by Jaci J
She rolls her eyes. “Seriously? Couldn’t Alek have shown me?”
“No.”
I can’t believe I’m giving out the code to my goddamn business and building, but here I am, handing it over willingly to Shay, just for a second of her fucking time.
“Nine. Nine. Three. One. Two.” I show her on the security pad by the door.
She nods, looking bored. “That it?”
Hell fucking no.
“Shay?”
“Hey, there you are!” Jessica purrs, walking around me, her arm snaking around mine. “I was lookin’ for you.”
Christ.
Shay’s eyebrows hit her hair in surprise. She looks at me, then at Jessica. And then she smirks.
“Who are you?” Jessica snaps at Shay.
Jessica looks up at me, and Shay does the same.
“Leaving,” Shay chuckles, pushing past me. “Have a good night, Niko.” She gives me one last look before she disappears through the bar door.
“Wanna grab a drink?” Jessica coos, pulling on my arm.
Not a chance in hell.
Shaking her off, I hold the back door open for her. “Nah.”
She looks surprised. Not used to being turned down sweetheart? “Uh...”
“Thanks for comin’ in.” I lean against the door, waiting for her to exit.
She needs to get gone.
“I haven’t paid.”
And I couldn’t give a shit less right now. “It’s on the house,” I tell her, waiting until she’s through the door before closing and locking it behind her.
Bullshit night.
5
Shay
“You have no tattoos?” Alek’s eyebrows raise as he looks me up and down, inspecting me for the tattoos I don’t have.
Standing in the hall, I’m caught off guard by his question. “What?”
I’m back at work, even after all the pizza and beer I had last night with Kendra and Alek. I made it in, and I wasn’t too late.
“I just realized you have no tattoos. Not ones I can see anyway.”
Shaking my head, I laugh. “No. I don’t have any.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. It was just never something I thought about getting.”
“Have you ever seen someone get a tattoo?” he inquires, changing up his line of questioning.
“Only on TV.” I’m not really sure what the big deal is. The way Alek’s looking at me, his eyes wide and head cocked, you’d think I just said I’d never heard of tattooing at all.
“Only on TV? Where the fuck you been, Shay? Living under a rock?”
“More like, my head in my art and covered in paint.”
Alek chuckles. “Well, we’re about to change that shit.”
Uh. “Okay?”
“Don’t sound too excited. If you’re gonna be hangin’ around the shop, you’re gonna have to be about the life.”
“About the life?” He makes it sound like I’m joining a cult.
He walks down the hall toward the waiting area.
I hang back in the doorway, watching as he greets a guy. They do that guy handshake/quick hug thing before the guy follows Alek back down the hall in my direction.
“Chris, this is Shay. Shay, this is Chris,” Alek introduces us, standing in front of the doorway to his room.
Chris shakes my hand, his fingers lingering around mine. He’s good-looking in a punk rock sorta way. Dark hair cut short on the sides and long on top, with a nose and lip ring. Tattoos. Leather. The whole nine yards. “Nice to meet you, Shay.”
“Same.”
“So,” Alek pipes up. “Mind if Shay sits in on your session today, man?”
“Nah, man, wouldn’t mind it at all.” Chris beams, looking me over.
Alek and Chris step aside, both letting me walk into the room first.
Alek’s room is neat, yet stark. White walls and black furniture, black and white art and clean lines. Very different compared to Alek’s colorful personality.
“Have a seat, man.”
Chris sits, and I do as well, but in the corner in a big, comfortable leather wingback chair.
Alek washes his hands, then grabs a pair of gloves from a box, putting them on before taking a seat on a stool. “We finishing the arm piece or starting something new?”
“Finishing the arm piece.”
I listen to them talk, working out details while I look around, staring at the wall above his sink and work station. The wall is covered in vintage tattoo photos, and not like the ones in the hall with vintage tattoo samples, but black and whites of people giving and getting tattoos. Early twenties to the fifties if I had to guess. They’re cool. Different.
