4 - Sage
Sage
The door clicked shut behind him, and the bell gave one tired chime before settling.
He stood just inside the threshold, shoulders squared from the cold, hoodie unzipped enough to show the team logo stretched across his chest. The ice hadn’t fully left him yet.
There was still that alertness in the way he held himself, like someone waiting for a whistle.
I reached past him and flipped only the lights above the flash wall and the lamp over the counter. The studio shifted from storefront to after-hours. The neon sign stayed dark, because I wasn’t about to advertise an encore.
“You’ve got five minutes to convince me I’m not wasting my time.” I slid my keys back into the drawer and waited.
He huffed a quiet laugh, then let it die just as quickly. His gaze drifted, not to me, but past me. Toward the back corner of the studio. Toward the privacy curtain that hid my station.
Of course.
Impatience gnawed at the edges of my resolve, and I moved a stack of consent forms into alignment, more out of habit than necessity. “You got me to let you in. Congratulations. Now spill.”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck. The determined guy who’d jogged up from his truck with that dumb line about extended hours had disappeared. In his place stood someone recalculating.
“I just…” He glanced again at the curtain. “I didn’t want to leave it like that.”
“Leave what like what?”
There would be no easy routes out of this. If he was going to interrupt me getting home after a long day, then he was damn sure going to make it worth my while.
“You know.”
I held his stare until he gave up on that shortcut.
He shifted his weight, eyes dropping to the floor between us. His laces were still damp. “Walking out.”
I circled out from behind the counter and moved toward one of the sinks at the guys’ stations. As predicted, there was a collection of metal ink caps in it. I rinsed them, letting the water run over my knuckles, cool against skin that had spent the day wrapped in gloves.
“People walk out on worse,” I said, once I’d given his confession enough time to settle. “It’s not like you lost any of your hard-earned money.”
He didn’t smile at that. His attention snagged on the stainless steel tray beside the sink, on the machines already broken down for the night. His jaw worked once.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I dried my hands and faced him fully. He filled the space differently tonight. Less performance, more static.
“Then what did you mean?”
His eyes flicked back to the curtain. He wasn’t subtle about it. If I’d been the type to fill in people’s blank spaces, I would’ve dragged him straight back there and finished the goddamn thing myself. Instead, I stepped in front of his line of sight without making it obvious.
“Let’s save the meaningful glances for a night when I’m not exhausted, and use our words, shall we?”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “You said something.”
“I say a lot of things.”
“About me taking myself out of the team.”
There it was.
I folded my arms, and backed off a little. But I didn’t take the pressure off all the way. He’d done the hard part, but it was far from over. The clock on the wall ticked over to eleven. Outside, a car passed, headlights washing across the front windows before fading.
“And?” I asked.
“And it stuck.” He didn’t dress it up or deflect with a joke this time. Just stood there, hands shoved into his hoodie pocket, staring at the scuffed floor between us. “I kept thinking about it all through practice tonight.”
I studied him the way I would a stencil that wasn’t quite right yet. The version who’d shown up at my door had been all forward motion, chin up, mouth running. This one looked like he’d hit a wall.
The urge to break it down in one fell swoop rose up in me like a ratcheting ball of flames. But I grit my teeth hard against it. I was many things, but my mother’s daughter wasn’t one of them.
“You drove all the way over here because of something I said? Sounds like you took a few hits to the head during practice.”
His mouth twitched into what was almost a smile. “My head’s fine. Structurally, anyway.”
I walked toward the flash wall and adjusted one of the prints that had tilted during the day. My reflection ghosted in the glass frame, silver rings through my ear catching the low light.
“I don’t do pep talks,” I said. “And I don’t babysit grown men through existential crises.”
“I’m not having a crisis.”
“Good. Because I charge extra for those.”
That earned me a short laugh, and he took a few steps in, stopping near the center of the room. Not totally decided on it yet, but not bracing for a hasty retreat either.
“I just kept thinking about what you said,” he continued. “About me deciding I’m on the outside before anyone puts me there.”
