Page 59 of Achievement Unlocked

“Smart ass.” Landon let out an amused huff. “Other arm. You love your job so much you scarred yourself with their logo?”

I could be prickly about his question, but I was having too much fun, in too good a mood, to risk spoiling it. “Basically, yes. A lot of us have been there for as long as not, and we plan to keep being there, so yes, we all got matching tattoos.” The first round, when only a dozen or so of us were at AcesPlayed, all trying to crowd into the shop at once.

Maybe I did have some fond memories of the people I worked with.

“Who does that?” Landon asks. “Tattoos their company logo on their body?”

“I just told you, we do. We’re a tight-knit group. Who gets a tattoo of a cartoon mouse on their shoulder blade?” I’d seen his ink as well as he’d seen mine.

Landon shrugged. “A lot of people. I bet that statistically, there are more Mickey Mouse tattoos than any other kind in the world.”

My chuckle came easily. “I’d take that bet, and I’d counter with the suggestion that there are more in foreign languages, especially Chinese and Japanese, that say things likeFried Rice, despite the owner thinking they say things likeBad Ass Fire with Steven Seagal Fists.”

“That’s both disturbingly specific and way too vague for me to bet against.” The grin on Landon’s face was compelling.

“Welcome to my specialty. And seriously—The Brain?”

Landon’s amusement wilted, but it didn’t vanish. “My ex’s name was Brian, and they spelled it wrong. I was so upset at the time, but maybe it was divine intervention—who the fuck knows? A guy in my squad was a master at drawing cartoons from our childhood, so when Brian and I split…”

“The Brain. I get it and I like it. Kind of makes me want to get Pinky, to counter it.” Did I just propose matching tattoos? The fuck was wrong with me? I was having too much fun to put any more thought into the slip.

“You’re not aPinky.”

I stared at Landon in amused disbelief. “No? What am I then?”

“You’re more like a Marvin the Martian. Brilliant. Hates humanity. Constantly being foiled by Bugs…” The way he trailed off caught my attention.

And then his words caught up with me, and my barking laugh slipped out without my permission. “Did you just make a QA joke?” Damn it, it wasn’t funny, but it also was.

“I did. You really liked it? I was worried it was too much of a reach.”

“No, no. It was good, and the setup was fantastic.”

“In that case, I’m gonna pretend I planned the entire thing. Like claiming I wrote a whole book, just for a single Looney Tunes joke.”

“I won’t tell.” Why couldn’t I stop smiling? This was weird. “Hey, you ever get oneremoved?” I made air quotes.

Landon was still laughing too. “No. It went that well, huh?”

I flipped my arm over to expose a large, pale scar. “They’re not removing the ink so much as burning it away and replacing one scar with another, bigger, harder to cover scar.”

“Oh, fuck. You have a dick scar.” Landon leaned in closer. “That sucks.”

“It’s the sun.” The line had been my reply for years, and I spat it out without thought. “It’s meant to be the sun.”

“Is that why Icarus is flying toward it?”

Good. We were on the same page. “Exactly.”

“The sun is the head of a dick.”

I knew that, and I’d known it since the first time I saw it, but it had never seemed as funny as it did now. “You’re not wrong.”

“At least you got something iconic, totryto hide it.”

I wrinkled my nose. The Led Zeppelin album art hadn’t been my first or even my third choice, but in the end it made the most sense to have Icarus flying toward the sun.

Looking at my expression, Landon raised his brows. “You got a problem with The Zep?”

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