Ian
BEFORE
I’ve redrawn this lion so much over the last two months it’s almost like muscle memory.
I’m trying to turn it into a tattoo, but when I almost finish, my fingers freeze on my tablet.
My bottom lip begins to shake, and I draw in a sharp breath.
I want to call Anna, but she needed a break.
I need a break. I feel like most days we’re sitting in this shop with a dark cloud clinging to the walls. It never goes away.
Because we both know why the sunshine is missing.
He’s not here.
“Uh, hey.” I almost knock everything off the desk as I jolt at the voice. I see a Black man standing by the door of my shop. Shit, I need to get it together. My head is a mess. Maybe I should close? I have an appointment but maybe I can cancel. It’s not like I even feel like tattooing most days.
I don’t feel like breathing most days.
I turn my attention to the handsome man standing awkwardly in my doorway. His braids are pulled up into a bun, the sides of his head shaved. He has a brow and lip piercing with gauges in his ear, but no tattoos that I can see on his arms poking through the loose tank top he’s wearing.
I lift my head up, wiping my eyes. “Shit, sorry, I thought it said ‘open.’”
“Oh uh, it is. I am, I mean, I um.” I laugh. “Sorry, yeah, we’re open.”
His lips break out into a smile as he thumbs at the door. “I can come back.”
“No. It’s okay. Just. I’m okay.”
“Bad breakup?” he hedges with a sad little smile.
“I fucking wish.” I grab Anna’s book and open it. I know I have an afternoon client, but I’ve got some time. “Do you want a tattoo?”
“Uh, yeah. My first one.” He laughs. “I’ve uh, been tattooing a bit, practicing on fake skin, but I don’t have any of my own. Thought I should probably change that.”
“You just started tattooing?” He looks like he’s about my age if not older.
“Yeah, um, I’ve drawn all my life. I love to create art. Someone suggested I try and I actually love it. I’m still really new.”
“You just picked it up like that?”
He shrugs. “I needed a change in my life. Something to jar me awake I guess. I wasn’t happy at my old job and unfortunately my mom passed a year ago. She left me some money and I don’t want to waste that gift. I’m trying to make myself happy.”
My brows lift. “Wow.”
“And I sometimes overexplain shit. I . . . that was a lot. You don’t care. You’re like, ‘Do you want a fucking tattoo or not, man?’” He laughs nervously, giving me finger guns. “And I will see you later.”
“No, wait.” I smile, then can’t help laughing. “It’s okay. That’s beautiful. That’s, wow.” My eyes start to water. Ah, fuck, not in front of a stranger. “Shit, sorry.”
He walks a little closer. “Seriously, are you alright? And don’t just say yes. You can share something equally personal, so I don’t feel like an idiot.” That makes me laugh harder. Great. Nice laugh-cry combo in front of a stranger.
“No. No, I’m not alright.” I laugh through the burn in my eyes. “Today is the one-month anniversary of my boyfriend’s and my shop opening.”
“Oh shit, congrats, man.”
“And the third month to the day he was killed in a car accident.” I watch his face drop, then his brown eyes widen. “Yeah, that’s how my day’s going.”
“Oh shit. I’m sorry, man. That’s horrible.” I swallow, looking away. Maybe a tattoo is what I need to get my mind off it.
“What did you have in mind for the tattoo?”
“Oh, you don’t have to. I get it. I mean, I don’t, I mean. Fuck. I’m sorry. That’s intense. I can come back. Really.”
“Take a breath,” I laugh. “It’s okay. I actually want to do this. What do you want . . .”
“Julian.”
“What would you like, Julian?”
“Um, I don’t know. I like animals. Maybe something on my ribs?”
My brows spring to my hairline. “Ribs?” Is he crazy? “For a first tattoo?”
“I think it would look good.”
“Oh, it’ll look fucking incredible, but that’s going to suck, dude.”
He shrugs. “Then all the others I get will be easy in comparison.”
“Okay, well.” I shake my head. “We can do that if you want. You know what, I have an idea. Here.” I grab my tablet to show him my drawings. I sit down beside him on the waiting-room sofa and hand him the tablet.
“Easy. I want that.”
“What?”
“It’s sick.”
