by KC Decker
“How did you get all this stuff here?” I ask, not really expecting an answer because he is busy covering the massage table in plastic, but I’m curious just the same.
“I shipped it ahead of time.” Then he asks, “Is there anything so far that you are uncomfortable with?”
What I keep to myself is, you mean, besides the possibility of crashing somewhere that probably equates to a frat house—with a complete stranger? But what I actually say is, “I don’t think so. Appointments are easy, payments are easy, I know the aftercare instructions as well as my name…I should be good.”
“I’ll be right here the whole time, so you can always ask if you have questions, but it will be really crazy, so be prepared for that.” He tucks his head and gets back to work wrapping the procedure table as if we are done communicating and he’s already trying to forget I’m here.
“What qualifies as crazy?” I ask. I’m taking advantage of the fact that he has to be nice to me right now, and you better believe I’m going to use that edge to keep him talking. Hopefully this weekend I can disarm him enough that he can go back to being a nice guy—or at least, not so hostile toward me.
“Well, there are over one hundred artists from twenty-two different countries, for one. People come from all over the world to meet their favorite tattoo artists. For another, I’m kind of a big deal—not that permanently marking people for a living elevates me as anything more than a common street rat in your eyes.” He is shit-talking without even looking at me, which makes me think he wouldn’t say it if he couldn’t deliver it passive-aggressively.
“Can we be done with that yet? I was feeling manipulated by my friends and forced into something I didn’t want to be a part of. It had nothing to do with you. As far as my callousness, I think that says more about me than it does about you. Ok? I’m an asshole. Can we please move on?” A few moments pass while he thinks about what I just said, then he does look up at me.
“Fair enough. You’re an asshole.” This time there is nothing passive-aggressive about his demeanor, and he holds my eye contact until I’m the one that looks away.
Instead of continuing with this losing battle, I shift the focus back to him and his kind of a big deal ego. “How many tattoos do you think you’ll end up doing tonight?” I ask, before I decide to arrange the hats differently and get to work on a different merchandise layout.
“I know exactly how many tonight—one. Two tomorrow, and two on Sunday.”
“Why did I need to learn the scheduling software then?” At this point, I’m just trying to keep him talking, I don’t give a rat’s ass if I schedule appointments or not.
“The five people that are scheduled for this convention made their appointments between six and nine months ago, and they will be paying a premium rate. No one is expecting to get in to see me this weekend, they will all be booking me back at the shop.” He tears off the edge of the plastic and then sits down on his stool to begin wrapping everything else in barrier film.
“Oh, that reminds me, I made you a cheat sheet so you know how much time to block out based on the size of the piece, and how much of a deposit to collect. It’s under the laptop.”
“Got it.”
“Since you won’t be sterilizing anything, you can head out around nine or ten. Just cover up the merchandise before you go. I’ll clean everything up when I finish tattooing. Doors open at 11:00 tomorrow, but your vendor’s wristband will get you in as early as 10:00.”
“Ok.”
“Are you staying close by?” he asks, and when I don’t immediately answer, he looks up and meets my eyes. We’ve been so busy setting up that I have not had any time to continue my search for a hotel room. I’d like to say I am not even considering staying at the bartender’s house—because I’m really not, but what if?
“I’m not sure how close he lives to be honest.” I try to keep my face from falling with the reminder of my situation because Gavin is still looking at me, and now he has stopped wrapping altogether.
“What did you just say?” he asks incredulously. I feel reprimanded by those five words, and it makes my spine straighten for battle. He doesn’t get to treat me like crap and scold me like a child.
“I said, I don’t know how close he lives. Now, do you want my help with the banner or not?”
“You let that bartender pick you up, didn’t you?” He says it like it tastes dirty in his mouth and is about to be spat out.
“He didn’t pick me up! He offered me a place to stay, so settle down—That, or go outside for about ten minutes and fuck yourself!” I admit, that came out harsher than I intended, but my accommodations are kind of a sore spot, and he is poking the bruise.