I didn’t answer right away. I watched the way he held his shoulders, the way his fingers flexed inside the pocket of his hoodie.
He looked like he wanted to be certain of something before he committed to it.
Couldn’t exactly judge him too harshly on that, since I was intimately familiar with the feeling.
“And you came here to give me a personal update,” I said.
He shook his head once. “I came here because I don’t quit on things I’ve started.”
My gaze dropped to where the Cup’s unfinished outline was hidden under cotton and pride on his right bicep. “Technically, I was the one who started it.”
His eyes lifted, caught on mine. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to be accurate.”
The studio felt smaller with only half the lights on. Shadows pooled under the chairs. The curtain at the back hung still. He looked at it again, and this time I let him.
“You came here to finish it.”
“Yes.” He swallowed, and it was clear what I was dealing with.
The sudden urge to finish the tattoo might have been what drove him here, but his reason for walking out in the first place still hung thick in the air. Aiden Santos didn’t strike me as the kind of man who easily went back on his beliefs, and if he believed he hadn’t fully earned that ink—
“Maybe you should come back to this in the morning with a fresh, structurally sound head.”
His jaw tightened at that. I could see him working through something, the same way clients do when they realize a tattoo is less about the design and more about what it’s saying.
“My name was on that sheet just the same as everyone else’s,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how far down in the line-up. I was part of the team that lifted the Cup.”
I stepped closer, closing some of the distance without crowding him. Close enough to see the faint red mark where his helmet strap had pressed into his jaw.
“You think coming back here fixes all the mixed up feelings you have about it.”
“I think not coming back definitely doesn’t.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I walked past him toward the back of the studio, stopping just short of the curtain. “Well, it’s my professional opinion that you shouldn’t finish it and if you’re insistent, I’m gonna have to insist too, and refer you to one of my colleagues. Because I sure as hell won’t touch that thing.”
His gaze snapped to mine, shocked confusion flickering in his eyes. “What?”
“You heard me,” I said, not looking away. “But you forced me back into work mode, so now you have to sit in my chair.”
Then I reached up and flicked on the lamp behind the curtain, letting a strip of light spill across the floor.
“But you just s—”
“I said sit, Santos.”
He stepped past me, ducking past the edge of the curtain like it might snap at him.
“Are you always this bossy? Can’t imagine it’s good for client retention.”
“It works like a charm on the guys who like to be dominated.”
He paused mid-shift, one hand still braced on the armrest. His eyes lifted to mine, slow and knowing, and he smirked.
I planted my palm against his sternum, and pushed him back into the vinyl. “Keep it in your pants, hockey boy.”
He laughed under his breath as his shoulders hit the chair. The sound settled somewhere low in my stomach before I could stop it.
I turned to my tray, already mentally cataloging what I’d need to reset, when I noticed the open sketchbook sitting where my machines usually lived. Shit. I forgot to stow it back under lock and key where it belonged when I wasn’t alone.
He noticed it at the same time and without asking, picked it up.
“Hey, that’s not—”
But Aiden snatched it out of my reach as I went for it. “Relax.”
“I’m relaxed. I just don’t like people touching my stuff.”
He flipped a page, and my stomach twisted into a heavy knot. The overhead lamp caught the graphite, the wash of color bleeding into paper. Then he turned another.
“These aren’t tattoos.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Your powers of observation astound me.”
Another page. Another. He slowed as he moved deeper into it, the joking edge draining out of him.
Portrait studies. Movement pieces. Outlines layered with watercolor until the paper bowed. A series of figures in motion, bodies colliding, hands reaching, faces caught mid-expression.
“You did this?”
I stared at him. “No. Every night when I turn off the lights and leave, little elves sneak into the studio and—”
“Okay, fine.” He snapped the book closed and jabbed it at me. “Sorry I asked.”
I took it quickly and slid it onto the counter behind me, out of reach. Out of sight. Out of the realm of any further conversation.
“Now take your shirt off.”
He blinked. “I thought you weren’t touching the Cup.”
“I’m not.”
“Then I deserve to know why you have me here?”
