Page 17 of Tell Me It’s Right

We can definitely do better though.

Right now, there’s the home page, a contact form, an about page with the shop’s location, and a few pictures of his work…but not much else. There aren’t even clear shots of the inside of the shop. Not that I frequent tattoo studios, but ifIwere looking for somewhere to go, I wouldn’t show up sight unseen. What if it was a dump and looked unsanitary?

Take photos of the shop, I add to my mental list of to-dos.

Liam appears at my side and feeds a thin sheet of paper into the machine beside me. I can’t make out what the purple drawing is from this angle. It must be a stencil—at least I know that much.

He glances over my shoulder as he waits. “What do you think?”

“It’s not as bad as I’d been imagining.”

“Ah, so going off to college also turned you into a snob.”

“I’m not a snob.”

He grins, grabs the paper from the machine, and returns to the tattooing chair. He’s already got ink lined up on the counter in little plastic containers, the tattoo machine—gun, needle, whatever it’s called—set up beside it.

“Do you have someone else coming in this morning?” I ask.

“Nope.” With that, he props one leg on the chair, rolls up his pants, pulls on some gloves, and starts shaving a section on his calf.

“You’re going to do it onyourself?”

He shrugs, finishes cleaning off his leg, and carefully places the stencil. It looks like a skull, but turned to the side, and with a landscape of mountains inside of it.

Did hejustdraw that?

“We’ve got some time to kill.”

I stand and drift a little closer as he positions the needle over his skin. Then, like it’s no big deal, the machine buzzes to life, and he gets started. I watch his face for a reaction, but he doesn’t even flinch. He just leans down, eyes focused, a small line creasing his forehead.

“I—doesn’t that hurt?”

His lips quirk. “Doesn’t feel great.”

From what I can see, there are at least a dozen other tattoos on his leg. Did he do all of those too? His eyes flicker up to me for a moment, and his smile grows.

“Pull up a chair. It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Oh—I was just?—”

He laughs. “Come on.”

I grab the one from the front desk and roll it over, eyes glued to the needle as it moves across his skin. It’s kind of mesmerizing. He pulls back, wipes the spot he just did with a cloth, and twists to start from a different angle.

“How’d you learn to do this?”

“Taught myself. First ones weren’t great. Good thing you can’t really see them.”

My eyebrows rise at that, but I don’t askwherethey are, because I have a feeling that’s exactly what he wants. We sit in silence, save for the buzzing of the machine as he does a few lines, wipes away the excess ink, repositions himself, then continues. It seems like he’s doing the outline first.

“I’ll be honest,” he says suddenly, “I was surprised to see you come home. Thought once you got a taste of outside of Edgewater, none of us would ever see you again.”

I pull my legs up on the chair and rest my chin on my knees. “I kind of thought the same. I didn’t…” I sigh. “I didn’t expect it to be this hard to get my foot in the door anywhere.”

His eyes flick to my face for a fraction of a second before returning to his leg. “What do you want to do? Dream scenario, where do you end up?”

I let out a breathy laugh. “That’s a good question. And I guess that’s the problem. I don’t really have an answer.”

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