5 - Aiden
Aiden
I dropped back into the chair, not quite having forgiven myself for coming over here in the first place.
“The blackout bar on my wrist could probably use—”
“You don’t need anything touched up.” She gave my chest and arms a quick scan as she took up her stool. “Saturation’s solid. Lines are clean.”
“Okay.” I shifted against the vinyl. “If we’re not finishing the Cup and you’re not fixing anything, why am I half naked again?”
“Shush.”
“Did you just shush me?”
“Are you really going to make me repeat myself?” The look she gave me did more than the question to inform me of my position. This was her domain, and her say was the last one.
Kinda reminded me of the team’s hierarchy, but this case was way hotter.
I dragged two fingers across my lips to mime zipping them shut. Curiosity already clawed at me, though. If I were being honest, this woman was starting to intrigue the hell out of me.
Sage turned to her tray and began mixing ink, movements precise without overthinking anything. She worked like she trusted her hands more than anything else in the room. I knew that feeling well.
“Eyes up,” she said without looking at me. “No looking until I’m finished.”
“I don’t get to see what you’re doing to permanently scar my body?”
“I just need you to trust me.”
I was only half amused. Couldn’t figure out if the other half was excited or terrified. “I was taught never to trust strangers.”
She scoffed. “The rule is trust no one except your dentist, your vet, and your tattoo artist.”
“I don’t have any pets,” I said, biting back a laugh.
“Red flag number one.”
“Oh, yeah? How many do you have?”
She pivoted toward me, and her gaze traveled over my chest with focus that had nothing to do with flirting and everything to do with assessment. My brain, unfortunately, didn’t care about the distinction. Her eyes on me at all seemed to do something low in my gut.
“You’ve met my colleagues,” she said. “They’re all the feral I can handle at this point in my life.”
Her fingers pressed along my ribs, testing placement. I obeyed her ‘no looking’ rule, and fixed my eyes on a water stain on the ceiling. The thin latex barrier did nothing to dull the warmth from her fingers. My skin registered each point of contact, heat trailing in her wake.
Then she tapped a spot on my ribs. “Here. This is perfect.”
I glanced down on instinct, and her hand shot up to angle my chin away. “I said no looking.”
“So you don’t need me to confirm placement?”
“I need you to sit still, and say nothing.”
I shut up.
The cool swipe of antiseptic raised goose bumps along my side as she cleaned the area.
I’d sat through enough of these to know the routine: Prep.
Stencil. Adjust. But there was something different about being under her hands.
There was usually random conversation, background music, the drone of other clients getting work done around me.
Purple Rose after hours felt more intimate than any other tattoo I’d gotten before.
She placed the stencil, leaned back with a squint and then leaned in again to adjust it by a fraction. A few seconds later, her machine started up. First contact shot through me like it always did—pressure good, pain the same.
Still staring at the ceiling, I said, “This better not be a dick and balls.”
Her hand lifted off my ribs so fast the chair creaked when I shifted. “You can’t make me laugh while I have a literal needle in your skin.”
“You’re supposed to be the pro who can handle all kinds of clients. The squealers, the moaners, the fidgeters...”
“Bite me.”
She reset, machine in hand, and the motor kicked on. That familiar vibration traveled through the frame and into the air between us. I’d always liked that sound. It meant permanence. Commitment. Something that couldn’t be changed on a whim.
The first pass bit into my ribs and I clenched my jaw out of habit. Ribs were no joke. Not unbearable, but intimate. The needle skated over bone with nowhere to hide.
“Still with me?” she asked.
“Probably lost my mind, agreeing to a blind tattoo. But I’m here.”
“Good.”
I glanced down in time to catch her mouth twitch with the hint of a smile.
She continued, her hand steady against my side. The stretch of skin under her gloved fingers was firm and controlled. She didn’t rush, but there wasn’t any hesitation in her movements either.
I’d come in tonight to finish the Cup, then I’d decided against it. Then I’d convinced myself maybe I’d just tweak something old. Now, here I was, letting her carve something new into me without even knowing what it was.
“D’you guys have a game tonight?”
My head almost snapped down out of mild shock, but I remembered her earlier instruction and kept my eyes glued to the ceiling. What I couldn’t remember was the last time I’d met someone who didn’t know the NHL schedule by heart.
“Just a practice.”
The way she shrugged without stopping what she was doing meant it was all the same to her. She had her interests, knew what she was about, and made no apologies for it.
I watched the light fixture instead of her. “That’s… kind of refreshing.”
“Refreshing?”
“Yeah.” I shifted under her hand, then settled when she pressed me back into place. “You’re not circling around it. Or pretending to be interested.”
“I’m working.”
“Exactly.”
She squinted at me, pausing for the first time. “You’re losing me.”
I exhaled through my nose. “Most people pick a lane based on who they’re standing in front of. You don’t.”
“That’s called not being fake.” She went back to it, wiping ink and blood from my skin.
“Right.” I swallowed. “I’m not great at that.”
“Not being fake?”
“Not… holding my ground.” But even that didn’t feel quite right. I went with it, though.
Her hands stilled for half a beat, then resumed. “On the ice?”
“Everywhere.”
The word hung between us. We were there now, whatever my feelings about keeping shit to myself.
I cleared my throat. “Coach wanted open tryouts for second line center this season. With Landon’s promotion, Mason shifted to first center.”
“And?”
“And it was between me and Shawn, but I stepped back and let him have it.”
She didn’t respond right away. Just reached for more ink. Her silence made my decision sound more ridiculous than it did at first, and I found myself backtracking. This was what I got for opening my big mouth.