I look down at the lion roaring into the void that I was just drawing. A better version of the one I drew when Maddox and I first met in that diner booth years ago. “It’s just a sketch I was doing. I mean—”
“It’s awesome. I want that.”
“Oh, um.” A possessive little tug hits my heart. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s just a drawing, right? It’s not like I can tattoo it on him anymore. I want to let go. Just a little. It’s just a drawing. It’s just a tattoo. “Okay. Yeah, this works.”
“I love it.” His knee is bouncing, making me smile. He’s all nerves. It’s kind of cute. “How much?”
I think for a moment then turn to him. “Your portfolio.”
“What?”
“I want to see what you can do. I’m um, looking for an apprentice. It’s just me and my friend here right now, and she usually just pretends to work at the desk and is really mean to me.”
He laughs. “Are you fucking with me?”
I shake my head. “Do you have some pictures in your phone?”
“Uh, yeah.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone and bringing up his artwork.
“Like I said, I’m new to this but . . .” I flip through the folder on his phone.
Julian has a distinct style. He seems to favor bold lines in a comic style more than realism.
That is until I flip to a tattoo on fake skin of a knight on the back of a horse.
The shine and detail in the armor are incredible.
It looks like metal. “Wow. Holy fuck, Julian.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s incredible.” I look at him. “Come by this week. If you want, I’d like to talk about an apprenticeship. Eventually I want this tattoo.”
“Are you serious?”
I nod. If this is how his tattoos look now, I can’t imagine how good he’ll be once he gets better. “I’m sure Anna won’t mind volunteering either.”
“I haven’t been doing it that long.”
“Then I can’t wait to watch you grow.” I stand and lead him over to my station, and try my fucking best not to look at Maddox’s chair.
I still don’t know what I’ll do with it.
Some days I want to smash it into oblivion and curse at him.
Other days I sit in his chair and cry until I literally can’t anymore, missing him so bad I throw up.
The only people who understand my pain are Anna—who thinks emotions are an airborne illness—and his mother who hates me.
I guess there’s Jamie, but he’s in worse shape than I am. I talked to Hunter weeks ago, and I guess he just got home from the hospital officially. He’s in bad shape, and I want to reach out to him, I just . . . I can’t. Not yet.
I don’t blame him. I only blame one person, and he’s dead along with them all.
“I have an appointment in a couple of hours, but this won’t take that long. Why don’t you take your shirt off and I’ll place the stencil?” Julian takes his shirt off. His abs are prominent. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” he laughs.
“Did not see those coming?”
“No guy ever does.” He winks. Okay, then. I smile wider. “That was corny.”
“Funny. You’re funny.”
I place the stencil on his ribs, careful not to smudge it too much, and trying even harder to not distract myself with how soft his skin is. How hot he is. I’m only human. A beautiful man is a beautiful man. And he sure is beautiful.
“Hey, you never told me your name.”
Really? “Uh, my name is Ian.”
“And what was your boyfriends name?”
The question hits like a punch to the chest. “Uh, Maddox. That’s why we called the shop Madd Ink. He liked that the Ink almost sounded like Ian. It’s us together.”
“That’s cute.”
It’s a tragedy, but I don’t think about it.
I push it away and focus on Julian who gets his tattoo like a pro.
I see him struggle for a bit, but luckily it’s not too big.
Through the next couple of hours, all he does is talk, and I like it.
It’s soothing to listen to someone new. Someone who didn’t know Maddox.
Someone who doesn’t look uncomfortable with my grief.
Julian is light and airy as he talks. A deep fresh breath. Sunshine breaking through the trees. I think that’s what’s wrong right now. It’s just Anna and me here in this dark cloud our grief has conjured. We need some sunlight. A break in the storm.
A little burst of light to brighten up this space.
I love you, Maddox. I won’t ever stop loving you or missing you, but I need this for me. I need a break. I need someone around who doesn’t remind me how fucking sad I am. I can’t escape this. I can’t drink or smoke it away.
It’s never ending.
Exhausting.
That first tattoo with Julian was the first time my grief was manageable.
Call it instinct. Call it fate. Call it whatever. I knew that day, Julian would change my life. I just didn’t understand then how much his sunshine would brighten it.
Finding the love of your life is a rare thing.
I’m lucky to have found two.