“Are you insane? You are not staying with him! You only need one brain cell to know that’s a bad idea. Jesus, Alabama—Please tell me you have one brain cell.”
I don’t answer him, partly because I have nothing intelligent to say—having zero brain cells and all, and partly because I might start crying if I stay here. He’s right, it’s fucking stupid to even consider staying with a complete stranger.
The hotel is only three blocks away, so I exit the booth and blaze a trail in that direction. The resounding emotion I carry with me is humiliation, so when I fish my phone out of my pocket, it’s not to keep searching for a hotel room, it’s to book a flight home.
“Alabama!” Gavin yells after me. By now, I’m on the crowded sidewalk and beelining straight to the hotel to get my suitcase. He is about to catch up with me, so I have roughly two seconds to dry my eyes and find my big girl panties.
When he catches up, he doesn’t grab me or spin me around, he steps right in my path and holds his ground. “I’m sorry.” He says it like it’s a lit explosive instead of an olive branch. I try to step around him, but he moves to the side as well.
It’s not worth staying here to help him. It will cost me thousands of dollars to get a place, or put me in danger at a random bartender’s house—neither of which he deserves from me. I tried to rectify my initial shitty-ness, but now I’ll just have to sit with it. There is no redeeming myself to him, and I’m done trying.
I step to the other side, so does he. I’m trying to summon my rage, but in reality, I’m about to cry. Not just about how he speaks to me or my hotel room situation, but because I may have lost a huge account to be here, a last-minute flight home will cost a fortune, and I look like an idiot when all I was trying to do was leave him with a better impression of me.
“Alabama?” Now he does grab my arms, and the shock of his insistence tries to ignite a little fury again, but the squeak in my voice erases any of my indignation.
“What?” The word comes out exactly how I feel, deflated.
“You are not staying with some random dude. I’m surprised I have to tell you that.” I need to rapid-blink to void the tears before I look up at him.
“You’re right about that. I’m going ho—”
“You can stay in my room,” he blurts out. The offer comes out like he is donating a kidney instead of offering his accommodations.
“I don’t want to stay there.” My words are finally strong because I can feel my desire to be away from him in every cell of my body.
“You don’t always get what you want. I’ll make some calls and find somewhere to stay; I’ve got buddies out here.” Before I even have a chance to decline, he continues, “But you have to let me shower there today, we only have about ninety minutes to eat and get ready…and the banner is still not up.”
I want to say no. I want to tell him he is on his own and that he’s the real asshole, but what comes out instead is, “I’ll eat at the hotel restaurant while you shower. Then I’ll get ready and meet you over there.”
***
Sam is no longer by himself behind the bar, and the restaurant is no longer empty. I order a Thai noodle bowl and sit, wondering why I couldn’t have thought quicker on my feet. I should be headed to the airport, not about to shower in Gavin’s room and then be his bi
tch for the whole convention.
I hope Sam couldn’t read the relief on my face when I told him there was a cancelation and I had a room at the hotel after all. A look of disappointment flashed across his face for a millisecond but then was immediately replaced with a smile.
When he found out I’m working the tattoo convention tonight, he made me the most delicious, and strongest coffee drink I’ve ever tasted. He is genuinely a sweet guy, but for the record, I would have paid for an overpriced room before following him home.
“Here comes, Guns,” he says as he wipes the bar in front of me and then points to the coffee wondering if I would like another. When I turn toward Gavin, I suck in a sharp inhale that may have been fueled by the amperage of the coffee.
He is wearing black pants, a white dress shirt, and suspenders. He is also clean-shaven, but the part that makes my caffeine-addled heart beat double-time, is that his hair is combed back all stylish and trendy to go with the closely shorn sides of his head. He looks like he belongs in a vintage bourbon ad. Damn it, he cleans up well.
