“Wanna hit the club?” Mitch asked once the joints were gone.
Mac nodded. “Yeah, why not.” He stood up. “Still not going into a foursome with you.”
“Saving that one for your thirtieth.”
“Thanks.”
Since it wasn't a weekend, the place wasn't packed and quite a few girls were free. He picked a redhead, and they went to one of the VIP rooms. About halfway through her dance, he realized what it was about her he liked. She was small, with a glowing red hair, and a pouty mouth. He'd fucking picked a girl that looked like Vi! She looked barely legal. It totally turned him off, and after tipping her, he went back to the dorm. It was so wrong. It was not okay to have a boner for the underaged daughter of a brother.
He still looked forward to getting the ink from her, no matter how wrong it was. He liked spending time with her, and ink took a long time. They'd have hours together.
CHAPTER THREE:
It's Freaking Me Out
-o0o-
MAC WAS ON EDGE
. Pathetically much on edge. It was Thursday, and he'd been at Wicked Ink half an hour early. Trixie was behind the counter, and was chewing franticly on gum. She smiled at him when he threw down the magazine he'd been reading with a deep sigh.
“She'll be out soon,” she said. “She's doing some stuff for Sami.”
“Okay. How was the vibrating tickler?” He'd been curious about that. It sounded great.
“Almost chipped a fucking tooth, and it was a bit weird,” she said with a smile. “Like giving a blowjob to a vibrator.”
He laughed, and she kept smiling when she leaned her elbows on the counter.
“Hey, you've known JB for a long time, haven't you?”
“Yeah. Her dad is the VP, and my dad's the president. They're close, so we sort of grew up together.”
“You must be a lot older.”
He nodded, preferring not to think about exactly how big the age difference was. “Six years.”
“Did she always blush that easily?”
He tried to remember, but finally shook his head. “She's... she tended to stay out of the way. She's always been shy.” He realized he didn't have many memories of her talking. In most memories, she either drew or eyed him carefully. “She kind of disappeared behind her sister and other more outgoing kids.”
“She's talked about her sister, Lisa. She said both you and your brother were really close to her.”
“Yeah. It was always the three of us. The three musketeers.”
“Vi's told me she's really beautiful, like their mom.”
“Yeah, but she knows she is. She was a bit of an attention whore when she was younger, but still nice.” He shrugged. “Vi looks a lot like Lisa. They're not that different.”
“Had a feeling that was the case. Teenage girls tend to have a fucked up self-image. JB's seems a bit more fucked up than usual.”
“How's that?”
Trixie chewed her gum, blew a bubble, popped it loudly, and smiled. “She thinks she's butt ugly. Like
really
fucking ugly. I think that's why she keeps her hair purple, to keep people from looking at her face.” He stared at Trixie, and she winked at him. “Told you, more fucked up than usual.”
Mac wondered why Trixie was telling him this, and he kept staring at her for a while until they both started laughing. It was just so fucked up Vi would think something like that.
He knew Mel had been upset about how Ella was treating Vi. Mel and Ella might have been friends, but that part had bugged her, and Edie had basically stopped talking to Ella. She couldn't stand her. Mac hadn't thought about it much at the time, since he hadn't seen much of Vi.
Back then, if he ran into Vi, it was usually at Dawg's place. She'd barely answered him when he said hi, but he'd assumed it was because of her crush on him. He'd never seen her as anything but pretty, but since he'd come back from Kansas he'd thought she was beautiful. Not even mentioning sexy. It might make him feel like a perv, but he still thought it every fucking time he saw her.
“Hey,” Vi said from the door to the back rooms, looking carefully between him and Trixie.
Ugly? He couldn't get over it and kept staring at her. It was obvious to him most chicks were crazy as fuck when it came to what they thought they looked like, but Vi thinking she was ugly seemed insane.
“Everything okay?” she asked when the two of them didn't answer her.
“Yeah. Sorry,” he said and got up. “You ready?”
She nodded and gave Trixie a shy, strange look. When he got into the room, she turned her back to him and started to prepare. He took off his hoodie and t-shirt and sat down behind her. She still hadn't said anything, and he wondered if something was wrong.
