy, but I just can’t help myself.
Sliding into the leather chair on casters, I pick up my pencil and adjust the small light at the desk. “If today doesn’t work for you,” I say, splitting a smile between her and Deuce, “we can find another artist who wants the apprenticeship.”
She’s a firecracker for sure, but right now, she’s icing over. I see it happen before my eyes. Her jaw swings before locking closed, blue orbs narrowing on me so sharply I almost feel her gaze poking my chest. Her shoulders are set back, chin high with both sexy defiance and snarling attitude. “Today is perfect.”
I look down at my hand, already sketching from years of memory. I hide my smile as a few lines turn into a few more, and the outline of a pistol appears in my mind. As I sketch, a rush of coffee with raspberries and amber hit me.
The back of my neck pricks with heat and beneath the small table, my knee bounces. My cock thickens as I focus on my sketch, and not the insanely intoxicating scent that is Ivy Ellington.
“Yesterday would have been just as perfect,” she breathes, just quiet enough for Deuce to miss.
The graphite swishes against the paper as my line curves, rounding over the same spot until the hammer looks right. I feel her eyes on me. I’ve been watched while sketching a hundred times. Maybe more. I’ve tattooed in front of massive crowds, viewed on reality television by the millions.
Something about her watching me, though. I find myself more focused than I’ve been in a long time. I find myself actually caring.
I take my time on the stock lines, switching pencils halfway through. “Ink Time is outfitted with pen machines,” I tell her, keeping my voice low. “When I started tattooing, the shop I was at used rotary machines. I don’t foresee technology moving past pen machines for quite some time, so take some solace in knowing you won’t have to relearn your tool. Starting with the pen makes the most sense.”
I switch pencils, opting for a sharper one with a thinner graphite tip. Finding the spot I left off, I continue on the gridded stocks on the pistol sketch.
“Obviously this ain’t gonna be someone’s ink but for the sake of teaching, I’ll show you my process. Every artist establishes their own, but here’s mine.” Quickly, I add detail to the trigger and trigger guard, switching back to a thicker graphite to emphasize the angular opening of the barrel. “I sketch with pencil and paper first. Always. I know a lot of artists have moved to iPads, but my best work is done on paper.”
“Same,” she says, and that singular word has my hand pausing, my head turning, and my eyes meeting hers.
“You’re young to be old-school,” I comment, noticing a tiny cluster of gold near her left pupil, floating amongst the deep cerulean shade. Beautiful eyes this Firecracker has.
“I’m self-taught and was raised on a fixed income so iPads and tablets weren’t really an option.”
I nod, forcing myself to focus back on the last bit of the quick sketch. “Line work is the core of tattooing. See how this singular sketch embodies several different strokes to provide texture and depth?”
“Yes,” she says softly, exercising a tone I didn’t think she had. As shitty as it was for me to flake yesterday, she’s letting it go because she wants to learn— even if I didn’t apologize.
“I find it much easier to reach the level of complexity I want with paper and pencil. They swear to me it can be done digitally but like I said, I prefer this.” I sign the bottom of the sketch from habit, and swivel in my chair to face the counter in the corner. “Now this is what I use, but other artists here at Ink Time have their own process, so it’s up to you.”
“Before you move on to the stencil,” Ivy comments, giving me pause. I haven’t even shown her the stencil printer, but she already knows. Then again, she was here all day yesterday. Without me.
I cock a brow, interested in her question, but I don’t turn around. Not just yet. “What’s up?”
“The pen you use, do you have a cartridge that holds different sizes or do you swap the pen each time you want to change line size?” She’s intentional with her question, enunciating and speaking slowly. And when I swivel back to face her, I find her taking notes in an old spiral notebook.
I did that too when I first started. And I read through my own notes daily, staying up till all hours practicing each night.
“I use a pen with a cartridge, so when I need to change strokes, it’s all in the pen. Same tool the whole time.”
She nods, tipping her head toward her notebook to jot down my answer. When she’s done, her gaze returns to the stencil printer on the table, and she waits.
“C’mere and watch,” I say over my shoulder, hitting the button on the printer. Sensing her behind me, I feed the sketched paper through. “Some machines only print stencils from digital work, which means you need a separate scanner. This machine is designed for old-school guys like me. You put your sketch through and it prints it on thermal paper, giving you a nice little stencil.”
I hear her graphite sliding along her notebook, and the sound lifts a thousand pounds of invisible weight from my chest, lightening me in ways I never expected.
Going back to the basics is all it is. Hearing her sketch reminds me of my start, before I was attached, before I was a big name, before anything. She reminds me of the pure love of the art that I felt when I started.
And that’s the only reason my chest is light and my insides are fucking vibrating.
I ask her to sketch something quick and small, and stand behind her as she draws a small knife. I’m surprised by my urges to ask her what type of artist she wants to be, where she sees herself going creatively, and where she wants to corner herself in the tattoo world.
Truth is, I’m the one getting asked, I’m the one doing interviews, I’m the one with eyes focused on me while people wait to see what I’m up to. I’m not used to giving a shit about someone else. I don’t want to care. It’s too much of a liability.
But as her hand never leaves the paper, the dull roar of graphite on cardstock filling the space with beautiful, familiar music, I can’t help myself. I’ve never wanted to know so much about a damn near stranger before.
