Page 92 of Game Changer

“Can you get it now?” I ask Clay.

He shakes his head. “We’d miss dinner.”

“I’m okay with that.”

Clay studies me a long moment, then cuts a look at the artist.

“Where’d you find her?” the artist asks Clay half an hour later.

“Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Clay looks over at me under his dark lashes, and we exchange a grin.

Since the artist started to prep his tools, I’ve been peppering him with questions about his pigments and technique and what it’s like to work on a human canvas.

Now, I’m sitting in a visitor’s chair with my dress tugged down as far as possible thanks to the no underwear situation.

Clay is sitting astride another, elbows across the back as the mountain range is etched into his shoulder.

The buzzing of the needle blurs with the downtempo music from the speaker in the corner, a quiet symphonic background for what I’m witnessing.

It’s beautiful.

The ink appears in soft strokes across Clay’s smooth skin.

I thought the blood would bother me, but there’s hardly any, and it’s wiped away fast in a two-handed dance as elegant as any ballet.

Normally, the artist’s calendar is booked for months, but apparently, he does all of Clay’s tattoos, and he’s the only client the artist would take on a walk-in basis. Especially on a Friday night.

“You decide what tattoo you want yet?” Clay asks, his face turned toward me.

He doesn’t flinch or give any indication of the pain he’s in. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him.

“I thought it would be easy, but there are so many options.” I glance around the studio, where art is mounted on every available surface. There are simple hearts and stars and banners along with photos of realistic faces, detailed mosaics and landscapes. “That’s why you get one every year.”

His eyes crinkle. “I get one every year because I’m in a different place. And it blurs together, but I don’t wanna forget what got me here.”

It humbles me even more that he let me help him pick one out. A tattoo to mark who he is, in this moment.

“You should’ve told me the assignment when I helped pick yours out,” I chide him.

He rubs a hand over his jaw. “Nah. You aced it.”

Clay orders dinner for the three of us, and on a break, we eat tacos wrapped in foil, as delicious as they are messy.

He also ordered me a bottle of wine delivered with chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert, so I’m riding a happy buzz.

When the artist stands up to stretch and use the bathroom, it’s the two of us.

“Well?” Clay asks.

I inspect his back. There’s a sun just appearing over the ridge.

“Is it rising or setting?” I ask.

“You tell me.”

“Rising,” I decide, and he grins.

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