36
Lila
The tattoo wasn’t the reason I almost changed my mind about going to Last Rites.
That part made sense to me. Blue and Priest had fought their way through enough to earn whatever version of permanence they wanted, and if she wanted his name on her skin because loving him had become something she could finally touch, I understood that more than I wanted to.
The problem was the company.
Evan sat in the backseat in oversized sunglasses and enough attitude to power a small city. Blue rode beside me, rubbing her thumb over the inside of her wrist where Priest’s name would be before we left. She looked calm if you didn’t know her.
I did. “You’re nervous,” I said as I killed the engine.
Blue turned toward me, then glanced back at Evan. “I’m not nervous.”
Evan made a skeptical sound from the backseat. “That was so unconvincing it nearly qualified as fiction.”
Blue laughed softly and reached for the door. “I’m fine.”
“You are absolutely not fine,” he said, climbing out behind her before adjusting his sunglasses. “But that’s alright. We’re here as your emotional support team.”
I got out last and looked up at the black lettering across the storefront. Last Rites Tattoo and Piercing. Dark glass, clean lines, framed art visible beyond the windows. Serious without trying too hard, which seemed appropriate for a place that made permanence its business.
The second we walked in, Jackson looked up. Of course he did.
He stood near the front counter talking to a woman dressed almost entirely in black, one forearm braced against the glass.
The look that crossed his face when he saw me caught somewhere low and inconvenient.
He didn’t smile right away. That would have been easier to fight.
He just looked at me like my being there mattered more than it should.
Blue caught it too. She pointed at him before he could say a word. “Don’t start. Today is about me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Ain’t started nothin’, doc.”
Evan made a low sound beside me. “The sexual tension in here is deeply inconsiderate.”
I elbowed him. “Behave.”
Evan grinned. “Never.”
The woman behind the counter glanced our way, dark lipstick flattening with the rest of her expression as if she had already decided we were unlikely to improve her afternoon.
Black clothes, silver jewelry, sharp eyes.
She had the kind of presence that made me suspect stupidity rarely survived long around her.
Farther back, a dark-haired man looked up from a sketch, handsome in an absent-minded way that suggested he had never bothered to make use of it.
He took us in, gave a small nod, then returned to his work.
Another man came out of the back room with a bottle of water, quiet and broad-shouldered, carrying the settled stillness of someone who preferred doing over talking.
Then Ink appeared at the entrance to one of the bays, black gloves already on. His attention went straight to Blue. “You ready?”
Blue lifted her wrist. “As I’ll ever be.”
Ink stepped aside with a short nod, and we followed her toward the bay. Jackson’s voice caught me before I made it past him. “Don’t wander off, Princess.”
I kept walking. “I’m not your problem.”
His answer came low behind me, easy enough to heat my skin anyway. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
I resisted the urge to turn around and kick him in the shin.
Ink’s bay was more intimate than dramatic, enclosed on three sides with dark partitions and black brick while the open front faced the main aisle.
Bright task lighting cut across the chair in the center, and framed designs covered one wall.
Blue settled into the seat with the determination of a woman voluntarily choosing pain for romance.
Evan dropped into one of the side chairs and crossed a leg over the other, managing to look artfully bored before anything had even happened.
Ink noticed him. He said nothing as he adjusted Blue’s armrest, prepared his station, and arranged everything with the same precise control he seemed to bring to every part of his life.
Blue removed her bracelet and offered her wrist. Ink cleaned the skin, pressed the stencil into place, then showed her the script.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
It was. Priest in elegant lettering, delicate without losing anything of what the name meant.
Ink only nodded. “Told you.”
Evan sat three feet away and didn’t look at him once.
That was when I knew the indifference was deliberate.
Usually there was some current between them the second they shared a room, whether it came out as a look, a comment, or one of Evan’s shameless little flirty performances.
Today he gave Ink nothing. No grin. No flutter of lashes.
Not even a sigh engineered for maximum irritation.
Blue noticed too. Her mouth twitched before she got it under control.
Ink settled onto his stool and started the first lines. Blue hissed softly, then breathed through it. Evan finally looked over. “You okay?”
Blue gave him a bland look. “Fine.”
His mouth tilted. “That sounds fake.”
Blue smiled without moving her wrist. “It’s small.”
Evan settled back again. “That’s what people always say right before regretting everything.”
