It’s embarrassing. People my age don’t walk around with hickeys—or bite marks—that I know of. Maybe they do, but they cover them up.
Come to think of it, I never saw Tara with hickeys, or any of the other girlfriends Kaden’s had. So, either this animalistic behavior is strictly aimed at me—which, ha ha, is just ludicrous to think—or their makeup collections are bigger than mine.
“Or is it a fashion revival?” he adds, grinning.
I chuckle. “A fashion revival?”
“Yeah, didn’t all the girls in your high school wear tube scarves at some point?”
“Not really,” I frown, shaking my head slightly. I dip the needle into the ink, and keep going.
He came in with a small design, an owl in black and grey, that he wanted on the inside of his upper arm. I told him it’smore Kaden’s style—the black and grey—and I usually do more watercolor tattoos, but he just brushed it off, saying he trusted my skills well enough.
“No?” he says, biting his bottom lip. “Huh, where did you go to high school?”
“Santa Ana.”
“Ah, so you’re not from here.”
“Nope,” I answer with a small smile, glancing at him.
“But you live here now?”
“Yeah. I moved here right after high school, so going on seven years now.”
“So—” he says, frowning a little, and chuckles. “Wait, how old are you?”
“I’ll be twenty-five in June.”
I glance up at him, and he presses his lips together and nods.
“You?” I ask, wiping some ink off him.
“I’m thirty-two,” he says, squinting a little as if trying to soften the blow. It’s not even that old. “I’m sorry, I thought you were older,” he adds.
“Ouch.” I laugh. “I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
“Oh, no,” he replies with a snort. “It is. Really. I mean, you don’tlookold, just something about your…” He waves a hand at me. “Demeanor. Like, you’re mature, or I don’t know.” He chuckles again, shaking his head. “But that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The…” He waves a hand in the air. “Tube scarves thing. It wastheit thing in 2009, but you were only like, what? Eleven back then?”
I nod, shooting him a smile. “That’s right.”
He nods again, licking the corner of his mouth, before he glances down at where I’m working.
“Wow, you’re really fast,” he says. “And it doesn’t really hurt at all.”
“Compared to your back?” I ask with a chuckle.
“Yeah,” he snorts. “That was… Intense.” He pulls the corners of his mouth down.
“We use this numbing cream,” I say, as I add some more on to his skin. “But doing that big of a piece, and for so many hours, even this won’t help.”
He keeps asking me all sorts of questions. Like, what I do for fun, and what’s my favorite thing about San Diego. How long I’ve been tattooing for, and whether or not I live far away from here. And if I like the neighborhood. Am I a beach guy, or a city boy? Have I ever been out of the state?
And then he tells me about his job at a construction site where he’s the overseeing manager. I know nothing about it, but I can appreciate what the work has done for his body. He’s fit as hell.
