What the hell is his problem?
“Sure,” I tell Matt, ignoring whatever bug crawled up Declan’s butt.
“I’ll bring some pizza and beer for all of us,” Matt says. We plan for the following afternoon and say our goodbyes. I tuck the phone back into my dress pocket and smooth my hands over the denim that falls midway down my thighs.
I can feel Declan’s eyes on me like a caress, an invisible touch that follows the same trajectory as my hands as they slide across the denim. It’s impossible to ignore the weight of his gaze on me everytime he’s near. I don’t know why he can’t seem to pry his eyes away from me. I don’t want to examine it too closely and find out what it could mean.
The truth is, Ilikethe way his eyes are drawn to me. Just like I can’t help my body’s response every time my skin makes contact with his. Having his eyes on me has the same effect as his hands on my shoulders, or his fingers locked around my wrist. My skin buzzes the same whether he’s touching me or looking at me like hewisheshe was.
I shake my head to clear my wayward thoughts. I don’t need to be thinking like this about my new work neighbor. Especially not a man who looks the way he does. It scares me how badly I want to know what the weight of that tall, strong body would feel like on mine.
“Let’s get back to unpacking,” Sean says to Declan. “If you need anything, Elsie, give us a holler.”
“Will do. Bye, guys.”
I genuinely can’t make eye contact with Declan right now. I’m a teenage girl again, nervous around the cute new guy. I pull my phone back out of my pocket and pretend to fire off a text.
What I’m really doing is typingWhy am I such an awkward idiot???in my notes app.
I feel Declan’s eyes on me for another few seconds before his quiet, “Bye, Elsie.”
Andmy god, the way he says my name. His voice is deep with a little bit of grit to it. I want to put my hand on his chest and feel the way it rumbles as he says those two syllables again.
“Bye,” I choke out, still not looking up.
I don’t glance up from my phone until I hear the turn of the doorknob, signaling that danger is on its way out.
Because that’s exactly what he is – danger to my body, my heart, my nervous system. He’s gasoline and every touch of his skin against mine is a match. One more spark between us and I’m afraid we’ll both erupt into flames.
As I watch them leave through the door and reappear on the other side of the glass, I realize how well and truly screwed I am. Because it occurs to me that watching their clients get tattooed and pierced all day isn’t the real problem here.
Keeping my eyes on my work and off Declan, though? Pretending I don’t notice the way his biceps flex as he works a tattoo gun – something I haven’t witnessed yet, but have pictured more times than I’d like to confess to.
Ignoring all six-plus-feet of grumpy perfection while I muddle through figuring out how to run my own business?
Yeah, that’s going to be a problem.
CHAPTER 11
Declan
I blink and opening day is half over. The morning flew by with a steady stream of people filtering in and out, most here for walk-in tattoos and piercings, but some just nosy and wanting to check out the shop or introduce themselves. Part of small-town living, I guess. Sean seems to enjoy all of the chatting and introductions, so I don’t complain. I play nice when I have to – or my version of nice, anyway – and focus on doing some kickass flash tattoos.
We have a binder of small designs for people to choose from, quick designs we’re familiar with and can probably do with our eyes closed. Some artists love flash tattoo days, some hate ‘em. I fall somewhere in the middle. It can sometimes be a nice break from the bigger, time-intensive pieces that require more expertise. Sean and I plan to do maybe one day like this per month, if the demand for it is there. If we don’t draw big enough crowds to make it worth our while, we’ll scale back to every other month.
So far, we haven’t been hurting for customers. I wouldn’t have expected this big of a turnout in a small town like this, but the line ofpeople stretches out the door and down the front of the building, all the way to Elsie’s front door.
At the reminder of Elsie next door, I can’t help myself; I lift my machine from the sparrow I’m inking onto someone’s collarbone and look through the window between our shops. I’m just in time to see Elsie toss her head back in a laugh, her hand clutching the forearm of a woman who looks like an older version of her blonde friend.
I’ve lost track of the number of times today that I’ve been distracted by the brunette next door. Again and again my eyes wander to her end of the building, watching as she charms customers and shows off her flowers and receives too many hugs for my liking. Every person who walks through her door seems to love her. I’m not surprised, but I’m in awe watching her. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone so universally liked. I’ve even heard her name a handful of times in our own shop, though I couldn’t discern what they were saying over the noise of our machines, music and the constant chatter around me.
“Finished already?” the woman reclined in the chair in front of me asks. Her voice snaps me back to the task at hand and I reluctantly turn back to her tattoo, the nearly finished sparrow taking flight across her collarbone.
“Almost,” I tell her, getting back to work.
I’ve been surprised by some of the people who have come in to get inked today. One of the guys from the Chamber of Commerce rolled up his crisp white shirt sleeve and got a lobster tattooed on his forearm, and a sweet older woman who introduced herself as Pastor Nancy had Sean tattoo a tiny butterfly on the inside of her wrist.
When I finish the sparrow, I take a minute to check my supplies and see if anything needs replacing before I start my next one. At the station next to mine, Sean is bent over a woman’s back as he inks adesign behind her shoulder. On the other side of me, closest to the piercing station, is Maya, the artist we poached from the shop Sean used to work at in Portland. She chats with a guy who looks like he’s barely out of high school as he flips through the design book. She’s a new artist, barely finished with her apprenticeship, but she does some damn fine work. I’m glad she was so willing to come work for us when Sean approached her about it. I believe her exact words were, “Hell fucking yeah, I will.” It helps that she did her apprenticeship under Sean and practically worships the ground he works on.
