As of meeting Gordo, I thought, but refused to pay it any attention. I already spent too much time thinking about my neighbor and needed any distraction I could get, even if it meant working later than normal. Other than waiting for a walk-in, the best way to get my mind off Gordo was to find someone to talk to.
Preferably someone who did all the talking, like Dane, who was working on a client. His tattoos were like him—new school style with bright colors and distorted shapes, managing to be funny and catchy with a bit of flash.
I sat on a stool near him. “Just the B-boss and us tonight, Dane.”
“Nah, I’m headed out after this. I’ve got a date.” He took a moment to look up from his tattoo and waggle his eyebrows at me. “I met him at the donut shop.”
“Dude, don’t s-screw our donut supplier. His shop makes the b-best pastries in town,” I protested, but I was smiling, able to relax into the moment.
“This is where I make a joke about donuts and holes needing to be filled,” Dane said. Then he lightly slapped his client’s thigh. “Don’t laugh or your tattoo is going to look like shit.”
“Don’t be hilarious then,” the client replied. But he also stopped moving.
Dane shook his head and got back to tattooing. “Don’t you worry, Javi. It’s not the supplier, anyway—I just met the guy there.”
“Whatever you s-say,” I said, and tried to get back to my drawing, even though my flow had been interrupted.
A few minutes later, the door chimed. Reagan tapped my shoulder. “Javi! You’re up.”
The man who’d come in was handsome. Not nearly on the same level as Gordo, but he rocked a wicked smile and hooded bedroom eyes. He was the kind of man I usually wouldn’t think twice about trying to hook up with.
I stood next to Reagan and listened as the new client detailed what he was looking for. Reagan didn’t have time to do the tattoo itself, but if my stutter came out, we’d be there all night before I could lock down what the client wanted.
This tattoo was simple enough, a tribal design, but it was on a large area that would take the rest of the night to complete. A two-hour sitting if the client sat well and let me go to town. More, though, if he needed a lot of breaks. At least the money would be good.
Reagan put a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for this, Javi.”
“No problem.”
I motioned for the client, Roger, to sit at my station. We worked together for the next hour as I drew up a design, and he helped me fine-tune it. Roger sometimes leaned in too close or stared at me too long, but it was flattering and harmless. I’d been flirted with by clients in the past. Getting a tattoo was an intimate experience, after all, allowing someone to permanently alter you.
Then I was gloved up and started on the tattoo. It was going to be placed on his shoulder, wrapping up and around like a gauntlet. I was forced to sit close to him, our knees and thighs occasionally brushing. It didn’t escape me that there weren’t goosebumps or heat pooling in my belly with the accidental touches, despite all of Roger’s flirting. Not like there’d been when I’d stopped Gordo from stumbling at the bar.
“You’re good,” Roger said as he watched me work. I could feel the intensity of his stare, and I focused harder on the lines I was drawing.
“T-thanks.” My mouth began to feel thick, the way it did when I got nervous or upset.
It shouldn’t feel that way. I was just doing my job, and it wasn’t like I was under any kind of pressure. But the closeness of him—close enough for me to smell the musk of his cologne—kept sending my mind back to Gordo at the bar. How it had felt to have my hands on his hips when he’d stumbled.
Now that had made my body light up, my brain sending signals left and right that it wanted more contact, preferably of the naked variety.
Gordo. How in the hell was I supposed to know what the man was thinking? Some days he came across as abrupt and cold, like I was a fly buzzing in his path. But other times, like at the bar, he’d been totally different. Flirtatious, easygoing, his smile hypnotic and tempting.