Page 18 of Fallen Ink

Adrienne was working on a walk-in shoulder tattoo that would take an hour, max. She was bent over the bench, her concentration on her work as she bit her lower lip and focused. He did his best not to make it look like he was ready to bend her over just a bit more and take her from behind at the sight of her biting that delicate flesh.

While everyone else was working, Mace waited for his client to show up. He was already twenty minutes late, but Mace wasn’t surprised. He was one of his regulars from the old shop and was constantly late. Hence why Mace always padded the time around whenever the appointment was set for. George, the client, made up for the time cost-wise, so Mace didn’t mind too much, but it still left him pacing a bit because he wasn’t exactly sure when the guy would actually show up. It annoyed the hell out of Adrienne, but Mace just dealt with it. It wasn’t like he could control what George did, and honestly, he didn’t want any other artist messing with his ink.

“George running late again?” Adrienne asked as she leaned back from her work and cleaned it off.

Mace nodded and then went into Adrienne’s workspace to see the finished product. “Dude. That’s fantastic.”

She held up her hand, shaking her head. “Don’t say another word until Tracy here gets to see it.” She smiled as she said it, and Mace rolled his eyes. She had a thing about not saying anything about a tattoo until the client saw it, and while Mace agreed, he also wanted the world to know how talented his wo—best friend was.

Hell, he’d almost called her his woman.

She wasn’t his, not like that. And because they’d set their flimsy boundaries, she never would be. They were best friends who now had sex—though only with each other. And, apparently, they were keeping it secret, which he agreed with because he didn’t want to have to deal with all the knowing glances and endless questions that were bound to pop up when it came to the two of them. Everyone always wondered if they’d gone to bed together, and now that they had, he felt like everyone could tell.

And….now he’d ended up back in high school. He needed to get over himself.

Tracy, a middle-aged woman with bright eyes and long, auburn hair, bounced off the bench and practically skipped to the long mirror at the end of the pathway between the booths. Mace met Adrienne’s gaze, holding back a smile. Tracy was far too energetic after having a needle stabbed into her arm over and over…but to each his or her own.

Adrienne handed Tracy a mirror so she could look at her ink, and the woman squealed as if she were a fifteen-year-old girl rather than a woman in her forties. The work on her shoulder was exquisite. Addi had added shadow and depth to the vibrant blues and purple hues to make it look as if the fairy were floating right off Tracy’s shoulder and whispering a joke to anyone who passed by. For a walk-in without a lot of direction, Addi had knocked the art out of the park. Each of them at the shop had specialties, and she was coming into her own with this type of artwork for sure.

“I love it. It’s the perfect fairy. Is it a good fairy? A bad one? Depends on the day. My husband is going to pass out when he sees it. I can’t wait to surprise him.” She shook her hips and did a little dance, and Mace couldn’t help but laugh along with her. The woman’s enthusiasm was infectious.

By the time Tracy had left, her laugh still echoing off the walls, Shep was still focused on the full back piece, just getting back from a water break, Adrienne was cleaning up her station, and Mace was finally getting down to work with George. They were working on a full-color piece on the man’s thigh today, and Mace wanted to get started so he could get in the zone.

George was all set up in the chair, and Mace rolled his shoulders, ready to get started on the back-aching part. He’d be working on the outline today and would do the colors and final shading during their next appointment. It would be too much on both of their bodies to do the full art in one go. George’s skin tended to swell, too, so Mace didn’t want to screw up the end game by going too fast and too hard.

Adrienne came up to him while he was about thirty minutes in and took the extra stool in the booth. Though the heat of her next to him made him harden slightly, he was professional enough to keep his eyes and attention on his work and not the woman next to him.

“Looking good, George.”

The other man gave her a wink from his perch on the chair. “You know it. I only want the best.”

Adrienne raised a brow, and Mace did his best to hold back his smile. George was a great guy but, sometimes, he didn’t think before he spoke. Between that and his inability to be on time, Mace sometimes wondered why he liked working on the man as much as he did.

George seemed to understand that he’d stepped in it and quickly backtracked. Mace had to sit up, lifting the needle since the other man’s thigh had tensed as he put his hands up in the air in surrender.

“I meant…shit. I didn’t mean you weren’t the best. Just that Mace is one of the best. You’re the other best.”

Shep cleared his throat behind them, and Mace couldn’t help but join in with Adrienne’s laughter. “I’m standing right here, you know,” his boss and friend said with mock sternness. “I mean, come on.”

“You’re fine, George.” She patted his arm, her smile wide. “Just know that while Mace is the best. I’m the bestest of the best.”

Mace kicked her foot. “Whatever you say, babe. The answer’s in the ink.”

She snorted and leaned into his shoulder, and he swallowed hard, doing his best to back away slowly and not let Shep see his true reaction. Mace and Adrienne had always touched and leaned into one another, but things were different now. He’d known that things would change once they slept together, and though they’d each said that nothing would happen outside of what they did in the bedroom, it had been a lie. A necessary lie, but a lie nonetheless. And with Shep so close to them and observant beyond measure, the two of them were walking a dangerous line that he wasn’t sure either of them knew how to fully straddle without ramifications.

Before he could get too lost in his head, the door opened again, and everyone looked toward the front area as a man in a suit holding a clipboard walked in, a frown on his face as he looked around.

“Is,”—the man looked down at the thick clipboard in his hand—“there an Adrienne or Shephard Montgomery here?”

Mace straightened as Adrienne stood, wiping her gloved hands on her pants. “That would be me,” she said, her voice friendly but firm.

“And me,” Shep said, his voice a tad deeper than usual.

Ever since that unknown man had come into MIT and threatened them, and then with the addition of the graffiti attack on their building, everyone had been on edge. Whoever this guy was, didn’t give Mace a good feeling. And from the way Adrienne and Shep stood tense and yet professional, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Even George and Shep’s client seemed on alert since both of them were regulars and friends of the crew.

“Andrew Berry here,” the man said, pulling out his wallet. “Department of Sanitation. We’ve had a couple of calls and complaints. I’ll need to do an inspection, according to our code…”

The man rambled on about code numbers and what needed to be done, and Mace held back a curse. All three incidents so far might not seem connected since they were all out of the blue and different, but Mace didn’t trust what was going on. MIT hadn’t been open for long, and now they were dealing with this crap?

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