58. Critical Nineteen
Chapter fifty-eight
Critical Nineteen
Micah
I still have the original sketch.
That probably shouldn’t surprise me. I keep old work all the time—finished designs, abandoned designs, flashes I liked enough not to throw away. There are folders in the back of my studio full of things that probably haven’t seen daylight in years.
But this one isn’t filed with those.
It’s tucked inside the back cover of one of my personal sketchbooks, the paper softened slightly at the corners from being handled more than once.
A simple black-line d20 with nineteen facing up.
There are still faint pencil marks around the edges where I adjusted the proportions before transferring it to Cami’s skin.
I’m staring at it longer than I need to when Dex speaks behind me.
“You gonna frame it or tattoo us?”
I don’t turn around. “Considering framing it and sending you home.”
“Rude. This is supposed to be a meaningful bonding experience.”
“This was your idea.”
“Technically, this was all our idea.”
That makes me look over my shoulder.
Dex is already stretched across my tattoo table like he’s about to undergo major surgery instead of getting a tattoo smaller than the palm of my hand.
Ronan sits in the chair near the wall reading the aftercare sheet I handed him, even though I’m reasonably certain he researched tattoo healing for six hours before agreeing to this.
Griffin stands beside him with his arms crossed, looking like he may be reconsidering every decision that brought him here.
Which is impressive, considering this is the guy who runs into burning buildings for a living.
I hold up the sketch.
All three of them quiet, and the sudden absence of Dex’s running commentary makes something uncomfortable pull beneath my ribs.
“That’s hers?” Griffin asks.
“The original.”
Dex lifts his head. “You kept it?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t offer more than that, because I don’t need to. Ronan studies the paper through his glasses, his expression softening in a way most people probably wouldn’t notice.
Griffin notices.
So does Dex.
“Okay,” Dex says, quieter. “That’s actually disgustingly sentimental, Sad Boy.”
“Fuck off.”
“No. I support this version of you.”
I turn toward the copier before any of them can make the moment worse.
Same design. Four transfers. Nothing changed except the scale where it needs to fit each placement, because that matters to me more than I expected.
When Cami first asked for this tattoo, she told me twenty felt fake. Like a fairytale. Nineteen was effort—everything working almost perfectly, but still having to fight for the last inch.
At the time, I understood what she meant.
At least I thought I did.
Now I’m standing in my studio two days before she marries Griffin again, getting ready to put that exact same mark on four men who never planned on ending up here.
Griffin and Ronan spent years insisting they’d never get tattoos at all.
Dex has enough ink that another piece shouldn’t mean anything unusual.
I have more tattoos than I could count without stopping to actually inventory my body.
None of that matters.
This one is different.
Maybe that’s the whole fucking point.
“Who’s first?” I ask.
Dex lifts his hand from the table. “Me.”
“You’re already lying down.”
“Exactly. Initiative.”
Griffin looks at him. “Where are you even putting it?”
Dex’s grin changes.
I already know what’s coming. Apparently Ronan does too, because he closes his eyes.
“No,” Ronan says.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You don’t need to.”
Dex sits up and reaches for his belt.
Griffin makes a strangled sound. “Jesus Christ.”
“You asked.”
“I did not ask you to undress.”
“You asked where I’m putting it.”
Dex unbuttons his pants and pushes them down far enough to expose the upper inside of his thigh.
High.
Very high.
I point at the spot. “There?”
“Yep.”
Ronan looks over the top of his glasses. “That is going to be unpleasant.”
Dex shrugs. “I’ve had needles through my dick.”
Griffin immediately looks away.
I sigh. “Please don’t say that while I’m setting up.”
“I’m just saying, this is not my first rodeo with pointy things near my balls.”
“Keep talking, and I’ll move it closer.”
Dex beams at me. “Threaten me with a good time, Daddy.”
“Do you want Ronan to do it?”
That shuts him up for almost three seconds.
Ronan doesn’t even look up from the aftercare sheet. “I would sterilize everything appropriately.”
“No offense, Dungeon Daddy, but I’m gonna stick with the trained professional.”
“Wise.”
I shave the small patch that needs it, clean the skin, place the stencil, and let him twist himself around to check the position.
“That’s fucking hot.”
“It’s a twenty-sided die.”
“It’s on my thigh.”
“Those are unrelated facts.”
“Not to me.”
I put on fresh gloves and start the machine, and the familiar buzz fills the station.
That sound disappeared for me years ago. Somewhere around the first few hundred tattoos it became background noise, like a refrigerator humming or traffic outside an apartment window.
