“We’re meeting at Sakura for sushi during lunch,” Kaiden said as he waltzed by Rus, who ate at the kitchen counter.
Though Kaiden never understood the purpose of dining rooms, he did settle on some barstools to make a tiny kitchenette or whatever for Rus’ convenience.
“Sounds good.”
Kaiden kissed Rus goodbye, the most casual and natural thing in the world, then left for work. Life with Dylan and Rushad changed Kaiden’s outlook a thousand different ways, altered his routine in every which way, but had also turned into a simple normality of everyday life.
The drive downtown was quick, and he breezed by Slayer’s Brush, eyeing the art gallery as he drove a few blocks away before arriving at his new job.
Wicked Ink tattoo shop was pretty empty this early.
Kaiden had fallen in love with this new chapter of his life, learning anything and everything he could about tattooing, even if that mostly involved grunt work right now. While he never considered himself a very smart person, having barely passed any of his classes in high school, it turned out Kaiden was a quick study for all things tattoo-related.
The intrigue initially came when he joined Rus for one of his new tattoos from the popular artist Anna Rojas. With a bit of luck, some surprising passion, and a whole lot of persistence, Kaiden somehow landed an apprenticeship at the Wicked Ink tattoo shop.
What started as an apprenticeship had quickly evolved into helping around in every which way. It turned out he worked under one of the best artists in the state, but his new boss sort of lacked the basic skills of keeping her business books organized.
Thanks to the years Kaiden spent working under Alison at Slayer’s Brush, he knew how to manage accounting, scheduling, inventory, and everything in between with a breeze. He never intended to walk away from the gallery, but Alison sort of made it impossible to stay.
When she found out about how much time he planned to dedicate to his new apprenticeship, she fired him. Not maliciously. It was her parting gift, or so she claimed when offering him a hefty severance and wishing him well on thenext step in his artistic journey. Kaiden actually had to look up what a severance was, never realizing there were actual jobs that paid people after canning them. It kept him afloat during his transition to working more at the tattoo shop, and Kaiden remained grateful to everything Alison had done for him over the years.
The door alert chimed as someone stepped inside.
“Wow, your shop really is out in the middle of nowhere,” said a muscular guy in a ridiculous hoodie that said CLIT.
Kaiden rolled his eyes, assuming this obnoxious dude bro was their next appointment.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gave Kaiden a friendly smile. “I’m here to see Anna. We have a consult thingy. The tattoo planning stuff.”
His expression was goofy, but his eyes were a piercing green. Much brighter than Kaiden’s darker emerald. They caught his attention almost immediately since Kaiden rarely met someone else with green eyes.
Kaiden quickly reviewed the schedule, seeing the name Colton Lennox in the system.
“Colton, right?”
“Yep,” he answered with an excited shiver.
“First tattoo?”
“Oh no. The tattoo’s not for me. I don’t really do tattoos. I mean, there’s this one”—Colton adjusted his hood, revealing the word IMP scrawled in pink ink across his neck—“but that’s my boyfriend’s doing.”
Boyfriend? Okay, maybe there was more to the weirdo hoodie than Kaiden realized. As Colton rambled, Kaiden glimpsed thesmaller text underneath the CLIT title. It read Clinton Lloyd Institute of Technology. What an absurd name for a college.
“He’s obsessed with tattoos,” Colton continued. “Hell, he got a tramp stamp because of a bet. But that’s a whole other story. Actually, I don’t really know the full story now that I think about it. The point is, he loves ‘em. Probably more than me. Just kidding. Who could love anything more than me?”
Colton shot a minxy grin that reminded Kaiden of Dylan’s sass.
“But he really likes them. Hence the surprise,” Colton said. “We’re doing this whole road trip vacation thing—totally my idea, because if I left it up to Isaac, he’d hide in our place all day—but also it helped me set up the whole tattoo surprise.”
“I see.” Kaiden nodded politely.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to travel from other cities or even across state lines to work with Anna. She attended a lot of conventions and was pretty popular on social media. Chances were this Isaac guy had seen her style and mentioned it to his boyfriend, who ran with it as a surprise gift.
“You’re not worried he’d want to be at the consult?”
“Psht.” Colton waved a dismissive hand. “Please, Isaac gets tattoos on a whim. Trust me, he’s going to love it.”
