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Elle gave me an encouraging look as we walked into a downtown Denver tattoo shop, looking more nervous than I was.
My asshole teammates had pulled it off—fifteen straight wins. We were the talk of every hockey blog, column, and sports TV show out there. I was proud of them, and today I was owning up to the agreement we’d made.
I was dreading the lower body waxing more than the tattoo. I already knew that I was getting the ink on one of my ass cheeks, where I’d never have to look at it.
“Mason,” Dom said, shaking the hand of one of the tattoo artists in the shop. “Good to see you, man. This is Ford.”
“Hey,” I said, smiling and shaking his hand.
“You are either the bravest or the craziest bastard ever,” he said, grinning. “Some of the designs Dom and I worked on were absolutely batshit crazy.”
I glared at my teammate, who was beaming. He’d played through painful shoulder spasms to help secure win number fifteen. I could only imagine what kind of tattoo he picked out.
“Let’s do it,” I said, resigned to my fate.
A total of seven teammates had come, and Elle. Mason looked at the group and then at Dom.
“We can only fit two other people in the room. It’s on the small side. Sorry, guys.”
“We’ll take turns,” Dom said. “But first…” He took three envelopes from his pocket. “The team collaborated on design ideas and we took a vote for the top three finalists. Mason designed all of them. You get to pick an envelope, but you don’t get to see what’s in it until it’s on your ass.”
“You want to pick one?” I asked Elle as Dom held out the envelopes.
“No way,” she said. “You do it.”
I pointed to the one in the middle and Dom passed it to Mason. He gave one of the remaining envelopes to Beau and another one to Sal.
“Boys, show our captain the designs he didn’t choose,” Dom said.
Beau opened his envelope, took out the paper inside and laughed. He pulled it out and flipped it around, revealing a drawing of an old, filthy toilet with shit floating in it.
Elle’s eyes widened and I groaned as my teammates erupted into laughter.
“Are you fucking serious?” I muttered.
“Good news is that’s not what you’re getting,” Dom said, clearly loving every second of this.
“Here’s what’s behind door number two,” Sal said, opening his envelope. “But I guess that other one was really number two, right?”
He grinned and pulled out a drawing of a purple unicorn in a sitting position smoking a fattie and sporting a massive erection. It was ridiculous.
“Oh my god,” Elle said, hardly able to hold in her laughter.
She was new to all this. A team was like a family. They’d give you shit like no one else, but they’d also do anything for you and always have your back. I’d brought her today so she could hopefully get to know some of my teammates a little better.
Colby howled with laugher. “Jesus, wait until he sees the one he got.”
I flipped him the bird, moving my hand around to share the gesture with each of my teammates.
“We’ve got to get going,” Mason said. “I’ll need the whole four-hour slot for this one.”
The rest of the guys sat down in the waiting area as Mason took me, Elle, and Dom into the room. It was small, the walls covered with other tattoos Mason had done. He was a hell of a talented artist, so at least there was that.
“I’ve got a thing for you that’s like a paper towel apron with no ass,” Mason said. “We’ve got a changing area.”
“I’ll just do it here,” I said, taking off my shirt. “They’ve both seen the goods, and I’m sure you’ve seen it all.”
He laughed as he prepared his instruments. “Yeah, I’ve seen some shit I wish I could unsee.”
