Four

by Tia Fielding

  “You look good. Regular guy.”

  Kaos wiggled his fingers. “With nail polish.”

  Emil snorted. “Yeah, as if that matters to Dad. Go on. You have my number so you can call me if you need me.”

  “Yeah, okay. Here goes nothing,” Kaos said, sighing as he straightened his back.

  Emil made a weird hissing sound that gave Kaos pause. “You are not nothing,” he said fiercely. “I know it’s a figure of speech, but don’t ever call yourself that.”

  “Uh… okay.” He blinked at Emil, who nodded seriously before turning around to march to the store.

  Whatever that was about, Kaos didn’t know, but he figured it wasn’t bad advice.

  He tried to avoid the puddles as he crossed the parking lot, road, and another mostly empty parking space. He wondered if a tattoo studio would be a viable option. If he’d get any other artists to come for a while here and there, or if Acker was just too remote for that.

  Soon enough, he stood in front of the correct building. Before he could take the last steps to the door, it opened and a blonde deputy stepped out, beaming at him.

  “Hey, you’re Emil and Makai’s friend, right?” She held out her hand, and he shook it, feeling more than a bit stunned. “I’m Deputy Erin Peters. Nice to meet you.”

  “Y-yeah, I am, hi,” he managed to say, still shell-shocked. “I’m Kaos—well, Jeremiah White, actually, but nobody calls me that.”

  She grinned. “I saw you standing here when I got up from my desk to get more coffee. Come on in. I guess you’re here to meet the sheriff?” She held the door open to him, and he had no choice but to follow, ready or not.

  “Yeah, Emil said he should be working?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s in the office. Come on. I’ll take you.” She seemed perky and friendly, and Kaos remembered Makai talking about her in passing, saying she and her sister—he couldn’t remember her name right then—who was Emil’s therapist, were good people.

  He followed Erin through the bullpen and to a very stereotypical half-glass-walled office space in the back. She knocked and peeked in when the sheriff answered.

  “Hey, boss, there’s someone here to see you,” she said, then beamed at Kaos again and let him in, closing the door behind him.

  “Uh, hi,” Kaos said, fidgeting a little. “I’m Jeremy White, friend of Makai’s…?”

  The sheriff was a middle-aged man with a weathered face and an inquisitive gaze. He nodded slowly, then got up and held out his hand to shake, much like Erin had done. “Sheriff Newman. Welcome to Acker, Mr. White. Please take a seat.”

  “Thank you.” Kaos sat, then smiled hesitantly. “Everyone calls me Kaos. It’s my artist name.”

  “Right, I think Emil mentioned you were coming into town and were a… tattoo artist?” Sheriff Newman raised his brows inquisitively.

  “Yeah, I’ve been doing art since I was a kid, drawing and graffiti first, then tattooing once I turned eighteen. Well, I started apprenticing then. I did it for a year, but then I went to jail for four years, and once I got back in 2015, I started to tattoo again. Pretty much went through apprenticeship for the first year. I’ve been tattooing for real for two years now.” He word-vomited all over the sheriff, who seemed content to let him talk. Interrogation tactics, that’s what Emil had called it.

  “Right,” Sheriff Newman murmured. “I haven’t looked into your files, by the way. Would you tell me what got you convicted and how long you were in?”

  Kaos sighed and looked at his hands where he’d crossed his fingers on his lap. “Basically, I was raised by my grandma in this crappy neighborhood near St. Louis. My birth parents were never in the picture. My mom had me when she was barely seventeen and she was into trouble by then. She had me, left me with my grandma, and ran away. I don’t know if she came back or tried to contact me—I’m pretty sure my grandma wouldn’t have had that, you know….” He spoke quietly, sinking into the story a little without realizing. “Grandma worked in the DMV and a second job in a grocery store for as long as I remember. She got laid off from the DMV when they closed the location, and her insurance got basically trashed by that. Long story short, she got diabetes and we didn’t realize it in the beginning. When we did, it was already pretty bad. She lost some of her eyesight and couldn’t walk much, so she got put on meds and insulin and stuff like that. By that time, I must’ve been… fifteen or something. She would’ve been fifty. Anyway, she couldn’t really work much, and there were things going wrong about the benefits, and then I realized she wasn’t getting her meds, just to save a bit of money to feed me. So I went where every kid in the neighborhood would—to the dealers.”

