The Purest Hook (Second Circle Tattoos)

Begin Reading

Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

Thank you for buying this Swerve ebook.

To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters.

Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

For email updates on the author, click
here.

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at:
http://us.macmillanusa.com/piracy
.

To Lizzie and Beth

Thank you for giving me the opportunity

to write the stories I want to write, while

helping me make them better.

You are the best dream-team a

girl could ask for!

Had it really been seven years?

Sarah-Jane “Pixie” Travers sat down in the entryway to Second Circle Tattoos, the studio she managed, and ran her fingertips along the gray slate. It was impossible to believe that seven years to the day, the first day of April ironically, she’d been reborn on this floor. Not that she remembered too much of it. Sure, she could still recall how cool the tiles had felt against her itching skin, but she had long-since buried the sensations of nausea, and her concerted effort to forget the shame of suffering uncontrollable tremors had been successful.

Working through the humiliation of throwing up at the feet of the two men who would become her saviours had taken longer. There would never be a way to repay Trent and Cujo, her bosses, for saving her life that day.

She’d been in Miami less than twenty-four hours when muggers had stolen what little money she’d saved to start over. But it was Trent and Cujo’s decision to
not
call emergency services when they realized that she was in withdrawal that helped her most. Their generosity to find her an outpatient program, and pay for it with what little money they had was what kept her alive.

Pixie breathed deeply, the spring Miami air crisp and fresh. It was her favorite time of year, before the humidity of summer made everything sticky. The tattoo shop would open at ten as usual, but the need to come and take a moment, filled with gratitude for the way her life had changed on
that
day, was great. And there was inventory that needed doing, which was always easiest when the supplies were tucked away in cupboards where they belonged.

Belonged.
Pixie sighed, said thanks to the entryway one more time, and stood. Using the key she’d been given years ago, she let herself into the studio and turned off the alarm. Everything was spotless. All the chairs faced their stations. No ink, tattoo machines, pens, or gloves littered the countertops. The dark wood floor was swept and polished. The bright Miami sunlight poured in through the windows revealing the occasional dust mote, but otherwise it was clinically clean, exactly how she liked it.

Pixie took her role as manager very seriously. She owed the owners, Trent and Cujo, everything. Literally. Without them, it was unlikely she’d have made it to her twenty-third birthday.

She ran her fingers along the woodwork around the door recalling the hours spent stripping years of paint from it. In an attempt to pay Trent and Cujo back for their help after rehab, she’d returned to the studio daily to paint and decorate or run errands for them, like picking up lunch. It kept her mind busy, making it easier to resist the temptation of finding something to take the edge off.

At night, they’d allowed her to sleep in the undecorated office but told her to keep out of sight, not wanting to end up on the wrong side of licensing regulations. Every morning, one of them would bring her breakfast; the other would get her something for dinner later on in the day. Cujo would force her to eat, even when she didn’t feel like it. He told her she had to be related to the fae, given she was so tiny, or a Pixie, given her love of singing, dancing, and, again, her short stature. Pixie had been the nickname that stuck.

In no time she had been ordering stock, dealing with vendors, and organizing the storeroom. When Trent and Cujo offered her the job of operating the front desk, she’d been delighted. And when Lia, one of the tattoo artists they’d hired, offered her a room in her condo for embarrassingly low rent, she’d jumped at the chance.

They’d never pressured her to tell them how she came to be in their doorway that morning, and for that she was eternally grateful. Finding the words to explain what transpired the night she’d fled her mom’s trailer was more than she could bear. Thinking about Arnie, her stepfather, and the things he had asked her to do, still had the power to send her into a panic-stricken spiral. She constantly dreamt about blood-covered hands, even after all this time.

Outside, the street was quiet. Seven in the morning on a Thursday was too early for tourists. It would be hours before the city fully came to life.

Cujo and Trent would be in at ten. It was rare for them to work the exact same hours, although they overlapped often depending on shifts, but on this day of the year, every year, Trent put the three of them on at the same time, even if it meant he had to work fourteen hours straight. One of the things she loved about Trent was his capacity to remember the important things.