“He missed most of last season with his injury,” I said. “The spot would’ve been his, so…”
“So the team lineup’s decided on feelings?” she asked without a hint of sarcasm in her tone. But I’d been in her company long enough to know it was there.
“He was the obvious choice.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t used to saying this stuff out loud. Especially not to someone I barely knew. It surprised me how easy it felt.
Maybe it was because she didn’t care. There was no risk of seeing this story in tomorrow’s sports news or all over social media.
“I just felt bad for the guy.”
“You felt bad.”
“Yeah.”
The needle lifted. She made careful work of going over the tattoo with another wipe, then looked up at me.
“Whatever what’s-his-name did last season has nothing to do with what he’s like now,” she said then. “What if you had done better in tryouts?”
I stared back at her. “You wouldn’t get it.”
She resumed her work, the machine returning to life against my ribs.
“You’re damn right about that,” she said. “I don’t get not fighting for what you want because I’ve had to do it my whole life.”
The sting intensified as she moved closer to the curve of bone. I exhaled slowly through my nose, knowing full well it was more than that sting I was breathing through.
“Oh, so we’re back to making you the center of attention?” I asked, deciding to dig myself out of this hole.
Our eyes met, and we both started laughing at the same time. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head once before reaching for the machine again.
“Stay still,” she said, nudging my side back into place. “I’m almost finished here.”
The motor came to life and her hand found my ribs, steady and assured, conversation folding up between us as she went back to work.
No more talk, just the buzz as she focused on her lines and I focused on staying still. The studio lights cast a pale glow over her hair, catching in the loose strands that had escaped her tie. Her brow furrowed when she concentrated. Not a single moment of doubt in her movements.
I envied that.
Bowing out of tryouts had felt noble at the time. Now it just felt like I’d erased myself without anyone asking me to.
The needle scratched through another layer of color. My ribs throbbed, skin tender under her hand, but I welcomed it. Pain I could handle. It was clear. It meant something.
“How bad?” she asked.
“On a scale of one to regret? I’m thinking I would’ve been better off going to another Icy Veins gig.”
She huffed a laugh through her nose and kept working.
Time slipped. The ceiling tile blurred as I focused on breathing through the more sensitive passes. She shifted her stance once, adjusting the angle of her wrist. The scent of antiseptic mixed with ink and something faintly floral from her shampoo whenever she leaned closer.
I wondered how long I’d been sitting here. Twenty minutes. Forty. An hour. The outside world felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.
The machine finally cut off, and the sudden quiet rang in my ears.
Sage sat back on her stool and flexed her fingers inside the gloves.
“Okay,” she said. “You can look.”
I pushed up on my elbows and looked down, not sure what I was going to find. The only thought in my head was that it couldn’t be a dick and balls.
What met me was a wash of water color smudges curving over my ribs, blues bleeding into pink and greens, edged by a black stroke that looked as if it was dragged on by an actual paintbrush instead of a needle.
The circle wasn’t closed, though. The pigment thinned near the end, as if whoever started it had run out before finishing the thought.
I frowned at it. “What is it?”
“If you don’t already know, then I guess you’ll find out when you find out.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked almost too pleased with herself when she said, “It’s the one you’re getting,” as she peeled the protective film into place.
“But… Is it finished?”
She met my eyes. “No. But that’s the point.”
I looked back down at the open arc on my skin. It felt intentionally incomplete in a careless yet meaningful way. A way that was waiting for something.
“So I’m just gonna walk around with unfinished tattoos now, huh?”
She stood and moved toward the sink. I slid off the chair and reached for my shirt, careful of the fresh wrap along my side. The fabric dragged when I pulled it down and I winced.
“Relax,” she called over the rush of water. “It’s covered.”
I watched while she scrubbed her hands. The fluorescent light caught in the silver of her piercings. A loose wisp of hair had escaped at the nape of her neck, curling against her skin, tempting me to reach out and brush it back into place.
“Okay,” she said, drying her hands. “Am I free to go home now?”
I huffed a laugh and grabbed my jacket. “Yeah. Thanks. For… whatever this was. I needed it.”
We stepped out from the booth and into the main floor, our footsteps echoing against concrete. The studio had lost its air of indifference. Now it felt like a place that was mine.
“I’d say sure, any time,” she went on as she flicked off one bank of lights, “but I don’t want you making a habit of showing up here after hours. So I’ll just say thanks for curbing your existential crisis. Like I said, I charge extra for those.”
“Oh, shit. Payment.” I reached for my wallet, but her hand shot out and closed around my arm.
“Don’t.” She stepped around the counter and headed for the door, already unlocking it.
“I’m not walking out of here without paying you.”
She pulled the door open and waved me toward it. “You can pay me by coming to my showing next week. My friend has a small gallery, and she bamboozled me into displaying one of my pieces.”
I hesitated on the threshold. “Your Icy Veins friend also runs a gallery?”
She laughed, pushing lightly at my shoulder to move me outside. “I have more than one friend. Shocker, I know.”
The night air hit cool against the flush of warmth creeping up the back of my neck.
“If I go,” I said, turning back toward her, “does that make me one of them? Your friends?”
She didn’t answer. Just gave me a look that could’ve meant anything and shut the door in my face.
I stood there a second, staring through the glass of the closed door, watching her shadow move across the studio as she killed the last of the lights.
I tossed my keys up, caught them on the way down, and headed for my truck.
“Yeah,” I muttered with a smile. “We’re totally friends.”