  “This was when you were fifteen?”

  “Sixteen, I think. I started to deal weed—that was like, the only thing I would touch. That way I could bring some money in and help her with the meds and… yeah.”

  “What happened then?” The sheriff’s tone was careful, and Kaos got the feeling the man didn’t want to be too quick to judge him.

  “Eventually I got caught with some weed on me. I guess a couple of years of not being caught made me sloppy or something. It was just enough to get me fined for a misdemeanor. The second time it happened, I had enough for them to get me for distribution. The judge listened to me when I asked to speak about why I’d done it. She was… sympathetic, I suppose. Only gave me four years, but I had to serve all of it. Later, my lawyer said someone else would’ve given me up to fifteen years, because there was a minor present when they busted me. She could’ve put me in for a distribution to a minor.”

  Sheriff Newman nodded solemnly. “So, once inside, you met Makai?”

  “I’d been in one block, and they moved me to a new one two years in. My grandma died while I was in. She wasn’t even sixty. She hadn’t been answering the house phone, and someone went to check up on her. She’d had a heart attack in her bathroom.” Kaos wiped his eyes, feeling angry at the world for that. Then, because he knew it was all in his files, he sighed. “That was why I was moved to the other cell block. I heard about her dying, and I went a bit crazy for a few days. Someone pissed me off, taunted me…. The last two years, I had Makai there. He was like a big brother from the start. A really great friend.” Kaos smiled slightly. “Anyway. I got back out three years ago. I’m twenty-six now.”

  Sheriff Newman steepled his fingers and looked at him seriously. “All right. Do you do any drugs?”

  “No, sir. I don’t… I’ve smoked weed a few times, but it never agreed with me. I get sad where others get mellow and giggly. Anything stronger than that… it’s just not for me.” Kaos looked the sheriff in the eye when he said that, hoping his sincerity was evident in his gaze.

  “That’s good to know. I assume you’re going to live as a lawful citizen while here in Acker?”

  “I haven’t gotten as much as a parking ticket since I got out. It’s not… it was all out of desperation, Sheriff.”

  Sheriff Newman nodded slowly. “All right, then. If you are planning to tattoo people, you’ll need the licenses. I can ask them to rush it a little, but it might still take a couple of months to get them. I would suggest you put in the request for your personal license as soon as possible, and that way you can still work at someone else’s shop while you wait for the license for your own shop. There’s a studio in Mercer, so it’s not far. I think they’ve been struggling a little, so you might be just what they need.”

  Kaos stared at the sheriff in obvious disbelief. “That’s it?”

  Sheriff Newman looked amused. “What did you expect? Biweekly meetings to see if you’ve been good? Because by now I know those don’t work.” He took in a deep breath and then exhaled. “Look, the way I see this is that you’ve done your time, and you were only in prison because you were young and felt like you had no choice but to deal drugs. I can understand wanting to do anything in your power to keep your family safe.”

  Kaos nodded slowly. “Yeah, it’s just not something I’m used to. I mean, someone bein
g reasonable about my past.”

  “I’m not saying it’s not a bit of a red flag, because it is. I can’t just shut that off, not with my profession and what I’ve seen before. But you keep your nose clean and figure out income and all that, and we’re good.”

  Kaos’s phone pinged in his pocket, and he took it out on a reflex. He realized both that it was probably rude to do so and that it was a text from Emil at the same time.

  He chuckled. “Sorry, sir. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s Emil. He wants to know if he needs to create a distraction to get me out of here.”

  Sheriff Newman laughed. “Sounds like my son, all right. Tell him you’ll be right out.”

  Kaos texted Emil and put his phone away. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to put in the permit applications then?”