The previous evening, Lia had gone to the superrich gated community of Star Island to visit her parents, whom she disliked almost as much as they disliked her. Lia had wanted to ditch them all together and stay home with Pixie, until she found out her brother, a Navy SEAL, would make it home from his latest deployment. Eric, the last of the four tattoo artists, had gone out to L.A. to visit his brother and wasn’t expected back until Saturday.

Pixie placed her purse under the front desk and opened her planner, making a note to buy some navy tulle on her way home. The little girl’s party dress she’d started sewing the previous evening needed a couple of extra layers in the skirt to balance the fairy wings she’d already made. What had started as a hobby was fast becoming a small business, one she hoped to take on full time eventually. A photograph held to the planner with a bulldog clip caught her eye. It was worth the hours of sewing and embroidery when she received a photograph of a grinning little girl wearing one of her dresses.

Pixie plugged in her phone and let the playlist she’d built blast from the speakers. It contained songs from some of the greatest musicals and films. Up first, Idina Menzel.
Rent,
Wicked,
and
Frozen,
were all on there. Once done, she’d move onto Elaine Paige classics.
Evita
,
Chess,
and
Sunset Boulevard
. It was such a contrast to the usual metal and heavy rock everyone listened to during business hours.

Standing in front of the large studio mirror, she pulled her bobbed purple hair up into a ponytail. It was the first time she’d allowed it to grow since she’d chopped it all off the day after leaving home. She wondered briefly if her mom was still there. Or even alive. Too scared to call home in case she got Arnie, Pixie had no way of knowing what had become of her. But staying clean was more important than chasing the past, and she knew speaking to Arnie would be a trigger.

Pixie decided to start with inks. She pulled all the boxes out of the cupboard, but kept them organized by brand and color. The inside of the cabinet needed a good clean, so she got supplies from the closet and got to work.

A couple of hours, and nearly a full pot of coffee later, Pixie was buzzed, and finished. Inventory was done, workstations were set up for the day, and appointment calendars were printed. Pencil in hand, Pixie sat at the desk, doodling ideas for her latest order. Ladybugs were her favorite party dresses to make, and she tried to make each one different.

The studio phone rang, and Pixie glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was still forty-five minutes before opening.

Voice mail could take it. Pixie sketched the little antennae, but the ringing bothered her.

Unable to ignore it, she picked up the phone.

“You’ve reached Second Circle. How can I help you today?”

“Pix?”

She knew that voice. It was the only one that wrapped around her ribs and squeezed tight. “Hey, Dred.” Dred Zander was a fellow judge with Trent on the reality TV show
Inked
. He also rocked every metalhead girl on the planet as lead singer of Preload. They’d met on a few occasions. And maybe she’d thought of him a few times in between.

“Hi, gorgeous. Why aren’t you home? Trent being a slave driver?”

“No, I’m doing inventory.”

“This early?” His voice was filled with concern.

“It’s quiet. I’m fine,” she whispered. For the first time that morning, being alone felt kind of shitty. The silence hung between them for a moment until she shook it off. “What can I help you with?” she asked as cheerily as she could muster.

“Oh, I was going to see if Trent could fit me in next week before the show.”

The North American leg of Dred’s tour was coming to an end in Miami, and she’d heard from Trent that they had a brief break to record a new album before starting the European leg.

“Why didn’t you call his cell?” Pixie pulled up the appointment schedule on the computer she’d just started up.

“Because if I call here and leave a message,
you
have to call me back.”

Despite herself, she laughed. “Yeah, he can do any time from midmorning.”

“Put me in for noon. So when I’m down there, are you finally going to agree to go on a date with me?”

Pixie smiled. He always asked, and she always replied the same way. “Not until it snows on the Sahara.”

Dred laughed.

It felt as though a butterfly was trapped inside her chest.

“You’ll cave eventually Pix. I give good date, among other things,” he said suggestively.

“I’m sure you do. See you next week, Dred.”

“Count on it, Pixie.”

The phone went silent. She knew the day would come when he stopped flirting with her, but a relationship with him was simply impossible.

And she fucking hated her stepfather for that.