Alek gets to work, with Chris’s arm propped up on a small rolling table deal. “So, what do you do for work?” Chris asks, looking at me.
“Artist,” I tell him.
“She paints, draws, all that kinda shit, and she’s fucking good,” Alek butts in, smiling at me. He’s proud of my work, and that makes me blush.
Chris nods, looking impressed. “That’s fuckin’ cool. Awesome to be able to make a living off your passion.”
I don’t correct him and tell him I’m barely hanging on by a thread, or that I’ve had plenty of waitressing, room service, and dog walking jobs in between bouts of small success. I just nod, smiling.
While Alek works, I answer the occasional question lobbed my way, until Chris takes a break and Alek answers a phone call.
I wander back toward the bar where I abandoned my work when Alek caught up with me, and run into Chris. “Hey,” he smirks, lingering in the hall.
“Hi.” I smile back, hand on the doorknob.
Chris is nice enough, decent looking and cool, but I’m not looking for a man.
“So, Shay, you seein’—”
Before the question can leave his mouth—a question I know will be an invitation to a date after he asks me if I’m seeing anyone—the door I’m leaning against opens and I practically fall through it.
Right into Niko’s hard body.
“Jesus Christ, Shay.” Niko catches me. Again. His hands on my body make my blood heat and my skin pebble. But it doesn’t last nearly long enough.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he growls, letting me go and stepping away from me.
“You have?” I question, looking up into his dark eyes, feeling them penetrate into my soul. Menacing and hard. Unbreakably solid.
I haven’t seen him since last night, and I was okay with that. I didn’t want to see him and be reminded of him and that woman he was with, but here he fucking is.
“You left the fucking bar door open into the hall.” He looks up and away from me, finally noticing Chris standing a few feet away, watching us. “Chris,” Niko acknowledges him.
“I’m here for a session,” Chris says, explaining himself to Niko.
Niko looks at me, eyes narrowed and lips pressed firmly. I cock my head in response, a teasing smirk settled on my lips. Furrowing his brow, Niko sneers, like he knows exactly what Chris was about to ask me and how I might have said yes. Not that he cares, or that it’s any of his damn business, but I sigh and give my head a quick, subtle shake. He closes his eyes briefly, only to open them slowly, narrowing them on me.
I roll my eyes and he almost smiles.
And for a moment—a very fleeting moment—Niko almost looks relieved, but it doesn’t last long.
“Hey, Shay, wanna finish?” Chris asks, motioning to Alek’s room, arm out.
No, not really. But I don’t want to be rude.
Taking a step toward Alek’s room, Niko stops me, putting an arm across the doorway to block me. “She’s busy,” he barks, eyeing the hell out of Chris.
Niko is practically begging him to argue with him.
Chris chuckles. Niko doesn’t.
Niko doesn’t relent. Chris does.
“Get back in the bar,” Niko tells me, practically shoving me through the door. On my way through, I shout, “Nic
e to meet you,” at Chris, trying to be polite and goad Niko.
I don’t see the look Niko gives him, but it can’t be pleasant, because Chris says nothing in response.
“Gee, thanks,” I mutter sarcastically.
“Chris is an asshole. Fucks anything that walks. I saved your ass the hassle.”
“Maybe I like a guy to hassle me.” I shrug, walking around him and toward my paint set up by the back wall.
“Jesus, Shay.”
“Just sayin’.”
Niko frowns. “Shut the damn door before you go, yeah? And lock that shit behind you. I gave you the damn code.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, perplexed by the whole encounter.
Niko looks back at me, and I can definitely see him suppressing a smile. He thinks he’s won.
Bastard.
“Seriously.” He walks out the door, leaving me feeling confused and fucking bulldozed.
Niko
PARKING MY CHEVELLE in the alley behind Custom, I cut the engine and get out, chucking my cigarette to the gravel and grinding it out with my boot before I head in.