  “Yes, please do that. I’ll try to help where I can, and this is one of the places where a sheriff still has some sway.” They got to their feet and shook hands. “Tell Emil his mother wants the three of you to come for dinner soon. No set date yet, just whichever works for everyone.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  BECAUSE MAKAI and Emil didn’t have a printer, Emil took Kaos to the post office to print the forms for his permits.

  Since Kaos had met Mr. Miller already when he went to get groceries with Makai the previous day, he already knew what to expect. Or so he thought.

  The old man seemed to love Makai and Emil, and he had been nothing but nice to Kaos. A little bit gruff, maybe, but apparently that was his default mode.

  Emil went through the post office and into the grocery store once he had Kaos settled on the surprisingly modern communal laptop in the corner by the printer scanner thing.

  “It’s good to have young people in town,” Mr. Miller drawled from the back of the space, where he was coming in from his apartment. “That computer might’ve been a bit of a purchase, but it’s already proven a good idea. I got Emil to thank for that.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” Kaos replied as he made sure the printing settings were correct for what he needed.

  “Uh-huh.” Mr. Miller toddled past Kaos and went behind the counter. “I know Makai’s story,” he said then, in a thoughtful voice. “I don’t know yours, and while I’d like to know to be able to right any wrong assumptions people might have about you, I think the fact that you’re associated with Makai and Emil is enough.”

  Kaos must’ve looked confused, because Mr. Miller chuckled.

  “When Makai came into town, everyone already knew who he was, what he’d been through. Or they thought they knew. When Makai told me the truth, the actual real facts of it all, I could tell people when they were full of shit.”

  Kaos grinned. “So you’re the gatekeeper of gossip?”

  Mr. Miller laughed out loud. “No, child, I’m not. I’m the one who tries his best to keep peace where I can. Nobody benefits off false rumors.” He got serious again and waited for Kaos to make eye contact before continuing. “I don’t tell anyone’s secrets. I only put brakes on some of the gossip. So if there’s anything you want me to know regarding that, at any point, let me know.”

  There was a sincerity in Mr. Miller’s voice, and Kaos nodded. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” He printed his things, and by then, Emil walked back into the post office.

  “You ready?” he asked cheerily, making Kaos smile.

  “Yeah.”

  “Emil?” Mr. Miller stopped them from leaving. “Have you thought about the postcard idea?”

  “A bit. I’ll let you know soon, okay?” Emil flushed lightly, as if embarrassed of something.

  “There’s no rush. Have a nice day, boys.”

  “Bye,” Kaos said, despite feeling an odd pang at being labeled “boy” by someone. It happened every now and then. Someone called him sir or boy or man, and he felt a tremor go through himself. It was normally on the more feminine days that happened, so he wondered if tomorrow would be one of those days where he’d wake up feeling like wearing his girly clothes.

  Sighing, he followed Emil to the car and got in.

  Chapter Four

  PADRAIG PULLED the last bit of thread out of the dog’s skin, and Athena used a cotton ball to clean the drop of blood that welled from the hole.

  “Okay, that’s it. You did well, Ginny girl,” Padraig told the dog and patted her head.

  Ginny’s owner, Mrs. Granger, looked ever so happy. “Thank you so much, Dr. Donovan,” she whispered, blinking away tears.

  “Hey, it’s over now. She’s just fine. Just make sure she can’t escape to the road again, okay?” He gave her a smile, then lifted the Labrador mix off the table. “You be good, Ginny. We don’t want to see your mug here again.”

  “Until her next vaccinations, that is!” Athena piped up from where she was already disinfecting the table.

  “Right,” Padraig agreed, smiling. “Okay, Athena will get you the paperwork in the front, and here’s hoping I don’t see you here too soon.”

  Athena took Mrs. Granger and Ginny to the front, and Padraig went to his office to update Ginny’s records. Since Ginny had had an appointment but he didn’t have others for the day, he decided to start on his quest for small changes.

  He procrastinated by checking his work and personal emails but drew the line on playing Candy Crush like Athena would. Padraig took a deep breath to prepare himself, then got up from his chair, made his way to the door leading to the empty side of the building, and unlocked it with the key on his keychain.