“Are you okay, Vi?”
“I'm fine,” she answered immediately. “Lie down.”
She put her hair up before turning around, and she looked at him while she put her rubber gloves on. He chuckled.
“Purple gloves?”
“Sami thought I should have them,” she said and then pointed at his side. “So, here?”
“Yeah.”
For the first time she looked straight at him, and she did it with a creased brow. “I'm not sure it's going to fit there. It needs a flat surface to look good.” She pointed at the upper part of his chest, just beneath his left collarbone. “It would probably look better here, but I can try it where you want it.”
“No, try it where you think it'll be best,” he said. He'd learned early on that the best way to get great ink was to trust the people who did it for a living.
He watched her shave and disinfect the area before reaching for the stencil. When she leaned forward to place it, he could clearly smell her hair. He was hoping it would hurt like hell, because if it didn't he'd be lying there with a boner for hours. He kept watching her. Her pouty mouth with full lips and heart-shaped face that came together in the dimple of her chin. As far as he could tell, there was not a single fucking ugly thing about her, and that was just her face. That thick, rich, curly, violet hair, and her slender body—down to her fine limbs. Her wrists were so delicate they looked like bird's bones. She was perfect to him.
“When are you getting ink?” he asked mainly to have something to say.
“I don't know. I'm not sure what I want.”
“You can't be a tattoo artist and not have any ink.”
“Why not? It's not like the fact that I'm covered in ink says anything about my work.”
“Maybe, but how are you going to try to convince others to commit to lifelong ink unless you have it yourself?”
“Why would I try to convince people to do something that'll last forever?” she said as she carefully peeled the stencil from his chest before answering her own question. “That's not my job. My job is to give them the tattoo they want and make sure it looks good.”
After trying to find a retort, he gave up with a laugh just as she pointed towards a mirror.
“Have a look, and see if you're happy with it there.”
He stood by the mirror. It didn't take him more than a few seconds to decide it was perfectly placed, but he still didn't move. Instead, he watched her through the mirror. She was wearing worn cut-offs, black biker boots, and a t-shirt with the Wicked Ink logo. The arms had been cut off, and it looked like the neck had been widened as well. In short, she looked the same as always. Lisa'd been the fashionista, and Vi'd dressed like this, with hoodie and jeans for colder days. When she leaned forward to adjust the settings on the ink machine, he could see right down the neck of her t-shirt. Black bra. She wore a black bra, and he swallowed a groan.
Sami and one of the other guys, he introduced himself as Joe, sat down to supervise the work. That was relief. Someone would be there to stop him from doing something epically stupid.
Once they got started, Sami and Joe started talking, but on occasion Sami leaned over to comment on her work. When he told Vi the lines looked great, she looked like he'd given her a million bucks.
“Don't think I've ever seen you look more pleased,” Mac said, and she blushed.
She didn't answer, just shrugged. “Let me know if you need a break,” she said instead.
“It's not a bad thing that you're pleased. You should be.”
She nodded, closed her eyes for a few seconds and seemed to be listening to the music. This time it wasn't country, more of a folk rock thing.
“What is this music?” he asked, and Sami answered him instead of Vi. She seemed completely focused on inking again.
“Mumford & Sons. I needed a country-free week.”
“Some artists talk when they do this,” Mac said, and this time Vi looked at him.
“Do you want a nice tattoo or a nice conversation?” she asked.
“Fair enough,” he mumbled.
“I told my girl no customer comes back because you're good at chatting, they come back because you do good ink,” Sami said. “It's better to let her ink do the talking.”
“He's got a point,” Mac admitted, but Vi was already leaning over him, lost in her work. He turned to Sami again. “Don't you need a license to work as a tattoo artist?”
“No, not in Arizona. And technically she's still practicing, since she's not charging for them.”
“No one pays you?” he asked Vi.
“No. Not yet. Dad's paying for the equipment, and I work here for free to pay for them teaching me. But Sami did pay for my NSC Training.”
“Just bad fucking business to have people working who haven't done that,” Sami muttered.