Walking in through the back door, I hear it before I see it.
Gangster rap.
“Fuck, already?” I growl, talking to no one but my damn self. Because apparently, I’ve lost my fucking mind. There’s no other explanation for why Shay’s still around.
She’s not in my shop, but she’s next door in the bar. Has been for the last two weeks.
Just the idea that she’s here makes me mad, and I don’t even know why. If I did, I don’t think I’d even want to analyze it. Just seeing her pisses me off, and I know goddamn well it has something to do with the way she licks her bottom lip before she speaks, and the way she smiles at everyone and bullshits with all my customers. Not to mention her taste in my music, and how loudly and off-key she sings along with it. The way she looks at me, like she can’t figure me out, but wants to. All of it, I fucking hate.
Not more than five steps into the back room between the shop and the bar, I see paint on the floor. Little drops and splatters of black and blue all over the tile from the backroom door to the doorway of the bar, and that pisses me off more than the goddamn gangster rap.
“Jesus Christ.” Just as the words leave my mouth, my brother comes walking through the door, whistling, a box of shit in his hands.
He stops when he sees me. “What up, man?” He looks at me funny when I frown, throwing my hand out toward the floor.
“Your little artist friend left a mess all over the floor.”
“Paint?”
“Paint all over the goddamn place.” I know I’m being a giant ass baby about this shit, but fuck.
Looking down at the floor, he shrugs. “That’s what’s got you all bent the fuck out of shape? Paint?”
Smearing a blue drip with my boot, I ask him, “How the fuck you know I’m bent out of shape?”
“Your face. Your voice. The fact that you’re mad at paint.”
“Fuck you.”
“Chill the fuck out,” he scolds, walking by me. “Ask her to wipe it up. No harm, no foul,” he concludes, walking out the back door.
The back room connects the shop and the bar. There’s a bathroom back here, a washer and dryer, and a big ass utility sink. It’s a catchall, but that doesn’t mean I want it covered in shit.
Pushing the door open to the bar, I’m assaulted by her loud ass music and the smell of paint.
Shay is standing by the back wall, facing me, and next to her is some dude, his back to me. A motherfucker I don’t recognize. The second she sees me, she says, “Niko,” her voice careful and unsure.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask the dude, rounding on him to get a look at his face, the face I’m about to break with my fist.
Jesus fuck, if it’s not one dude it’s another.
He jerks, startled, swinging around to look at me. He looks about ready to say something smart until he sees me.
About my height, but half my weight, the motherfucker doesn’t have shit on me and he knows it.
Shay steps around him and between us, her hand out toward the guy in an introduction. “This is Phillip.” Like that makes a fucking difference to me. When I don’t say anything, she continues. “He works next door.”
The dude offers me his hand. “Phillip Marow.” When I don’t take it, he drops it back to his side. I’m not here to make friends. I want to know why he’s on my property, looking at Shay like she’s a goddamn feast and he’s hungry. “Anyway, I heard music coming from over here, so I came over to see what was goin’ on.”
“Now that you’ve seen,” I tell him, nodding over at the door, “you can go the fuck back to where you came from.”
I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me, but I’m not happy in this goddamn moment, and from the look on Shay’s face, she isn’t either.
Good. We can be unhappy together.
Before the dude or I can say anything else, Shay steps in. “You’ll have to come by when I’m done, Phillip.” She shoots me the nastiest look when I open my mouth to shut that shit down. I don’t want him over here, sniffing around my employees.
“Yeah,” he agrees carefully, looking at me quickly while following Shay to the door.
She holds it open for him, leaning on the door and smiling. “Nice to meet you, Phillip.”
He smiles back at her, and I want to rip his damn face off. “You too, Shay. I’ll see you around.”
He’ll see her around over my dead body.
“Bye,” she says sweetly, letting the front door swing closed. She then turns to me with murder in her eyes. “What the fuck was that?” she demands, walking toward me. “I know this is your place and all that shit, but really? Why are you such a dick to everyone?”
