Page 17 of Virgin Skin

I give an awkward laugh and shove my hands into my pockets.

“Sorry, Milo, I had a walk-in for some quick flash right after we texted, but I’ll be done in just a few minutes,” Hero calls over to me. He pulls his needle back from the arm of the guy he’s working on. “Feel free to hang out though. I didn’t get the chance for proper introductions yesterday, so, that’s Arrow, Piston, Tex, Brick, and Jag.” He points to the guys one by one as he names them.

Piston doesn’t look up from the woman he’s working on, but I can see the back of his neck flush when Hero introduces him.

“Hey there, Puppy.” The twink in a mesh tank top, Jag, flashes me a smile.

“I’m sorry?” I drift a little closer, sure I misheard him.

“Puppy,” he repeats. “Hero’s the big dog, which makes you Puppy.”

I scrunch my eyebrows together. “Uh, I didn’t know I was getting a nickname. Is there any kind of appeals process?”

The other blond twink shoots me a sympathetic smile from his place leaning against the wall. He’s far more clean cut than the rest of the guys in the shop, without any visible ink, just a baby pink hoop through his septum.

“Unfortunately there’s not,” he says. “But if you’d rather be ‘Brick,’ I’ll trade you.”

I waffle my head back and forth, considering the offer.

“Hey, no tradesies,” Jag insists.

I open my mouth to argue but Tex, the guy at the next station over with a cowboy hat perched on his head, just shakes his head. “Arguing with Jag is like trying to reason with the ass end of a bull. Better to save yourself the trouble.”

I sputter a laugh at that imagery.

“Welcome to the madhouse.” Arrow gives me a friendly smile. “You get used to it.”

My chest warms at the implication that he expects I’ll be around to get used to it. Sure, I’m Hero’s son, but they don’t even know me. I swallow hard and nod with a smile.

“Thanks.”

“So, you’re sticking around for a while then?” Tex asks.

“Yeah, I’m staying at the motel for now, but looking for a job is the first thing on my list. I kind of uprooted everything to follow this whim, so I’m here until I have a good reason not to be.”

“The motel?” Hero repeats, frowning like he didn’t stop by to talk to me thereyesterday. Maybe it didn’t really click in his head until now. That would be totally relatable. Sometimes it takes me anywhere from one to seven business days to process shit, so I get it.

I nod. “Yeah, it’s not so bad. I can afford to stay there for another month with what I’ve got in savings. I figure that should be enough time to find a job.”

He grunts and lifts his needle off of the guy’s skin again to look around the shop with a furrow in his brow and a frown on his lips.

“That place is a rat-infested dump,” he mutters.

“It’s really not that bad. I haven’t seen any rats at all. Maybe, like,onecockroach, but…”

Hero huffs through his nose. “Oh, hell no.”

Jag shudders then gives an exaggerated gag. “Fucking bugs, man.”

“Scared of one itty bitty roach, Jag?” Tex teases.

“Fuck you. Find one in your bed and we’ll see how itty bitty you think it is.”

“Piston,” Hero barks over Jag and Tex’s back and forth.

I feel like my dad saying his name is all the permission I need to look at Piston again. His shoulders tense and, after a second, he looks up from his work.

“All motels have roaches,” Piston says reasonably.

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