Page 1 of Ship Happens

Chapter One

Like a Fisting Tattoo?

“What do you mean you won’t tattoo me?”

The man’s expression is far from a pleasant one: brows furrowed, gaze forceful as he stares Owen down. Obviously, he’s used to getting what he wants through this intimidation tactic of his. He even flexes his arms, just to sprinkle a little more onto the charade.

All for an ugly tattoo of a lion.

“I didn’t say I won’t tattoo you,” Owen repeats himself. For the fifth time.

Peeking over the edge of the counter, Owen eyes the photo on the man’s phone where the hyperrealistic carnivore is staring back at him.

“I don’t do hyperrealistic,” Owen explains, pulling up the shop’s calendar on the computer. “No one here right now does. You’ll have to come back in the new year; you can make an appointment with Sarah. She’s back on the fifth.”

“Why can’t you do it?” the man asks.

“I could,” Owen says wryly. “But it’d look like shit.”

“You’re a tattoo artist.”

“Who hasn’t studied that style of tattooing.” Even just thinking about all that shading sends a shiver down Owen’s spine.

The door to the basement swings open, Conor finally making his grand reappearance with the box of inks he went looking for half an hour ago, leaving Owen to man the front of the shop by himself. Not that it’d been that busy; it never was this close to Christmas. People had better things to spend money on than tattoos.

“What about him?” the guy asks, nodding at Conor.

“Conor!” Owen calls without turning.

“What’d I do?” he asks, so startled that he nearly drops the box.

“Want to do this piece for a client?” Owen asks, reaching for the phone and handing it to his fellow artist.

“Maybe, I’ve got time before I was gonna—” Conor begins to say, but the second he sees the reference photo, his expression sinks.

“I’m thinking along my whole back,” the client says, gesturing as best he can with how thick his triceps are. And okay, Owen doesn’t like to make a habit of judging potential customers. But there’s something about the tight tank top, gym shorts, and backward cap that’s not inspiring a lot of confidence in Owen that this session will go all that well.

Then again, for all Owen knows, he could be a lovely conversationalist.

But Owen isn’t wrong all that often.

“Uh . . .” Conor’s eyes dart nervously as he hands the phone back. “Yeah, nah. No can do, my guy, sorry.”

“Why not?” the man asks.

“Owen can explain!” Conor exclaims, squeezing Owen on the shoulder before he spins around back toward his own workstation.

“Coward,” Owen murmurs under his breath. “Look, dude . . . I’m telling you that if you want this tattoo, and you want it to look good, and you want it tonight, you should go to a different shop. If I were a worse person, I’d just do a shitty job and just take your money, right?”

The man seems to consider Owen’s words. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Right, so . . .” On the still-unlocked phone, Owen opens Instagram, ignoring the barrage of half-naked bodybuilders that he’s met with on the man’s explore page. Before Owen has time to wonder if the guy follows the men in a gay way or an aspirational way, he pulls up his own artist account. “This is my work. I have flashes that you can pick from, or if you have something a bit simpler, we can discuss that. But I’m not doing the lion.”

The guy stands there for a moment, weighing his options as he scrolls through a few weeks’ worth of posts from Owen. There’s nothing about how this interaction has gone so far that tells Owen he’ll respond positively to his style of tattooing. Looser lines, blended color with plenty of saturation. And a lot of animals. He probably won’t love the amount of wizard frogs that Owen likes to post.

“These all look stupid.”

There it is.