“Yeah. It kinda is.” I noticed the way Blaze looked around the room as though searching for something. “And man, you should see him. Dude’s, like, six six, two seventy-five. Big fucker. They call him Hulk. You just better hope no one tells him you were asking for her number.”
“Oh … uh…” The guy was shaking his head adamantly. “I had no idea.”
Blaze breathed a mock sigh of relief. “Cool. Then we’ll keep this between us.”
The guy nodded and didn’t look at me again, which was fine by me. He was far too young for my taste.
A few minutes later, I was swiping his credit card and sending him on his way. Blaze was still following me as though she had nothing better to do.
“Hey, Pres, can you download the charges for today?” Charlie asked from behind me, the steady buzz of her tattoo gun pausing briefly.
“Sure.” With a quick glance at Blaze, I made my way back to the tiny room Charlie and I sometimes used to take care of paperwork and order supplies. Truthfully, it wasn’t much more than a storage closet, but I’d managed to cram a desk inside, hence the reason we—okay, fine, I—called it an office. Everyone else called it a closet.
“You seen Blue?” Blaze asked, following me into the room.
“He ran out to pick up some food,” I said as I dropped into the rickety chair that had been duct-taped more than once just to keep it together. It squeaked and shook, momentarily making me wonder if I was about to land flat on my ass.
It held and I released a breath.
“He doin’ okay here?”
Two weeks ago, I’d hired Blue—whose real name was Darwin, but he swore to kick anyone’s ass if they called him that—to help out around the shop. He was interested in tattooing and he’d offered to work as an apprentice. In an attempt to get some assistance, I’d offered to pay him to help out, cleaning and answering phones, all the shit no one else wanted to do. Apparently he’d been hard up enough to accept.
“Yeah, why?” I looked up at Blaze again. She was standing in front of the mirror, fixing her hair.
“Just checkin’.” She turned to face me, her nose scrunching as she looked around the office. I leaned back and regarded her. I could tell there was something on her mind, but like usual, she expected me to be a mind reader.
“Spit it out, Blaze.”
“What? I’m just here to hang out. You know, keep things lively.” She dropped into the vacant chair across from my desk, then propped her combat-boot-clad feet on the edge. “Can’t leave you alone for a fuckin’ minute. You think this is all fun and games and shit.” A genuine smile tilted her lips.
The woman loved to give me shit. “I’m a big girl.”
“Uh huh. If I don’t keep an eye on you, I fear you’ll have that fucked up country shit blastin’ on the speakers and you’ll be croonin’ right along.”
There were two things wrong with that sentence. One, I didn’t listen to country music—that was Charlie’s thing—and two, I didn’t croon. Still, I grinned at the mental image it brought up.
“What do you do in here, anyway?” Blaze’s keen gaze scanned the room. “Clearly not what you’re supposed to be doin’. This place looks like shit.”
“Thanks,” I huffed on a laugh. “Don’t you have someone to do?”
Blaze winked. “I kicked him out this mornin’.”
I glanced at my wrist, pretending to note the time on the watch I didn’t wear. “So, where’s the next victim?”
Although Blaze was the complete opposite of me—she was loud, obnoxious, promiscuous, among other things—she was also one of the best tattoo artists I knew. And since I’d brought her on board eight months ago, she’d brought in a shitload of business.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” Blaze said with a smirk. “You all moved in yet?”
I nodded. “Finally.”
Finding a condo in downtown Austin wasn’t nearly as easy as I’d hoped it would be. I’d set out to do exactly that six months ago, going month to month on my rent just so I could land a place that I could buy, rather than rent. It had taken more time than I had to find, and more cash than I’d been hoping to part with, but finally, I’d found the perfect place. Probably more expensive than I should’ve settled with, but once I’d stepped foot out on the balcony and seen the view,