Chapter 19
Nineteen
Liam
“It’s about a thousand fucking degrees out here,” Damon complains. After living here our whole lives, you’d think we’d be used to it by now. “I’m convinced that it’s just getting hotter every year. Climate change is a bitch,” he continues.
I shed my shirt which has been clinging to me like a second skin for the past few hours.
I change into a new one around lunch time every day because they get drenched so quickly.
We clean up the last of our trash and load up the windows we removed from the customer’s house into Luke’s trailer while he argues back and forth with someone on the phone.
He has no chill, whatsoever, and of course the heat doesn’t help his mood.
“Alright, boss. We’re heading out,” Dame calls to him.
He waves us away, brows furrowed as he deals with whatever bullshit someone’s spouting to him through the phone.
We settle into Damon’s car, and he cranks the A/C up to full blast. I make sure to lean forward so my back doesn’t stick to the leather seat.
“I think it’s time for a new tattoo,” I muse. The idea has been brewing inside of me for a while now, and I feel compelled to get it out and onto my skin today.
“Oh really? You know Jazz does some cool shit.”
“No, I didn’t know that. Since when? I’ve never heard a thing about it.” It’s not like I ever paid much attention to him anyway, but it still comes as a surprise.
“Yeah, man! He keeps it quiet mostly because his parents are dicks, but he actually has real talent. I’ve seen some of his work and he should be working in a real tattoo shop with that kind of quality. Hit him up, I’m sure he’ll give you a good deal.”
“We don’t even know each other like that.” I think back to the last encounter we had— I basically threatened him in the nicest way I could manage.
“Doesn’t matter. Nothing gets him going more than tattooing someone. I’m telling you, just call him. You have his number, right?”
“Why would I have his number, Damon? Not everybody’s as fucking friendly as you,” I joke.
“Oh yeah, I forgot. Your friendliness only extends to Teddy.” He rolls his eyes with a teasing smile splitting his face.
“Just give me his damn phone number,” I cut him off before he can start reaming me about Teddy. It gets old after all these years—hearing the same shit about him and I. It’s even more annoying to me that everyone saw this coming before I ever did.
He whips into my parking lot like a lunatic as usual and holds his palm out for my phone.
“Just tell me the number,” I say as I begin to add the new contact information.
“You’re so fucking weird,” he grumbles before rattling off the digits to me.
I pull some money out of my wallet and hand it to him. “Gas money.”
“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want your money. It’s not even out of the way for me to pick you up.” It’s true, but I’ll be damned if I owe anyone anything. He doesn’t have to drive me to and from work every day, but he does because at the end of the day, Damon’s a cool-ass person.
“You’re wasting your breath,” I say as I deposit the money into his center console with a smirk, and slam the door behind me before he can refuse it again.
When I enter our room, I can’t help but want to lay down and sleep until tomorrow.
The week’s exhaustion is hitting me in full force, and it would definitely be a better time than making small talk with Jazz while he drags needles across my skin for hours.
I shove the idea to the side because this tattoo is far more important. Decision made, I send a text to Jazz.
Me: It’s Liam. Heard you do tattoos. You down to do one today?
I sit down and unlace my boots before setting them by the door. On cue, my phone pings.
Jazz: Always down for some needle on skin action. I’m free in an hour.
Another message from him follows, telling me an address.
I look it up quickly on my phone. Fuck me.
That’s a long way without a car. I can already feel the irritation coiling inside of me.
I’ve saved up a lot of money since working for Luke, but it’s not enough for an apartment and a car.
I’m looking at one or the other, and as much as I want to get out of this shitty hotel with paper-thin walls, right now, a car is looking a lot more important.
I make a mental note to talk to Teddy about it later when I get back and send him a text telling him I won’t be here when he gets off work.
I take a quick shower and hustle out the door, so I don’t miss the next bus. There’s no way in hell I’m going to skate all the way across town, especially not after the exhausting work week I’ve just had.
I get off at my stop and put my board down.
I know this area but only vaguely. It’s a nicer part of town—one with big houses, manicured yards, and shiny cars adorning every perfectly pressure washed driveway.
I skate on the sidewalk narrowly avoiding the sprinkler systems that seem to be going in every yard and come to a stop in front of his house.
One thing I learned long ago is to not let this kind of thing make me uncomfortable.
Always maintain confidence. Even though I feel out of place here, and I don’t know what it’s like to live so comfortably, it doesn’t mean I should be jealous or hateful about it.
In my experience, it’s usually the families who look perfect from the outside that have the most fucked-up shit going on behind closed doors.
That’s what I tell myself. We’re all humans.
I give the door a firm knock because the house is so damn big who knows if he can even hear me. The door is pulled open by Jazz.
“Damn dude, did you skate all the way here?” he asks, looking at me crazily. “I would’ve given you a ride.” I would never accept a ride from him, but that would be offensive to say.
“It’s no big deal. I took a bus,” I respond and follow him upstairs.
I work on houses like these all the time, so it doesn’t surprise me that the inside is just as grand and expensive looking as the outside.
He leads me into a room at the end of a hallway, and my eyes are immediately drawn to all the posters and artwork covering the walls.
Then, I notice a massive flat screen TV and a full gaming computer set-up.
