Page 18 of Reckless Harmony

“No,” she said hurriedly before he could roll his stool back.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes, I think it looks great,” she said. She couldn’t imagine trying to stand and keep the stiff paper sheet covering all her bits while Nix watched. Nope, that was asking too much of her frayed nerves.

Nix picked up the tattoo gun. “Let me know if you need me to stop, all right? If it hurts to the point that you need a break, it’s fine to ask for one.”

“Okay,” she said.

“The tattoo won’t take long, but if you need to reposition, let me know first,” he said. “It’s important that you hold completely still while I’m tattooing.”

“I won’t move,” she said.

“Good. Here we go,” he said. He pressed a button on his phone, and music drifted from a small speaker on a rolling cart that also held a sharps container and a package of gauze.

A smile crossed her face, and Nix said, “What?”

“You’re a Taylor Swift fan?” she asked.

“I like all sorts of different music,” he said. “I can change it if you prefer.”

“No, I… I love Taylor Swift. I just didn’t think you would be a Swiftie,” she said.

That got her another one of those oh-so-pretty smiles, and her pulse thudded in her ears as a not entirely unpleasant tingling began in her lower pelvis.

He snapped on some gloves and bent over her hip. She stared at the top of his dark head as the buzz of the tattoo gun started. He touched it to her skin and did a few seconds of tattooing before stopping and staring at her. “You good?”

“Yes,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought.”

He nodded and bent over her hip again. She watched him work, fascinated by the look of concentration on his face and the steady, confident movement of his hand as he tattooed her.

Forty minutes later, she’d been lulled into a state of relaxation by the music, the sound of the tattoo gun, and Nix’s rhythmic motion of tattooing and wiping her skin clear.

When he shut off the gun and gave her skin one final wipe, she was almost disappointed. For the first time in months, she’d been entirely at ease and not plagued by any of her usual anxiety. She could have sat there for hours, studying Nix and feeling the sharp bite against her skin as he moved the tattoo gun over her flesh.

Nix set down the tattoo gun, turned off the music, and picked up the hand mirror. He angled it over her hip again, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the tattoo.

“It’s so beautiful.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I love it.”

“Yeah?” Nix gave her a pleased look before wiping the tattoo again. “It’s red right now, and your skin is a bit swollen, but it’ll look even better once it’s healed.”

“I think it’s perfect,” she said.

“Good. I’m glad you like it.”

“Not just like. Love,” she said happily.

When Nix set down the mirror, she sat up a little, staring again at the tattoo, not ready to stop looking at it. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

He cleaned it again before placing a sticky clear bandage over it. “This is called SecondSkin. It’ll help protect the tattoo as it heals. Keep it on for the next seven days. You can shower or bathe with it on. All right?”

She nodded, still staring happily at the tattoo as Nix threw the needle into the sharps container. He paused a beat before saying, “What made you decide to choose a dove?”

“Well, it’s the most beautiful dove I’ve ever seen,” she said, “and to me it symbolizes…”

“What?” he asked.

“Freedom,” she said. “How she can fly away and go wherever she wants, be whoever she wants to be, without anyone judging her or making her feel bad or…”

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