“Found someone?” Tyler asks the next day as I enter Damage Control. He’s manning the reception desk and entering appointments on the computer. The desktop background is a photo of his son, Jax, who has to be a clone. Nobody can look so much like their dad at the age of four, honest. Asher calls Jax ‘Mini Ty.’
“Come again?” I grab the book of appointments to check who to expect today. “Found who?”
“A new roomie.”
I blink stupidly at him. I’m hungover as hell, and my head pounds like a war drum. “Roomie…” Oh right. Erin, my current roommate and Tyler’s girlfriend, is moving out. Moving in with him. Which leaves me in the pleasant position of having to look for a new roommate. “I, uh…” I scratch the back of my head, and try to think through the headache. “Not yet.”
“Have you started looking yet?”
“Nope.”
“You realize she’s moving out tomorrow, right?”
Tomorrow? Hell. “Time flies, doesn’t it?” I say darkly and move to my booth on unsteady legs. Fuck, I’m still drunk. Just how much did I have to drink last night? I can’t remember the end of the evening. Or the last bar I visited, after I was thrown out of the previous one.
Christ.
I dig into a drawer and find aspirin. I swallow two, dry, and rub my itchy eyes.
Shit, Erin is moving out. I should put up an ad on Craigslist, maybe also print some and post at the campus, or even here, in the shop. Ask around. I can’t afford the apartment on my own, and I’ve grown quite attached to it. I’ve lived there since I was seventeen, since Emma married Matt. I like it. I’m used to it. I feel safe there. Ocean used to share the place with me—the other tattooist of Damage Control—and then Erin. And now…
I pass my hands along the shaved sides of my head. My Mohawk is outrageously tall, and I should trim it down. I don’t have the energy right now to style it with gel and hairspray, so it doesn’t droop like the tail of a rooster.
But my sister likes it.
The thought stills me, and the image of Emma in the hospital bed, pale and sick, lodges in my brain like a bullet.
So much for trying to forget.
It doesn’t look good, the doctors said. They’re doing their best, but at this stage…
Fuck. I blink at my surroundings and shake myself. What was I thinking…? Oh, right. Get to work. Find a roommate. Then check on my sister and brace for the news.
For the fucking news. I kick at the booth wall and curse.
“Hey,” Tyler calls from outside my booth, and I grit my teeth. “Zane, you okay?”
I swear, if anyone asks me this one more fucking time…
“Forgot to tell you, man. We’re having a barbecue tonight by the lake. Wanna come?”
“No, I’m cool.” I kick the wall again.
“Zane…” I hear worry in Tyler’s voice, and that’s the last thing I need.
“What?”
“Join us tonight. It will be good.”
“No, it won’t.”
Silence from outside the booth. I draw my stool close and drop on it, staring at the tools of my trade. I love inking skin, love my job. Love art. It’s the one thing that got me through other dark times. So why can’t I find any joy in it right now?
“Dakota will be there,” Tyler says quietly from the opening of the booth, and I freeze.
She will? An image of her flashes through my mind—straight dark hair brushing her slender neck and bangs in her eyes, her lips wrapped around an ice cream cone—and my reaction is the same as every time: I get hard. And we’re not talking just a semi-erection, my dick showing cautious interest. No, my dick is one hundred percent set on her, going diamond hard and aching like a bitch in an instant, as if it hasn’t seen action in years.
“But, of course, you don’t care about that,” Tyler says smugly, the bastard, and leaves me alone to return to the reception desk.
I toy with the tattoo gun. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to drop by. Distractions are always welcome, and Dakota is a major distraction. She has a great ass and small, pert tits. With those big blue eyes and soft mouth, she looks like a manga character—and as my throbbing dick informs me, a goddamn sexy one.
Add to that the fact she keeps pushing me, teasing me with that ridiculous request to have a dragon tattoo, and I’m hooked. It sure takes my mind off other, less pleasant things.
She has no reason to get such a tattoo. I know, ’cuz I asked about her. I asked Audrey, who is good friends with her, and she said Dakota has a great family, no scars anywhere on her body she can see and doesn’t seem to have a dark past.
So I know she’s just teasing me about the tattoo. That she won’t drag me down. And if she wants to hook up with me… Then all bets are off.
Because right now, I need that distraction like never before. Without it, I feel like I’m gonna sink so low nobody will be able to drag me out of the pits again.
The party is held at the house of a friend of Dylan’s. Or so Tyler informs me as he gives me directions over the phone. He doesn’t seem so sure himself.
We’ll probably end up at an unknown house and burn it down. Stranger things have happened. Like the time Rafe, Dylan and I were so drunk off our asses we entered the wrong building at three in the morning and banged on everyone’s door for a long time, before the police were called, and we were firmly ushered out.
I decide to take the bus. If nobody can drive me home, I’ll call a cab. Although I intend to drink myself stupid, I sure as hell don’t wanna kill anyone along the way.
The evening is warm, the east bathed in blood-red clouds. I shiver in my T-shirt and close my eyes. The rumbling of the engine is calming, and of course I manage to doze off on a crowded, hot bus when I can’t sleep at night in my bed, almost missing my stop. The sound of people shouting and laughing wakes me up, and I step off.
The house is by Lake Mendota, an expensive area, judging by the tall mansions and the gazillion dollar cars parked in their driveways. You make such friends at college? Wow.
The door is wide open, and loud Latin music and voices drift on the warm breeze. I wander inside, looking for familiar faces—one spunky girl in particular—and the beer cooler. Or anything stronger, if possible. Beer just ain’t cutting it lately.