seraphic [h.s]

chapter thirty.

Raven hair was in my vision this morning.

It was messy and all over the place, as were the tattoos inching from his tee and the hoop on the right side of his nose looked a brighter silver with the sun shining in.

"Does that make sense? You always have to clean the area first before you do anything." His dark gaze flittered to mine and I quickly nodded my head in understanding. "Clean the skin, then sterilise, if there's a lot of hair— razors are in the second draw to the left." I verbalised, remembering the steps he'd told me only moments ago.

It was bright and early for a Friday morning and last night still felt like a fever dream. Dee had interrupted the flood of tension in the room last night after he'd sung to me. The sudden intrusion was enough to scare us both and we thanked whoever would listen that it was only Dee. Harry excused himself with a smile and Dee checked in to see if I was okay— I was more than okay— but I failed to mention the fact that my heart was teetering on the edge of bursting in the most beautiful way.

It was disgusting— how full my heart felt. I couldn't run far from those green eyes even in my dreams, he still found a way in. Dee had told me to meet her at the shop in the morning and that was why I was here now. I'd gotten a good night sleep, making sure I felt refreshed and ready and rearing to go.

The shops progress was on the move. It had proper interior now and I could finally start to see myself settling in. There was equipment, stations, a proper desk, little homey pieces that made the space warm and welcoming. I could definitely begin to see my life here, in the medium space of this tattoo shop that exuded every feeling I thrived in.

"Hm," Eli quirked, lips turning down and brows rising as if he were impressed, "you're easier to teach than I thought you'd be." He swivelled himself around on the chair and opened the second draw to the left, exactly where I'd said the razors would be. And they were, all boxed and confined with the smell of new. "Did you think I'd be a horror? I take great offence." I placed a hand to my chest in hurt, but the grin of my face told him otherwise.

He had gone through majority of the steps I'd needed to know when tattooing someone. I sure as hell needed to listen and take in what he was telling me because I was not going to mess up something that would mark a persons body forever.

Twirling the swivel chair around and around, he called out as he packed away the ink colours he'd shown me, "You've got the eye for it, wouldn't have mattered if you were a horror." He mumbled, cleaning up the space and shoving things left and right. His black tee sat slightly stretched over his muscular arms and I bid my eyes away just as he began to turn around.

"So," I cheerfully stood up, walking over to Dee who sat with her head in another stack of paper, "when's the shop set to open? Things look pretty good to me." And they did. The painting was done, a few men were on the other side of the shop finishing the last bits of construction, but ultimately everything looked perfect. "Three weeks sweets, fingers crossed. The opening will be on a Saturday night and we'll start business the following week." She dropped her pen on the paper and looked visibly out of it.

Her long inky hair was swirled into a ponytail that still met her waist, the bright orange elastic holding it all together. "That's really good! It'll be the middle of July by that point so we'll still get lots of people out and about." I piped up, hoping to switch the frown from her cheeks that I bet she didn't even know was there. "And I think all that's left to do is organise the opening. Apart from all the constant paperwork, that never goes away." She huffed, and I pressed my hands flat onto the desk, "Why don't you take a little break? You're going to run yourself dry."

But all she did was shrug, "That's business baby."

I breathed out a laugh and turned back around to face Eli who had called my name twice, "What's up?" I asked him, seeing his confused eyes as he looked back and forth between the ink in his hands and the ones in the drawer, "Could you check the storage room for more of these boxes? It's the black ink, we bought it in bulk but there isn't a lot here." I nodded his way and gave Dee one more look as I trudged along to round the corner and yank open the storage door.