Blue snorted, and Ink kept his attention on the line beneath his hand. “You talk too much.”
Evan lowered his sunglasses just enough to look over the top. “Interesting. You didn’t seem to have a problem with my mouth before.”
Ink’s hand paused for less than a second. Then it moved again.
Before either man could make the air any tighter, Evan leaned his head back and looked around the bay. “I’ve actually been thinking about getting a tattoo.”
I turned toward him. “You?”
He gasped as if I had insulted his ancestors. “I can contain multitudes.”
Blue laughed.
Evan put one hand to his chest. “One small, tasteful, emotionally devastating piece. Something that says I am mysterious and beautiful but also impossible to own.”
The tattoo machine kept buzzing until a male voice came from the hallway, easy and amused. “If the cute guy wants a first tattoo, I’d be happy to volunteer.”
All of us looked toward the open doorway.
The new man I had noticed near the front leaned one shoulder against the frame, gloves gone now, dark hair pushed back from his face. A half-smile sat easily on his mouth, the kind of confidence that came from knowing exactly how he landed in a room.
Evan straightened and lowered his sunglasses. “Is that excellent customer service or a line?”
The man smiled wider. “Why not both?”
Blue bit her lip to keep from laughing. I didn’t bother. “You move fast.”
“I like efficiency.” His gaze stayed on Evan. “And I do realism mostly, if that helps. Photorealism, portraits, memorial pieces. I can show you my portfolio if you’re serious.”
Evan tilted his head. “Trying to lure me into another room already? We haven’t even exchanged names.”
That should have ended it. Instead, Ink sat back from Blue’s wrist and finally looked up.
Ink’s voice went flat. “Don’t you dare.”
The room went still.
Evan blinked. “Excuse me?”
Ink held his gaze, face unreadable. “If anybody in this shop is givin’ you your first tattoo, it’ll be me.”
Blue made a sound she almost managed to turn into a cough. I pressed my lips together while the new guy’s brows climbed in open amusement.
Evan turned slowly in his chair. “I’m sorry. I could have sworn I just heard someone speaking to me like he thought he had the right to tell me what to do.”
Ink didn’t move.
Evan looked down at himself with theatrical concentration. “Nope. Still don’t see a property patch on me anywhere.”
Blue snorted.
Ink glared at both of us, which only made it worse. Evan rose with exquisite calm, smoothed one hand down the front of his shirt, and gave the man in the doorway a smile sweet enough to qualify as a threat. “Lead on, handsome.”
The man pushed off the frame, clearly entertained by the disaster he had just walked into. “Garrett,” he said as Evan joined him. “And unless I’m tattooing ‘mystery man’ across your ass, I should probably get your name too.”
Ink stared after them. Blue’s shoulders started shaking, and mine followed before I could help it.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Blue said, still smiling as she resettled her wrist. “You absolutely did that to yourself.”
Ink turned back toward her slowly. “You moved.”
Blue gave him an innocent look. “I laughed.”
His stare sharpened. “You moved while I had a needle in your skin.”
Blue’s smile stayed exactly where it was. “Then maybe don’t have emotional breakdowns mid-line.”
I snorted before sense could stop me. Ink looked at me.
I lifted my brows. “What?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t.”
That was probably aimed at both of us.
He muttered something under his breath and bent over Blue’s wrist again, rigid focus taking over where jealousy had been a second ago.
The room settled enough for the machine to become the loudest thing in it.
Blue asked a few questions about aftercare, and Ink answered while Priest’s name darkened into permanence across her skin.
It looked right there. I kept that thought to myself. Blue already had enough emotion tied to the day without me adding mine.
After a minute, she glanced at me. “So. Coffee diplomacy.”
I leaned back in the chair. “You’re really not letting that go, are you?”
Blue’s smile widened. “Nope.”
Ink stayed bent over her wrist, machine buzzing low in his hand. For a moment he looked absorbed enough in the tattoo that I let myself pretend Blue and I had privacy.
“It was fine,” I said.
Blue lifted a brow. “Fine in a real way or fine in a Lila way?”
I sighed. “It was awkward at first.”
Blue waited a beat. “And then?”
I shifted deeper into the chair. “And then less awkward.”
Her brow lifted. “That sounds promising.”
“It sounds like coffee,” I said, though I kept talking because Blue had always been good at turning silence into an invitation rather than a demand.