Today it doesn’t disappear.
Neither does anything else.
The ink caps lined beside me. The sharp, clean smell of disinfectant. The weight of Dex’s leg beneath my hand. Griffin and Ronan sitting a few feet away. That old piece of paper resting on the counter where I can still see it if I lift my head.
The first line goes in clean.
Dex barely reacts to the needle. He watches for a while before turning his head toward Griffin.
“So, when Cami sees mine, do we think she’ll appreciate the placement artistically or just sexually?”
“Neither,” Griffin says.
“That’s pessimistic.”
“She’ll call you an idiot.”
“Affectionately.”
“Probably.”
I smile despite myself and keep working.
The tattoo isn’t complicated, and Dex sits better than he talks, so it doesn’t take long. When I wipe the excess ink away, the nineteen looks back at me from inside the die.
Same lines.
Same angle.
Same imperfect roll.
Different skin.
Dex’s joking expression disappears for half a second.
Just half.
His fingers drift toward the edge before he remembers not to touch it.
“Huh.”
I know that sound.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” His mouth curves again, but smaller now. “Just feels different than I thought it would.”
Yeah.
It does.
I cover it with second skin, and Dex pulls his pants back up, patting my shoulder when he stands.
“One complete.”
The artist working two stations down finally looks over.
Jules has been pretending not to listen for at least twenty minutes, and they are terrible at pretending.
“Wait.” They pull off one glove and point it at us. “Are you actually all getting the same tattoo?”
“Yes,” Griffin answers.
Jules looks from him to Ronan, then to Dex, and finally to me.
“Is this a cult?”
Dex lights up. “Thank you. That’s exactly what I said.”
“You did not.”
“I thought it.”
“Different thing.”
Jules looks at Griffin. “Blink twice if they brought you here against your will.”
Griffin stares at them. “No one could bring me anywhere against my will.”
Jules considers him. “Fair.”
Dex leans against the counter. “We’re getting married.”
Ronan looks up sharply.
Griffin says, “Two of us are getting married.”
“Details.”
“Important details.”
Jules points between the four of us. “Matching tattoos before a wedding.”
“Wedding present,” I clarify.
That changes their expression immediately. “Oh.”
Their eyes drop toward the sketch on my counter before coming back to us.
“Okay. That’s actually kind of sweet.”
Dex presses a hand to his chest. “We’re a very emotionally healthy cult.”
“No cult has ever said that.”
“Excellent point.”
I point toward their station. “Go bother somebody else.”
Jules grins and goes back to their client.
Ronan stands. “My turn.”
I look at him for a second before I move. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
There’s no hesitation, but there hasn’t been for weeks. Once Ronan decides something, most of the deliberation has already happened somewhere privately in his head.
He chose his left forearm, several inches below the inside of his elbow. Not hidden, not somewhere covered most of the time. Somewhere he’ll see it every single day.
He rolls his sleeve higher and settles into the chair while I pull the stool closer.
“This position okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to move your wrist.”
“I know.”
I pause, meeting his eyes.
He isn’t irritated. He’s just reminding me that he’s tracking what I’m doing, which is different. It matters with Ronan.
I nod and take his hand.
I’ve touched him more in the last few months than I did in all the years before them, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped noticing. His skin is warm beneath my palm as I rotate his arm slowly, watching the tendons shift beneath the surface while I position him.
“Here?”
He looks down at the stencil. “Yes.”
“You want to check it standing first?”
“I already did.”
Of course he did.
I smile. “Right.”
After I clean the skin again, I brace his wrist lightly against the support and start the machine.
Ronan watches me work.
Not the needle.
Me.
I notice it somewhere around the second line, when I glance up expecting his attention to be fixed on his arm and find his eyes on my face instead.
Something tightens low behind my ribs.
I look back down.
You learn quickly in this job how not to think about the intimacy of touching people. You have to. Bodies become working surfaces—skin tension, angles, needle depth, blood, ink. Stretch. Wipe. Reposition. Keep moving.
Ronan refuses to become a surface beneath my hands.
Every point of contact stays sharp in my awareness.
The spread of my fingers when I stretch the skin. My thumb braced against the inside of his wrist. The tiny movement of his tendons when I reposition his arm. His breathing, slow and controlled, close enough that every exhale brushes faintly across the inside of my wrist.
When I change my grip, his eyes track the movement of my hand before I touch him.
Always.
He sees it coming. Knows where I’m going. Lets me.
I stretch the skin again and feel his forearm remain loose in my hand. There’s no recoil, no tension beyond the body’s natural response to the needle.