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I shrug and my lips twist. I’m a tattoo artist and some of my clients bliss out at the hum of the needle and the sensation of it etching their skin.
There were any number of jobs waiting here at the ranch when I got out of art school. I had the pick of the litter if I’d wanted one. Mom runs a clinic specializing in large breed animals, and Dad is co-owner of Kingsbrier Vineyards, which he and Grandad started twenty-plus years ago. I already had ink of my own when my trypanophobic cousin persuaded me to apprentice tattooing.
Gracyn’s an anomaly and I’ve learned what parts of her personality to take seriously. She’ll caterwaul about me teasing her about her pristine canvas and, by the same token, has drummed up business and handed out my card more often than she’ll admit.
Cousin. Best friend. Little Sister. I love the girl. But man, my condolences to the poor sap who she sinks her claws into.
I tap my finger on her forehead. “The next time you’re passed out drunk and I’m inking ‘Daddy’s Girl’ right here. And it’s going to be daddy’s with a Z.”
She smacks my hand away and laughs because there’s no sense denying it’s true. “You will do no such thing.”
Gracyn hugs me and playtime is over.
“It’s injection day I see.” I toss a chin at the tower of barn cats waiting their turn in line to see the vet.
They’re a feral bunch, but each fall Mom insists, where she has the ability to keep them healthy, we round them up and do exactly that.
“Yep. I drew the short straw. They’re all accounted for, and this is the last of them. Bonus, the girls and I are headed to The Grille for dinner afterward. Aunt Daveigh is treating. What are you doing here?”
I take a key out of my pocket and twirl the ring around my index finger. “Dropping off.” I sigh.
“Pepper’s moving in! That’s so nice of you.” Gracyn snags the key, teasing, “Momma’s boy. With a capital Z.”
She’s not far off.
Although my parents weren’t married until I was in elementary school, Daveigh is the only mother I’ve ever known. When I was five, I blew out my birthday candles, wishing she was my mom. I thought if she were, maybe it meant she loved me enough that she wouldn’t go back to college. Hell, I didn’t even care if my dad was too old for his then boss’s daughter. I just wanted a family like everyone else had.
My wish was granted a few years later. Since then I’ve pretty much done whatever my mother wants. This includes letting her strong-arm me into renting the other side of the duplex I own to the vet clinic’s office manager. It’s been unoccupied since I moved in. I’d been using the living room as a studio and one of those bedrooms to stockpile empty pizza boxes. I’d been too lazy to toss them and decided they’d make a great sculpture. The smell proved me wrong.
It’s taken me a week to air out the space and to store my art supplies on the side I live in. Mostly, I dragged my feet because I didn’t want a neighbor. My house is closer to town. I intend on opening my own shop once I have the experience and a decent book of clients. Even though that’s not in the near term, derailing the plan makes me edgy.
“What’s she like?” Never having met the woman, it’s not the only thing making me cautious. “Did she really burn down her apartment building?”
“A grease fire can happen to anyone.” Gracyn blows off my concern, using the you’re-so-stupid tone.
“It can happen to anyone, but don’t forget, I’ve lost all my shit in a fire once. I don’t want it to happen again because somebody made an oopsie.”
I’ve made sure every smoke detector has new batteries and installed a few extra in both units. Better safe than sorry. My entire portfolio is in that house. It’s my life’s work so far, and a few years’ worth of images of my sketches transferred onto other people’s skin, showing the progression of what I’ve learned in my chosen trade. All of these things are what I aim to build a career on. And no, photographs stored on a cloud server aren’t the same as seeing a piece of art in real life. The last thing I want is anyone who is accident-prone taking what I’m working toward away from me.
“Drama llama. Your mom trusts Pepper. So should you… And Aunt D raised you better than to be mean to anyone just because you didn’t get your spoiled way.”
“That’s rich coming from a Kingsbrier princess,” I mutter.
Gracyn smacks the back of my head.
“Ow!”
“You need an attitude adjustment… or to get laid. Whatever happened to the girl you met last month through work?”
“Didn’t go anywhere.” I don’t confess to my cousin the blonde in question came back to show her assets off to all of the other artists who’d look.
I may be a tit guy, but it doesn’t get me hot anymore when a woman pulls her breasts out of her shirt to be inked. And I’ve witnessed the aftermath of enough clit piercings—where the lady has jumped up and spread her legs just to leave the studio sobbing and walking like she’s spent two days riding bareback on a horse—that the whole thing has lost its appeal. It isn’t sexy anymore. It’s work. The only guys in the shop sporting wood are new on the job.
Thank fuck I’m not a gynecologist. If I’m this cynical about women’s bodies before my thirtieth birthday, then I’m not holding out hope that a decent relationship is in the cards.
The swinging door leading to the exam rooms flies open and all hell breaks loose. A petite woman is wrestling with a surly tortoiseshell barn cat. At some point, the cat was wrapped in a blanket, but it managed to wiggle and claw its way out of a swaddle-hold. Its front paw pushes against her conservative button-down and the fabric bunches to the side, revealing a camisole underneath. The cat’s got no affection for either layer. The more it attempts to get the woman to release her grasp, the further down the fabric gets pushed. Its claws get stuck in the lace underneath her top and, all of a sudden, I’m on the receiving end of an eyeful of boob.
They’re nice boobs. Or rather, the boob I saw was nice for the pair. Lush and firm. I decide they’re definitely not fake. But still, not the bird’s-eye view I want in my mom’s veterinary hospital when I’m avoiding it at my workplace.