* * *

The way the sun cut through the clouds, only hitting parts of the earth . . . focused . . . could you chase the brightness . . . move from place to place and stay in its rays . . . or would the sun always find you if you stood still?

“What do you think, Dred?”

Dred returned his attention from the view out of the Cessna’s window and finished scribbling the thoughts into his lyrics notebook. He closed it with a snap and looked over to Sam, Preload’s manager.

“What?” he asked calmly.

“We only have another hour left on the flight and we still have a lot to get through. Could I get your attention please?”

“Cut him some slack,” Nikan said. As the eldest of them growing up in the group home together, Nikan, guitarist and back-up vocals for the band, had always taken on the role of protector. “If you hadn’t committed us to getting the new album out so fucking quick, he wouldn’t need to be thinking about lyrics twenty-four seven.”

Dred appreciated the intervention, but the truth was, the lyrical ideas came to him when they were ready. He could no sooner turn them off than he could stop blinking.
Can you turn off the sun? . . . Does love burn like the sun? And if so, could you avoid love, the way you avoid the sun?

“Dred.” Sam’s voice cut through his thoughts.

They were two hours into the early morning flight to Miami, and business was the order of the day even though his mind was on the inspiration outside the window. Dred unwrapped a lozenge, and caught the flight attendant’s eye for another cup of hot water. The last thing he needed was a sore throat, but the telltale irritation and dryness said one was on its way.

“Keep your shirt on, Sam,” Dred said. “We know what needs doing. You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.”

“Right. So, Lennon, I have a deal lined up for you to be sponsored by Soidal. You’ll need to use their drum kit on the next tour.”

“Soidal is a total rip-off. All they’ve done is taken all the good ideas from Tama and Yamaha and wrapped them up in a sweatshop package. It isn’t ethical and it’s crap. Sounds like it too. I’ll stick with Tama,” Lennon replied.

Dred shook his head. Soidal sponsoring them was a stupid idea. Everyone knew Lennon wouldn’t budge, because Lars Ulrich was his fucking idol. Shortly after their first single released, they’d played on a daylong festival bill, headlined by Metallica. They’d walked off the stage after their set to find Lars Ulrich backstage, standing out of sight of the crowd. Lars had congratulated them on their performance, but told Lennon he needed a better drum kit. He’d introduced Lennon to his contact at Tama and it was the only kit he’d used since.

“The endorsement is huge. Gives us free gear shipped and set up anywhere we play in North America. You could even sign the fucking things, give them to local charities to auction. Think of all the free publicity you’d get,” said Sam. “It’s my job to find these deals for you.”

“It’ll be my job to kick your ass out of that emergency exit without a parachute if you sign that fucking contract,” Lennon fired back explosively. Dred casually flicked open his seatbelt, ready to hold Lennon back if he needed to, but was relieved to see Lennon grab his headphones.

Sam looked shocked by the outburst. “Jordan,” he said, changing track, “I’ve put your name forward for a reality TV show.
Inked
is getting such great publicity for Dred, and it would be great to raise your individual profile.”

Well that made no sense whatsoever. In their makeshift family, Jordan assumed the role of socially awkward older sibling. Dred and the rest of the band witnessed the way Jordan’s separation anxiety seemed to be getting worse. While Dred refused to give up hope, it would likely be a cold day in hell before Jordan would be able to travel around North America alone.

“Elliot wants his own TV show. Get him to do it.” Jordan tilted his chin in Elliot’s direction.

Dred smiled. Elliot hated television almost as much as Jordan hated fame.

“Why the fuck would I want to do it, bro?” Elliott asked.

“Can we focus, please? Elliot, it’s not
for
you. Jordan, it’s a great concept. They’re going to build a rock band.” Sam shuffled papers around. “They’ll have regional rounds to find the talent and then bring the ten best drummers, singers, and guitarists to LA. From there, they’ll play as part of a different band each week, and the worst band will get eliminated. They want you to coach the bass house.”

Despite a hatred of manufactured pop bands, it wasn’t a bad concept. For a more confident, gregarious artist, it would be perfect. Dred looked at Jordan pulling his swan act, the one where he looked like he was calmly gliding over water, but under the surface, his legs were paddling furiously.