He walks over, spares a curt nod for Sam, and then slides the key card over to me by way of the highly lacquered bar top. Apparently, it’s my cue to go take my turn in the room. Fuck, he smells good too—like a clean, masculine scented candle. His scent wafts lightly into my nostrils and probably blows out my pupils, as it vasodilates every blood vessel in my body.
“Room 1017. I’ll see you over there,” he says as I watch the pulse in his neck thrum.
When he’s gone, Sam raises an eyebrow at me that I pretend not to notice. Each of them seems a little territorial in their own way, but considering the shaky ground I’m on with each of them, I want nothing to do with their dick posturing. I pay, and over-tip Sam just because he is such a nice guy, and then head off to Gavin’s room.
***
If platinum had a warm, sexy scent that made me pinch my thighs together—that’s what Gavin’s room smells like. I don’t know what that cologne is, but it acts like a pheromone on steroids inside my brain.
There is still a part of me that resists my growing attraction to him, and not because he barely tolerates me, but because of his rough-around-the-edges-ness. The thing is though, even if he is not at all my type, he still has mountains of something intensely provocative.
Gavin’s stuff is neatly tucked into the corner by the front door, obviously ready to run for the hills as soon as he nails down a new place to stay. If it weren’t for that, and his lingering essence that threatens to pry my legs apart, you’d never know he had been in here at all.
The room is beautiful but also very streamlined in a swanky, boutique hotel kind of way. There is not much more than a bed and a skinny desk that moonlights as a dresser as well. Even the nightstand is no more than a floating shelf, hardly big enough to fit a cell phone next to the lamp and clock. The TV looks like a framed piece of art, set to a melty looking abstract screensaver. That’s it. Not even a chair to impede the wall of window glass that’s currently covered by a sheer, white curtain.
The bed looks like an inviting cloud of queen-sized nirvana, except that it has probably ten different decorative pillows that I want to sweep to the floor due to the communal use, and grossness of them. The only time I’m a germaphobe in any capacity is when I’m in a hotel room, and stuff like deco pillows and community down comforters that are simply covered in a sheet are just, well…nasty.
I have less than an hour before I need to be at the convention, so I need to get in the shower. Gavin definitely went to some extra effort to look good, and I intend to do the same damn thing.
I open my suitcase to pick out some clothes. I always like to hang them in the steamy bathroom, so they look less like they’ve been pulled from the bowels of an airplane.
The first thing I notice is that Miles has left his mark. That fucker has unpacked everything I put in here, and re-packed according to his own agenda. What’s worse, is that he also left me a note to further punctuate his packing supremacy.
You’re welcome.
Chapter 11
In a different place, I would feel really sexy dressed like this, but at a tattoo convention, I just feel like an overdressed poser…without any tattoos. Thanks to Miles’ deviousness, I am wearing a black pencil skirt that hits right below my knees, four-inch black heels, and a white strapless corset that’s not really a corset because it is made out of cotton dress shirt material.
I went ahead and put beachy waves in my hair and left it down even though the ponytail holder was calling to me like an old friend. My makeup is done—not as heavy as Miles would have liked, and not with the false eyelashes he all but reached through the mirror to apply for me, but it’s definitely more makeup than I normally wear.
The doors are not yet open, but the crowd is already swelling with a life and breath of its own. I feel like a supermodel strutting down the runway, but not the graceful, confident one. No, I feel like the one in wobbly platform shoes that’s hardly holding it together and about to eat shit on the catwalk.
I get some leering looks, and I get some friendly smiles, but mostly I’m worried that the heads I’m turning are because of the neon sign above my head that flashes, Outsider-Outsider-Outsider. My vendor wristband gets me through the heavy doors with no more than a nod and a smile, and then I enter the vast event center that is brimming with possibilities.
For the most part, there are rows and rows of booths similar to Gavin’s, but in the back of the convention hall is a giant, raised stage. It has enough metal scaffolding, rigging, and lighting for a Broadway production. At the moment, on the stage is a tiny slip of a woman in a flesh-colored bikini who seems to be preparing for some sort of show.