“What?” Mac had no idea what they were talking about.
“It's a certificate. You take a class about blood-borne pathogens and cross contamination,” Vi explained.
“How long will you work for free?”
“Probably for a while longer, and I'll be an apprentice for a few more years. Sami says I have to have a high school diploma. And I've promised Dad that I'll finish high school, too.”
“Why do you care about a diploma?” Mac asked Sami.
“The girl should get her diploma,” he smiled. “And it's easier for her to get a license in another state. It's good to have a license even if it's not required here in Arizona. Having one makes it easer to get temporary licenses when we work tattoo conventions—shit like that.”
“Still, you're working for free?” Mac said to Vi. “And from what I've heard, you're working a lot.”
Sami laughed. “I'm not charging her for the teaching, that's something. It's not uncommon that guys charge apprentices a lot of money. I can't imagine all that many of them taking on a sixteen-year-old, either.”
Vi just smiled at that, then leaned over Mac to start working again.
Chris and Joe were chatting, but she didn't seem to notice. Not even when he joined their conversation. The only time she seemed to take any notice of him, was when he moved. Each time she lifted the needle from his chest and gave him an annoyed glare. After a few times of that, he tried shifting position while she dipped the needle in ink or dried him off.
A while later, he took a shot when she rubbed vaseline on him.
“I need a short break. A smoke—and coffee, if you have any.”
“Out by the counter,” she said and then pointed towards a table by the wall. “There’s water, chocolate, and some nuts over there, you should have some.”
He gave himself ten minutes. When he came back, she put on a new set gloves and pointed towards a pack of gum.
“Take one, it helps. I promise.”
Another few hours later, the pain was starting to get to him. The gum helped; somehow he could focus on the chewing. When he wasn’t looking at Vi. She was leaning over him, and he could watch her closely without any interruptions at all. Because she didn’t notice much. She was so damn focused the entire time. After studying her face closely for hours, he was sure there was nothing ugly about her. He couldn’t find a single flaw on her face.
She sat up and looked at the ink. Sprayed water on it, dried it off thoroughly, and then turned towards Sami. She pointed at the ink.
“What do you think?”
Sami leaned over, studying it closely. “Work on that shadow. Look.”
She leaned closer with a nod, and Sami continued,
“That line as well. It’s good, but it’s a little thinner than this one, and they should match. And here,” he pointed at another part. “Pack in some more color there to make sure it doesn't look uneven when it heals.”
Mac tried to look at where Sami was pointing, and he didn't see shit. He had no fucking idea what the man was talking about. Apparently Vi did. Sami watched as she did the touch-ups, and by now Mac wasn’t all that fond of her, because it was starting to hurt. Sami left when she was done, and Mac watched her cleaned it, rub vaseline all over it, before finally covering it in plastic wrap.
“How are you getting home?” he asked.
“Dad's picking me up. I'll give him a call.”
“Why? I can take you.”
“No, it's okay. He's here in Phoenix, and... it's just easier if I call him.”
“Okay. I’ll wait with you.”
She didn’t reply, just shrugged and started to clean up. After putting his clothes back on, he sat down and watched her for a while.
“Why purple?” he asked, since he couldn't stop thinking about Trixie's speculations about why Vi had purple hair.
“The first time it was mostly to piss Mom off,” she answered without looking at him. “Then Edie suggested the black streaks to make it look fuller, and I ended up liking it. It was about my name, too. I don't like it, and this was a way to turn it into something fun. You know, violet for Violet.”
“You don’t like your name?”
“Violet Warren,” she said with a wrinkled nose and met his eyes. “No, I don’t. And... Well, the hair kind of takes the focus from other stuff, and it’s kind of me now.”
She turned back to the table and continued with the cleaning. He argued with himself for a few seconds and then simply went for it and asked.
“You know you’re really pretty, right? Beautiful.”
She snorted and kept cleaning, not even commenting on it, as if he trying to make fun of her. He couldn't figure out what'd gone wrong in her head. She was obviously not blind, but she still couldn't see it. He got up, walked over to her and took her shoulder to turn her around.