Burning Lessons

Chapter 2

Ozzy

I love my best friend Leo, but sometimes I question how I ever decided to partner with him in both of our jobs. Here he was in the middle of our monthly nightshift complaining about his love life while eating an in n out.

"You know I gave her everything, I-I helped her with everything. I help learn how to cook, clean, set up a 401k and what do I get in return. She cheated on me with my Barber."

"......"All you could hear was me sipping on my Oreo shake. God I don't even know how to respond. If the advice I give myself to get through shit is shitty, what makes you think I'm the person to come to for this.

".....with my barber Ozzy, do you know how fucked up that is? Like she could've cheated on anyone but a guy barber is like If i cheated on her with her nail tech."

I was just trying to watch Game of Thrones on our stations t.v but instead I'm here listening to him bitch about his new ex girl friend.

"Can you at least pretend to care?" He dips his fries into the little ketchup cup.

I turned to him, "I care, which is why I know that she has a broken tail light, and a couple of tickets she hasn't paid I could always tell a Marcus from the LAPD to take their boot on a new route on their patrol?"I sipped on my drink waiting for his answer.

"Why, just why" I can sense him giving the biggest side-eye ever.

"Well just like you said it's disrespectful to cheat on someone especially their barber... Do you want me to or not?"

I sighed and look at him

"..."

"..."

"I'll think about it"

Suddenly we hear the fire alarm going off. Running towards the truck and changing in a quick second, "Come on, let's go you can think about it on the way there."

~

God I hate overnight shifts. I woke up to my dog licking my face. My Chocolate lab was in my face, letting me know he's hungry. His name is Latte and he was a rescue and he is the best thing that has ever come into my life yet. Today is my day off from being a LAFD, but I have to go into the Tattoo Parlor.

Leo and I have been best friends since junior high. We both wanted to become firefighters and tattoo artists. During our paramedic class days we both purchased tattoo guns and started to build clientele in our apartment. That's when we called our business "World duos" later when we were in the same unit people started to address us as world duos.

I take Latte with me and as we reach the parlor and close the door. I unleash Latte from his leash. He is a good boy, he is usually by my side, never goes astray, he usually just lays there not bothering anybody unless they start to agitate him on purpose.

I look up to see Marco. We have two other tattoo artists, Marco and Oscar. They usually work more than Leo and I are busy.

"You're 11:30am is here" Marco then walks away with his iPad preparing another stencil.

I go into my room and start sterilizing and preparing the ink and wrapping my gun. Marco brings in the guy and I see a guy in his late twenties. I fixed up a stencil for him and started to tattoo him.

"You know I make music and I've decided to make a social media... "Great, he's a talker. I usually don't mind a little talking but I hate having conversations when I'm trying not to fuck up a tattoo. The brunette from the other night, she could've talked all night with her calming voice and gorgeous brown eyes...

"...Right" I look up to see him waiting for my response.

"Sorry man, I was trying to get the outline right. What was your question?" I look up to him and put hand under my chin.

"I've been thinking about seriously promoting my music on social media but I think it's kinda scary and I should just try to promote my music a different way?"

I looked at him, this guy" look social media is scary but I suggest to promote your music on there since you can get discovered, maybe do some influencer podcast and talk a bit about yourself but too much, leaves some room for mystery otherwise people are up in your business"

"You ever tried to become a manager", He's trying to hand me his business card that he pulled out from his wallet.

'"Absolutely not."