Within moments, the type of show becomes clear because another woman—strikingly beautiful, with a long shimmering fall of hair that looks like a champion horse’s tail, begins attaching hooks to the first woman’s back. I stop in my tracks, wondering if this is the suspension show the marketing pamphlets and posters have been advertising.
I’m torn between watching this fiery train wreck and continuing on toward Gavin’s booth. She is going to hang from the hooks in her back! I’m frozen in place until the fleshy peaks that line her back begin to pull further away from her body, then I’ve seen enough—and her feet aren’t even off the ground yet.
When I get close to our booth, I slow my approach so I don’t look too eager, or like I’m running from a couple of fleshy meat-hooks or something. Gavin looks over and smiles brightly before his eyes and brain connect the fact that it’s me he is smiling at. Then, like warm butter, his smile melts right off his face.
“I wasn’t sure if you would get here in time, so I already got Joel’s paperwork together, it’s next to the laptop. He’ll be here any minute, he’s already texted me twice.” He talks while buzzing around like a busy worker bee, making sure the lighting is right and that everything is wrapped in plastic and laid out where he wants it on the tray.
“Ok,” I say. Now, I’m feeling even less confident about how I’m dressed after seeing his smile dissolve, only to be replaced with pure indifference. I had hoped to see a reaction similar to the one I had after seeing him all done up. I guess there is not enough makeup and tight clothing in all of LA to get his attention the way he got mine.
“I’m a little worried about time, so I need to get started right away. It’s a big piece, and I only have seven hours.” Now, Gavin has given me his back and could be speaking to the wall for all he’s concerned.
“So, what are you doing on him?” I ask, as breezily as I can while I casually look around the space. He must have had someone else help him with the banner because it’s up—and somehow, loud and dominating.
“Alabama,” he says, sounding disappointed, “We’ve been over this a thousand times. I’m doing a tattoo on him.” Then he smiles, but I’m not sure if he means it for me or for the guy that has just charged into our airspace from behind me. Must be his client, Joel because they are doing
the man-hug thing and suddenly talking like long-lost brothers.
“Who’s your friend?” the guy asks as he slaps Gavin’s shoulder in camaraderie. He has a full beard, but a bald head, which conflicts with nature a bit for me. His earlobes are stretched out big enough to fit a quarter, but for now, they just hang empty and limp. He is also as fit as they come. What I can’t figure out, is where Gavin would put a tattoo on him because he appears to be completely covered—from his jawline to his ripped, calf-length pants and combat boots.
“This is, Alabama,” Gavin offers, bored already with the shift in conversation.
The man steps toward me and says, “Hello, Alabama. I’m Phillip. It’s nice to meet you.” As he speaks, his eyes slowly troll up my body, from my ankles to my eyes. I start to hand him the clipboard, but he scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest. Apparently, arrogance travels in pairs.
“Phillip and I have tattooed in the same circles for years,” Gavin explains. “You won’t find a better Neo-Traditional tattoo artist,” now Gavin is talking to Phillip again, “What are you working on this weekend?”
“Sternum tonight.” They both wince, and I take careful note never to get my sternum tattooed. “Finishing up a back piece tomorrow, maybe some quick flash. Depends on time.” I leave them to their little bromance because now the client really is here and I want to start him on all the paperwork.
The doors must finally be open because now the crowd is coming in like high tide. There is a scramble of initial chaos while Joel does paperwork, Gavin greets the masses and signs autographs, and I try to keep up with the people buying prints and t-shirts to have Gavin sign.
Things settle into a more even stream once he has Joel on the table and Gavin’s feet are no longer available for the commoners to anoint. He told me that people come from all over to have him do their tattoos because he is so well known for his portraiture work. He also said he is kind of a big deal—which at the time I took for his galactic sized ego, but turns out, he might be kind of a big deal.