Taking his attempt at clarity to heart, I balled it up and threw it right back at him. “Why are you here, Aiden?”
The question sat between us.
He looked at me like he was still deciding. Then he reached for the hem of his jacket and pulled it off, tossing it over the back of the chair. The Surge jersey followed, cotton catching briefly at his shoulders before clearing them.
The light in my station traced every line the fabric had expertly hidden.
His chest was a study in contrast. Clean muscle broken up by ink. Black lines wrapping across one pec, color blooming across his ribs. Script along his collarbone. The dragon just below it, scales etched with meticulous care.
I’d seen it before.
I’d touched it before.
That had been with gloves on. Professional distance. A layer between my skin and his. Also, I wasn’t really paying attention.
Tonight there was no barrier and no distraction.
“Maybe a touch-up wouldn’t hurt,” he said, settling back in the chair. “Seeing as how I forced you back into work mode, and all.”
I stepped closer.
The air between us tightened, and I lifted my hand before I could overthink it. Letting my fingertips hover over the ink on his chest.
Then I touched him.
My fingers traced the edge of the hatchling dragon’s wing, following the curve of muscle beneath it. The lines were clean. Saturation strong. Whoever had done it had known exactly how far to push the color without muddying it.
His skin was warm under my hand. Solid. Real.
I moved lower, mapping the path of another piece that cut across his abdomen, the shading subtle enough that you had to get close to see how layered it was. Get close is exactly what I did, my breath causing goosebumps to rush onto his skin under it.
He went still in the chair.
My hand drifted back up to the dragon, and the style clicked into place in my head. I tapped it lightly. “Amos Kane.”
His brows lifted. “You know him?”
“Who doesn’t?”
But Aiden was still impressed at my guess. “His studio is this dark, dingy little place above a—”
“Above Madame Hong’s Chinese take-out,” I finished. “Yeah. I studied him for years while trying to find my own style.”
His gaze flicked toward my discarded sketchbook on the counter. “Is that what the drawings are about?”
I hesitated.
The easy answer would’ve been a joke. Something dismissive. Something that kept him out of my life.
But I didn’t know if it was the specific look he gave me, or the fact that my fingers were still resting on his ripped abs that weakened my resolve. Because I made the split second choice to be honest about it.
“I’m working on my fine art portfolio.”
He searched my face like he was checking for sarcasm. When he found none, he said, “Cool.”
That was it. No follow-up question about why. No condescending nod. Just cool.
I pulled my hand back and busied myself with the tray, rearranging tools that didn’t need rearranging. “Yeah. I’m not just a badass in an ink shop.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
I glanced at him. “You don’t know what you thought, remember?”
He shrugged, the motion shifting the ink across his chest. I licked my lips and forced myself to look away.
“At practice tonight,” he said, his tone careful.
“I realized you were right. I’m the one keeping myself on the outside of the team even though they try to make me a part of it.
I never go for drinks or hang out, just because.
It’s like I’ve already decided I’m not part of it, and I go out of my way to keep it like that. ”
I stayed quiet.
“In the locker room, they were all showing off their Cup tattoos,” he continued. “And it hit me: that was just another thing that I’d walked out on. Another chance to be part of them, and I said no.”
“You had your reasons, and they’re not wrong.”
“It’s technically mine,” he added. “That win. That team.”
The word technically hung there, thin and defensive.
I sat on my stool and folded my hands in my lap. “I get it more than you think. That sketchbook? It’s the same thing. You’re not the only one chasing something that feels just out of reach.”
His expression shifted, and the warmth drained out of it.
“Unattainable,” he said, the word edged now.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Sounded like it.”
He swung his legs off the chair and reached for his shirt. The movement was abrupt, fabric scraping against his skin as he yanked it over his head.
I stood up. “Aiden.”
He pushed past the curtain, stopping just on the other side, jacket bunched in his hands. The light from my station carved him out from the darker shop beyond.
When he turned back to me, his expression was guarded in a way it hadn’t been since he’d walked in. I mentally kicked myself for saying something so stupid.
“Please sit down,” I said. “I have an idea.”