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“It could look however you want it to,” Jackson said. “Howeverwewant it to. The good thing about already being on the fringes of society is that none of us care what other people think. I’ve been fired, Xavier’s been through hell and back for this business and Adrian’s been in jail. None of us are scared of a challenge.”
I blinked, wondering if I’d heard him correctly.
“Jail?”
Jackson stepped backwards and bumped into the curtain.
“Shit. You didn’t know?”
“No,” I said, my imagination going wild, seeing flashes of every crime show I’d ever watched. “What did he do? Kill someone?”
Jackson pursed his lips and the muscles in his forearms flexed as he rubbed his chin.
“Nothing like that,” he said. “It’s not my place to go into detail. I only mentioned it because I thought you already knew.”
I stared after him as he pulled the curtain aside and went into the kitchen. How could he drop a bomb like that and walk away? Adrian had given me no indication that there was anything like that in his past, and sure, he looked intimidating with his bald head, strong build and tattoos, but he’d never been anything other than lovely to me.
What had he done? It must have been bad if it was enough to send him to prison. I remembered Xavier’s words:Adrian’s only an intern. If he took advantage of you, or hurt you, I’ll fire him on the spot. I don’t want predators working for me.
At the time, I’d dismissed this as concern for my safety, but what if Xavier knew more than I did? What if Adrian had a history of violence?
Jackson returned with three oranges and I almost forgot what he’d said about Adrian when he stopped and juggled them. He tossed the brightest-colored one to me and I caught it in my left hand.
“How’d you learn to do that?” I asked, astounded. I threw the orange in the air and caught it, but even adding a second one would have been impossible.
“I wasverybored in my job,” Jackson said with a wink, as he placed the two remaining oranges on his tray.
I looked at the fruit, confused. Was this a juggling lesson, or did he think I was hungry? I dug my thumb nail into the orange’s navel and he laughed.
“Don’t eat it,” he said. “Not until you’ve tattooed it, at least. When I was first learning how to tattoo, we used oranges to practice. They have a similar curve to your body…” He ran his finger around my bicep, “And you won’t be leaving shitty artwork on an actual person.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding what he wanted me to do.
“Now all you need to do is choose a design.”
The collage of tattoo designs on the front windows was perfect for helping me pick a shape that wouldn’t be too complicated. I picked a small four-leaf shamrock, unpeeled that page from the window, and brought it back to Jackson.
“Are you happy with the size?” Jackson asked, and when I nodded, said, “Let’s prep the stencil.”
He gave me a sheet of wax paper. I’d seen the guys do it enough, so I knew what I was doing: I laid the design page flat on the table, then fastened the wax paper on top of it with scotch tape. I traced the outline with Jackson’s stencil pen and then held it up so I could check I hadn’t missed any lines.
“Very good,” Jackson said. “Now you would clean and dry the skin, but we’ll skip that step for an orange, and now you want to rub stick deodorant over the skin to help it stick.”
His worn-down tube of deodorant glided on the orange skin easily.
I placed the stencil on the peel with the stencil face-down, patted it to remove any air bubbles, and waited for it to set.
“Now peel it off,” Jackson instructed, and I did. The purple outline had transferred to the orange, leaving me with a solid design to trace.
I grinned.
“It almost looks like one of those children’s coloring books,” I said jokingly, although Jackson shook his head.
“Never let Xavier hear you say that, either. He takes this businessveryseriously. And I promise, it’s a lot harder than it looks.”
I inspected my orange. I knew that elaborate portraits and landscapes would be beyond my level of ability right now, but filling in a shamrock outline with black ink? That seemed like something I could handle.
“This is where you’d make doubly sure the client was happy with both the stencil and the placement,” Jackson said. “Because it’s their last chance to change anything before they have it permanently etched into their skin.”
