Page 5 of King

Life was easier with no complications.

The second I left my hometown, I ran far. So far, I found myself on the west coast in a whole new world where people were honest about being fake and money talked. Nothing new really, just more of the same and a very bright fucking sun.

Way too much fucking sun if you asked me.

Working any job I could get my hands on, I scrimped and saved for everything I had. I knew what growing up cold and hungry felt like, and I’d be damned to hell if I ever fell into that pit again. I may be nothing special, but damn it, I was someone.

I just hadn’t figured out who yet.

Right now, my only source of income was this little shop my old boss helped me get. For the last two years, I worked for Dog’s Designs, a top shelf tattoo artist from Los Angeles, California. The man was gifted and highly sought for his unique and life like designs. Some compared him to the greatest artists in the world, like Picasso or Degas, but I just knew him as Dog. The gruff, foul-mouthed fucker who busted my balls every chance he got. Dog owned who he was, and I respected that. The man said nothing he didn’t mean and never tried being anything he wasn’t.

That I could get behind.

He didn’t put on airs, and what I saw was what I got. When I walked into his shop with only five bucks to my name looking for a job, the old biker took pity on me, gave me a job and a place to stay. After that day, I learned everything I could from running a business to cultivating my own designs. He was ruthless with his critiques and had no problem calling me out on my shit if he believed I was being a bitch. Dog didn’t believe in sugarcoating anything. He told me once that the world was hard enough with liars and cheats, no sense in making it worse being someone I wasn’t.

Those words stuck with me.

Find out who I was and own it. Fuck everyone else.

If they didn’t like me, that was their problem.

Dog taught me a lot about life in those years, even helping me to discover I had a talent for tattooing. After a year of pleading and begging, Dog finally gave me my own chair. After that it was game over. I finally found something I loved doing. I could actually see myself making a life with my art. Tattooing opened a future I didn’t know existed, and I immersed myself in it, learning everything I could about the craft. I was good at it too. Dog told me I had a natural gift and I should cultivate it. So, I did.

Tattooing was an art.

Many artists tried to hone their gifts, never really giving themselves over to their craft. They were still good, but they would never achieve greatness. Those who let the craft consume them accepted their gift, let it flow. Those were the people destined for greatness. By the end of that first year, I had devoted much of my time to mastering my craft, and my clientele exceeded Dogs. Customers soon filled the shop, wanting my designs. Dog never balked. In fact, he encouraged me and towards the end he took over the mundane running of the shop, making sure my days were simple so I could concentrate on my clients.

Then Dog suddenly died and my world shifted into darkness once more. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have Dog’s support. I was on my own again. My only saving grace was my ability to provide for myself. I had made a name for myself in the tattooing world, but even that wasn’t enough to ensure my current life.

When I learned Dog left me his business, I sold everything and moved across the country, needing a fresh start and not so much sun. What I mainly needed was a place that didn’t remind me of Dog. I found it hard to stay in Los Angeles without him. It took me a few months to realize that the grumpy old biker had become more than my employer, my teacher, my friend. He had become a father figure to me. Someone I admired and cared about. Someone I trusted. When that truth hit me, I couldn’t stay. I refused to live and work in a constant reminder of what I lost.

So, I moved to the Appalachian Mountains. I figured with all the fucking trees around, I might just be able to walk outside again without my sunglass permanently affixed to my face. It wasn’t that I was afraid of the sunshine, but when it shined brightly every motherfucking day, a little doom and gloom wasn’t so bad.

It took me a while to find a location that would give me the anonymity I was looking for. I didn’t want a major city and I sure as hell didn’t want some unknown place. The coastlines were out because I hated the water. I wasn’t much into extreme heat, so the southern states were out. When I researched Tennessee and the surrounding states, mainly concentrating on the mountainous ranges, I almost gave up. I didn’t want to limit clientele and needed a steady flow of new clients. I was about to look further up the coast when I saw a commercial about vacationing around the Appalachian Mountains. A small town called Rosewood, which was dubbed America’s favorite vacation spot year-round, offering an adventure for any season.

Nestled between two mountains, the town of Rosewood was just across the border of Tennessee in Virginia, deep in the Shenandoah Valley, which was part of the Great Smokey Mountain Range, or the Appalachian Mountains. I wished someone would tell me what they were really called. Apparently, depending on what state someone lived in, determined what the damn mountains were called. And those Virginians called them the Appalachian Mountains.

The town was perfectly located to give any vacationer, regardless of the season, fun and enjoyment. And where there were tourists, there was money. Close enough to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in Tennessee, and with the rich history of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, the town of Rosewood had it all.

Rosewood was a perfect place to start over.

It took some doing and a fuckton of paperwork, but I eventually got the keys to my shop, located in the heart of the town. The best part was the small apartment over the shop that was going to be my new home.

Once I called a damn contractor and got started remodeling it, that was.

The place wasn’t much, but it came with an old couch that doubled as my bed. What I liked most about my new shop, I didn’t have to leave. At the end of the day, all I had to do was lock up and head upstairs. With all the amenities within walking distance, there was no need for a car. So, I sold the one Dog left me shortly after I opened my shop.

I’d been in Rosewood for just over a month now. I expected it to take some time to build my clientele up, but apparently that wasn’t the case. My designs spoke for themselves and on day one, I found myself setting appointments, even talking to clients all the way back in California who were willing to fly out just to have me do their tattoos. It was then I knew I was going to be okay.

I had just turned on the neon sign letting the town know I was open for business when I heard the bell chime over the door.

“Give me a minute!” I shouted from the back, grabbing a stack of paper towels and a few bottles of rubbing alcohol. Putting them at one of the four stations I had in my shop, I walked towards the front to find a tall man with shoulder length dark auburn brown hair standing with his legs apart, arms crossed over his chiseled chest, giving me a perfect view of his bulging muscles. The man was fucking tall, standing damn near over six foot six and when his ice-blue eyes landed on me, I stopped dead in my tracks. His eyes were calculating and haunting. They saw everything, setting off all my alarm bells.

This wasn’t a man I wanted to fuck with.

“Can I help you?”

“You the tattoo artist?”

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