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I looked toward the door. “I thought she was coming with you? To ‘calm her nerves’ about getting one herself.”
“She’s on the phone with a supplier but will be out shortly. Honestly, this is great, Lucas. I’m ready to rock and roll.”
“Let’s do it.”
I got him prepped, set the tattoo and, by the time we started, I was feeling more and more confident that I’d made the right choice. I loved seeing these designs come to life. Vowing to make this shop work no matter what, I asked Gian about the bar. He said it was going well. We chatted about business ownership in a small town, and Gian offered some marketing advice about attracting both locals and tourists alike and working partnerships with other locally owned businesses.
Eventually, as I worked, he circled back to my time in the military.
“Love what you did with the place. A nice nod to your time in the Army.”
“Thanks,” I said, continuing to work on the lines.
“The snake,” Gian said, nodding to a picture on the wall. “What’s that one about?”
“Had a run-in overseas with a four-foot red spitting cobra. Apparently, the thing shoots poison in the eyes of its prey. I chased and hunted him around like an idiot. Only found that out afterward.”
“After?”
“I caught him and killed him.”
“Oh shit. Maybe it’s good you didn’t know ahead of time.”
“Either way, that little guy fucked around and found out. Made for an interesting night, that’s for sure.”
We talked about Italy for a bit, me having been stationed there and Gian having lived in Sicily for the summer last year, where he met Mazzie.
“I had zero interest in a girlfriend,” he said. “But there she was. Took exactly one date to realize there was something special about her.”
“It’s nuts the way you two met. In Italy. Living in two opposite parts of the country back here.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Speaking of—”
Oh no. Here it came.
“There are rumors floating around about you and a particular ex-girlfriend of yours?”
“Rumors, huh?”
“You must have forgotten how it works here in Kitchi Falls. I might be new around here, but one small town isn’t much different than the next. Bridgeport wasn’t much better.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I heard there are still some rumblings about Grunt Ink too."
Gian winced, clearly not having heard of that.
I didn’t want to dwell. “Anyway, I’m glad things worked out with you and Mazzie. I couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.”
“Nice deflection.”
“Thanks.”
“Which means it’s true.”
I laughed. “We are. . . exploring things.”
“Interesting. Sounds like the two of you have some history?”
“You could say that.” I wiped Gian’s new ink. Looking good. I decided to just lay it all out there. “We had a good thing going. But her dad never liked me. When you’re the town’s resident rich guy, having a potential son-in-law like me doesn’t go over too well.”
