Page 47 of Joey

The man’s voice broke through the haze in Ethan’s mind, but Joey didn’t stop the kiss. Instead, he gentled it, bit by bit, until they rested their foreheads together.

“What do you want, Beck?”

“I wanted to talk about the schedule for the Bonser event. Can you drag yourself away for a bit?”

Joey sighed, and Ethan felt the tension in his entire body. “Go talk. I’ll speak to Ani,” he said, dropping a last kiss on Joey’s lips before disentangling himself.

“This shouldn’t take long.”

Ethan smiled at Beck as he passed, and he descended the stairs to where Ani was talking to a customer. He wandered around the reception area—was it called something different in a tattoo shop? There were designs on the walls here, too. Recognising some as Joey’s work, he tried to see if the other designs had some sort of “calling card” in them to identify who drew them. He wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling he saw a few that had the same style.

“Their styles are very reminiscent of their personalities,” Ani said, stopping beside him. “Have you figured out whose is whose?”

Ethan pointed at the ones he thought were by the same person. “There are lots of lines, an almost chaotic but beautiful experience in these.”

Ani nodded and smirked. “They’re all by the same person. But who?”

Ethan thought about it. “Dallas.”

“Correct. Next?”

He studied the designs again, finally pointing out three. “Very to the point and tidy. Finn.”

“Well done. You’ve got a good eye. Can you find Beck’s?”

He grinned. “These.” He pointed to four designs, which were highly extravagant and extensive.

“Congratulations. You’ve got all three tattoo artists pegged correctly. Joey will be proud.” Ani laughed, tucking her green hair behind her ear. The style suited her petite frame.

“That’s a good thing, I think.” He raised his eyebrows. “What were you saying earlier about an assistant?”

Ani cocked her head. “You’re serious?”

Ethan shrugged. “Nothing has been set in stone, but I think the best choice for us is for me to travel with him. I could find virtual assistant work, which I could do from anywhere, but if you need help anyway, and it fits in with what I can and want to do, then I don’t see why we can’t both benefit from it.”

“What did Joey say?”

“He didn’t say no.”

Ani threw her head back and laughed. “He wouldn’t. He would feel like he was pushing you to choose what he wanted, even if you were the one to offer the option first.”

“That’s why I told him I was going to talk to you. You seem to help him see sense. But I wanted to talk about the potential job first.”

Ani waved him behind the desk. “We definitely need someone to help. I’m becoming overwhelmed by the workload, but these guys don’t like bringing strangers in and finding someone who we know who wants to do it isn’t easy. We can go through what the job would involve, but it can be tweaked and changed to fit you and me and the business. That’s what I like most about working for Joey. He cares about staff retention and making a family out of the business. He’s happy for us to work with our strengths, and then we share the weaknesses between us, or we work together to do them.”

“Sounds like a great way to run a business.”

“I agree.” She huffed. “It’s probably why I’m still here. Oh, I will mention that you will have babysitting duties, too.”

Ethan frowned. “Babysitting who?”

Ani pointed above them and rolled her eyes. “These guys. I told you before. It’s more like being a babysitter than a manager.”

Ethan laughed, covering his mouth with his hand and holding his side. “Ah, I understand now.”

“You don’t, but you will.”

They went through what Ani had to do during a normal day and then the things involved in the events they did and the events they organised. The travel schedule worked well, but Ethan could see a couple of things that he could tweak to make it even better.

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