“I’m always a dick,” I tell her, pointing out the obvious. “I am who I fucking am.”
She laughs sarcastically. “No shit. But that was even a bit much for you. Jesus, he just came over here to see what was going on.”
“I don’t want that asshole over here alone with you.”
She shakes her head, sighing. “First, how do you even know he’s an asshole? He could be cool as hell. And second, you can’t tell me who I can and cannot be alone with.”
She’s cute. “The fuck I can’t. This is my building.”
“Your brother hired me to paint a mural on his wall,” she fires back, arms crossed like she’s got me there.
This is his bar, but this is my building. The wall? That motherfucker belongs to me. “I own the joint.”
“And? I still don’t work for you.”
I’ve lost my goddamn mind, because before I know what the fuck I’m doing, I spit out, “You do now. You finish this for Alek, you’ll be doing artwork for Custom.”
I’d like to see her try to tell me no now.
Shay’s eyes go wide and her mouth drops to the floor. “Oh, am I?” she asks incredulously.
“Yeah, you fucking are.”
6
Shay
I’ve never met anyone quite like Niko, and that’s not a compliment, because he’s a fucking asshole.
“No, I’m not.” I’m not working for him. Not a chance in hell. I might be hard up for cash and almost homeless, but I’d rather live in a box under a bridge than work for Niko.
“You’re hired. When you’re done with this shit,” he tells me, throwing a hand out toward the wall, “you’ll draw shit for me and my clients.”
“This shit?” I look at him, and then at the wall behind him. My hard work splayed out on the wall and he calls it shit? I should hit him. Put my paintbrush through his damn windpipe.
“Your art,” he amends, eyes narrowed. “Better?”
“Not on your fucking life. I’m not working for you. In fact,” I say, on a roll, “I’m not dealing with you at all.”
Niko laughs. It’s a dark, ominous sound. “You’re not dealing with me?” he mocks, crowding me against the wall. “That’s cute. You’re in my
space, baby,” he informs me firmly, and his use of baby isn’t sweet or warm. “You’re fucking dealin’ with me.”
Putting a hand up, I stop him, not scared or rattled by him. I’ve been around the block a time or two, and dealt with plenty of assholes. Niko’s scary, but doesn’t actually scare me. He’s a fucking prick, but he wouldn’t hurt me. Not physically anyway. “I get it. You’re the boss, but listen here,” I growl, advancing on him. “You don’t own me. You don’t tell me what or who or when or how I do shit. This might be your building and that’s great. You want me to go? I’ll fucking go. But not until I finish this mural for your brother. Until then, you’re not going to tell me shit on what to do while I’m here.”
I don’t know what the hell is happening or how we got here, but I’m not a fan of where we are right now.
When I woke up this morning, this was not how I saw my day going. Hell, up to an hour ago, things were going great. Now? Not so much.
“We’ll see.” He scrubs at his scruffy cheek, irritated.
“Yeah,” I counter, turning my back on him, “we will,” ending our fight. Our conversation? A power struggle? Argument? I don’t even know what the hell that was. But whatever it was, it’s over. Done. Not happening again.
I don’t look at Niko again, but I hear him leave, his boots hitting the hardwoods.
From across the room, he stops and shouts, “Clean up your fucking mess in the back room, yeah? There’s paint every goddamn where.”
“Oh, I will,” I say cheerfully, my voice full of sarcasm and venom. “Don’t you worry, boss man.”
“And no goddamn people in my building without me being here,” he adds, slamming the door behind him.
I hear a few more doors slam before I get back to work.
Dick.
I CLEAN UP MY MESS. I wipe up the few drops of paint on the floor and leave a larger, catastrophic looking mess in the back sink with a note for Niko, saying ‘Have an awesome night!’ taped to the wall above it.
Walking out the back door, my phone rings. Juggling my bag and an armful of paint supplies, I dig for my phone, damn near dropping all my shit.