  He wondered if it was still supposed to feel this bad. Without thinking about it too much, he pushed open the door and stepped inside the empty rectangular business space. It was smaller than Padraig’s side, because it never had a large waiting room. Seeing the place empty made his heart clench, and he tried to concentrate on what could fill the space instead of what wasn’t filling it.

  Somehow, he’d taken out his cell phone and was now staring at it. Had he been thinking about calling someone? His subconscious was working its magic, he supposed. Makai might need the space even if it was a part-time thing. Anything was better than having it empty.

  He made the call.

  “Hey, Doc, what’s up?” Makai asked, and Padraig heard a giggle from the background. “What’s so funny?” Makai asked someone, who Padraig thought was probably Emil. “But I didn’t say ‘what’s up, Doc,’ did I?” His voice got louder again. “Sorry about that. Emil is being silly.”

  Makai’s voice was so fond, Padraig smiled. “It’s okay. Actually, if you aren’t busy, could you drop by the clinic in a bit? I have a business proposition of sorts for you.”

  “Oh, well, color me intrigued.” Makai chuckled. “Sure. Do you mind if Kaos tags along? He needs to mail some stuff.”

  Despite himself, Padraig said, “Not at all. Just show up whenever.”

  “Okay, we’ll be there soon!”

  Kaos was going to visit the clinic. Great. Nothing to get oddly nervous about, right?

  PADRAIG OPENED the door as soon as Makai’s truck parked in front of the building. He liked that Makai chose the spot a little to the side, leaving the very front free for emergencies.

  Makai got out of the truck, and then Padraig almost swallowed his tongue when Kaos did. As quickly as possible, Padraig schooled his expression into something neutral, plastered a smile on his face, and pointedly didn’t stare.

  “Hey, come on in.” He turned to step inside, his brain going a thousand miles per minute.

  Makai and Kaos followed him, and as soon as they all stood in the middle of the space, Padraig spread his hands.

  “I know I asked you if you needed a space before,” he started, and Makai nodded. “I think it’s time. I have a couple of ideas for this space, and I think you might be interested.”

  “Okay.” Makai smiled at him encouragingly. “Should we sit down?”

  “Yeah, sure. There’s the window seat, but let me grab some folding chairs from the back….” Padraig escaped to the small storage room an
d tried to calm his heartbeat down.

  Kaos was wearing makeup. Not just kohl—that wasn’t unusual even in Acker—but eye shadow, and some sort of lip gloss maybe. He had his hair pinned to the side with dark hair clips, like adult versions of the things little Joie had in theirs sometimes. His shirt was also different. Gone was the hoodie and the skinny jeans. Well, the jeans were still the same—at least Padraig thought so—but the shirt… it was a blouse, more than a shirt. Definitely something a woman would wear.

  “Everything okay?” Makai’s tone was gentle as he peeked into the little room.

  “Uh, yeah, sorry. There was stuff in the way,” Padraig lied quickly, then handed over one of the folding chairs. “Here, does Kaos want one too?”

  “No, he took the window seat.”

  The so-called window seat was really a radiator cover that ran along the width of the large window. Kaos had opened the vertical blinds and sat in a sunny spot, looking like some sort of ethereal, genderless being.

  Padraig swallowed hard. His stomach clenched, and he could feel signs of arousal creeping into his body like a thief in the night. He was so, so confused.

  “So, what do you have in mind?” Makai sat down on his chair, near Kaos.

  Padraig steeled himself and placed his chair so he could see the others well. Do not stare. It’s not the first time you’ve seen an androgynous person, for fuck’s sake! “Well, you know I asked if you needed a business space for your carpentry.”

  Makai nodded.

  “I get that it’s pretty big expense, having a space for what you do, but what if we expand that idea?”

  “Okay….” Makai looked intrigued, and Kaos was listening intently as well.

  “There isn’t really a souvenir shop in town, The Millers have some stuff at the post office, but they always complain about how much room it all takes.”

  Kaos nodded. “Yeah, Mr. Miller just said that when I went there the other day.”