He must notice me eyeballing his shit because he says, “Do you game?”
“No. Never really got into that.” What I don’t mention is that my mom couldn’t afford any of it, so I never pressed the issue.
He assesses me with a gaze that’s a little too intense.
“So what do you want to get done today?” I explain to him in detail what I want, and he latches on to the idea right away, showing me different font ideas he has for it.
Talking to him right now is a stark contrast to the perception I’ve always had of him.
Gone is the jokester. He’s all serious and professional.
“Alright, I’m sorry I don’t have a tattoo chair, but you can lay back on my couch if that’s okay with you,” The way he says it lets me know it’s a soft spot for him. It’s none of my business, and from what Dame said, I’m sure it has something to do with his parents.
“Yeah, no worries,” I reassure him and take off my shirt before laying down.
He begins to prepare everything, and as far as I can tell, he follows all the proper procedures I usually see being done in shops.
He has gloves and little cups for the ink to go in and a tall lamp behind the couch that he adjusts over my torso.
My chest is almost completely covered, but there’s a gap right above my sternum and that’s where I want to get it.
My chest will finally be complete after this.
He free-hands the design with a marker, and it looks flawless.
“Damn, Jazz. This is really fucking good,” I say, and I can’t help the smile permanently stuck to my face after seeing it.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he jokes, crossing his arms over his chest. “Lay back down and let’s get started.”
At first, there’s only the loud buzzing sound of the tattoo machine and fire licking against my flesh. I let my eyes wander, taking in everything on the walls. “Did you draw all that?” I ask.
He wipes at the raw skin on my chest and looks up, running his gaze across the walls longingly, and nods his head. He goes back to inking my skin, concentration setting the features of his face into hard lines. He looks almost angry.
“What’s this tattoo about?” he asks curiously, clearly trying to change the subject.
I eye him for a minute, unsure if I really want to talk to him about it.
Something about getting tattooed always makes me want to talk, it’s therapeutic in a way—which is strange because who wants to talk about deep shit while a needle is pounding into their skin?
“It’s for Teddy,” I state simply. And he better not give me shit for it.
His thick, black eyebrows lift, and he shoots me expectant look.
“I know it’s bad luck or whatever to get a tattoo for a person you’re dating.
” I hate saying dating, it sounds so juvenile.
It doesn’t even begin to encompass everything between him and I, but I continue anyway.
“We’ve been friends for ten years and now we’re together.
It’s still new—this whole thing, I mean.
But I know I could never regret this tattoo. I could never regret him.”
He wipes me and looks up, meeting my gaze.
“I believe you. Can’t say I’ve ever felt that way about anyone, though.
Probably never will. It’s funny because I would never do something like this—mark my body for someone forever.
But I honestly can’t look at you and say what you’re doing is wrong or stupid,” he says thoughtfully.
My brows furrow because once again it strikes me as odd that he can show this kind of depth.
He’s always had this mysterious, cool guy act going on.
“Never say never. It may surprise you someday just how a person can walk into your life and change it forever.” I think back to those early days when I first saw Teddy sitting on the curb, watching me skate like my own little stalker.
My heart feels warm and heavy beneath my chest, right where Jazz is engraving the most meaningful tattoo I’ll ever get.
A smirk lights up his face. “Never took you for a sappy kind of dude.” And I guess his mask is back on now. He morphed right in front of my eyes from chill to dickhead.
“Never took you for a troubled secret artist,” I shoot back.
“You shouldn’t talk shit to the troubled artist putting ink into your skin. You never know what could happen,” he muses, but I get the feeling that he takes his undercover tattoo business way too seriously to ever put something bad on someone.
After a few moments of comfortable silence, I ask, “Did you patch up whatever shit is going on between you and Ant?”
He scoffs. “What’s there to patch up? We had a threesome—"
“You, what?!” I interrupt. Holy shit.
His forehead creases with aggravation. “Oh, he still hasn’t told you? I thought you all were the best of friends,” he sneers, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. Ask him. Even though he’s a fucking asshole, I’m not interested in sharing shit he so obviously wants to be kept a secret.”
I narrow my eyes at him. For a second, I consider losing my shit since he thinks it’s okay to talk shit about one of my friends around me, but something makes me bite my tongue.
I can tell there’s more to it, something personal.
Jazz is perpetually unbothered; he never gets worked up like this. I decide to leave it alone.
He schools his features and goes back in, putting in the final touches on the tattoo, and finally announces that it’s done. “Take a look,” he says.
I approach the mirror. My heart beats faster the closer I get, and when my eyes land on it, they burn.
The tattoo is simple but still beautiful—it reads My Golden Angel in a tattoo style script with black and gray shading around the letters.
It’s perfect. Not a single wobbly line. “It’s better than I imagined,” I say, barely able to keep the emotion from my voice.
Jazz pauses his clean-up and meets my eyes. “I’m glad you like it, and I’m happy I could do it for you.” His eyes soften only slightly, but the meaning is there in the depth of his gaze.
“Maybe next time I’ll let you do one of those creepy-ass drawings,” I say, motioning to his walls.
He smirks. “You’d be fucking lucky to get one of them on your skin.”
An exchange of money and a fist bump later, and I’m on my way home.