She’s captured my focus, and I don’t like it.
“Could use some more depth and shadowing,” I tell her, carefully placing bricks between us, one shitty comment at a time. Her sketch is beautiful and if I’m being honest, she’s a whole hell of a lot better than I was at her age. “And if you’re going to corner your sketches on?—”
“Blackwork,” she says, her pencil still moving as she focuses on the piece. “I’m a blackwork artist and I lean toward the macabre.”
Same as me when I started.
No one would know that, though, because I made my name as Trace Calhoun, the Neo Traditional God of Ink. The Travel Channel sent me around the world as Trace Tats , which later turned into Needle Ninjas when my drinking got bad and they invited more artists. We traveled, covering people in the art they dreamed of, made into my style. Art Nouveau meets Art Deco is where I thrive, but blackwork is where I started. The Travel Channel told me there wasn’t enough showmanship and possibility in blackwork. And I wanted so badly to have something to move on to that I changed my entire style.
“Think you’ll get a lot of customers here in Bluebell wanting dagger and skulls on ’em?” I question almost rhetorically, since we both know the answer. It doesn’t matter who lives around the shop, she should absolutely follow her passion. What’s the point of being a goddamn artist if you can’t create the art in your dreams? But I don’t wanna like Ivy, so I place another brick. “Okay, that’s good enough,” I slight her incredibly detailed knife sketch, despite the fact I’m hugely impressed that her line work is so clean, and that she was able to add so many layers so quickly.
There’s a sparkle on the blade.
Engraving on the handle.
Blood pooling beneath it.
Wear on the serration.
It’s fucking incredible. “It’ll work for this. We’re throwing out the stencil anyway,” I add, the callousness of my words burning my throat. I don’t watch for her response, though, because I’m feeding the paper through the machine, moving forward. “The button on the top is the power button–”
“Wow,” she says quietly. “Let me write that down.”
I turn to find her still sitting at the table, arms folded over her chest, eyes locked to mine. I’m being a prick, so she’s being a brat. No one’s ever challenged me in my career. When you’re making a network millions, you live like a king. And women never argue with me, because they wanna suck my dick so bad.
But Ivy.
Ivy doesn’t give a crap about who I am.
She stormed over to my apartment last night.
She’s rolling her eyes at me.
“Show me already, you’re not the only one with things to do,” she snaps, yanking me from my thought which was masquerading as a deep glare.
I put my hand on my hip, the other one hovering over the start button. “You’re my apprentice. What else do you have to do?”
She rises, and my heart pumps in the hollow of my throat. For some reason, my dick twitches a little, too.
“I work for Deuce, and so do you. When you’re not training me, I have things to do around the shop.” She closes the few feet between us with heavy steps in her combat boots. “Believe it or not, not everything is all about you, Trace .”
With my eyes on hers, I press the start button. Her breath is warm against my chin as she blinks up at me, angry and defiant. The stencil machine works behind us, and only after a few seconds does she break her gaze and look back at it.
“It’s fast,” she comments, recentering us.
“Yeah,” I say, still staring down at her. Freckles sweep her cheeks, curving the bridge of her nose, and her lashes are thick and long, making each blink of her eye intoxicating. That amber scent hits me again, and I step back, lifting the warm thermal paper from the tray. Handing it to her, I watch her eyes study the stencil of her work.
It’s a sketch that took five minutes to show how the machine works.
It’s nothing.
It will go in the garbage.
But I watch as her eyes rake over the paper, taking in each messy line and delicate curve. With one hand, she clutches the stencil like it’s holy, using the other to lightly dust her fingers over the design. A knot forms in my throat as she blinks up at me, fighting moisture in her eyes.
“It’s…” She clears her throat. “It’s cool seeing my sketch as a stencil.”
Heat flares in my chest, sending a shot of desire down my sternum, into my groin. Witnessing someone’s amazement– that first hit of excitement in a new business– that’s all my response is. It’s not her. It’s the symbolism. It reminds me of the best time of my life.
That’s all.
And I get it.
And I feel that amazement for her, through her. My hands burn, itching to reach out and hold her against my chest and tell her yes, it is cool, you’re great, this is where you belong .
Instead, I swipe the stencil from her hands, causing her gaze to jerk up to mine, an angry pinch between her brows.
“There will be hundreds more. It’s nothing to cry about.” I let the stencil sail into the garbage can directly under my hand as I release it, then say, “Now you know how the stencil machine works.”
She swallows thickly, folding her arms over her chest, hiding that acid-washed and torn-up Metallica t-shirt from my sight. “Got it.”
The door whooshes open, the little bell tied to the arm jingling only when it sails closed. From the front, Deuce hollers, “Trace, your mid-day appointment is here.”
“You gonna watch me draw it up and ink him or you gonna sweep floors because, you know, you’re the shop apprentice and not just mine?”
I give her credit - she’s quick to release the tight set of her jaw and the anger in her brow. “I’m glad to hear you acknowledge that you know I’m not yours. But yes, I’ll be watching you work today since you’re actually here.”
And then she’s pushing past me, stomping down the hall with her ripped tights and her salty attitude.
And I’m left to adjust my dick behind her.