The Tattoo

Chapter 1: The Tattoo Social

        Today was a big day at The Inkspot. My brother and I were hosting a "Tattoo Social" as we liked to call them. Typically we'd do these once or twice every couple of months to bring in a mixture of new talent and customers into the shop. So far we had 3 artists lined up to show off their skills in order to claim an open spot here.

I had done the pre screening with two, the last guy was someone my brother knew from college.

"Hey Riley we're you able to grab those last few boxes of gloves and pads?" I asked, pushing my way into the storage closet.

"Yeah damn, how many times you gone ask?" He huffed. "I'm just checking my bad, you know how I am!" I said rolling my eyes. I knew I was getting on his nerves, but in my defense I am a bit of a perfectionist. Plus this event was our biggest turnout since opening shop.

"Okay, that's cool and all. But you starting to get on my nerves. This is not our first time doing this Rae." Riley dropped a gentle squeeze on my shoulder before slipping past me and out of the closet.

I finished grabbing the last of the supplies and tattoo guns for the guest artists to use and made my way out front to ask Riley yet another question. "Hey Rie-" I started.

"Yeah they're already here, we'll except my homeboy Levi." He said. Pushing past the beaded curtain my eyes met two friendly faces. I approached them with my hand extended. "Hi, I'm Raevyn and you must be.."

"Josiah, nice to meet you." Josiah was a scruffy slender white guy with tousled brown hair and prescription glasses. Not what I was expecting considering the way his voice had come through the phone for the pre screening. Let's be real here, I thought he was black. Either way cute nonetheless.

"And you are?" I asked smiling warmly at the gorgeous brown skinned girl standing in front of me.

"I'm Ava, and I'm not much of a hand shaker." She tooted her nose up before grabbing my hand and yanking me into a hug. I laughed loudly hugging her back. I like her already.

After the introductions I took them both to their respective spaces to get set up. Just as we were getting the last things in place the bell above the door chimed. Looking up, a tall, dark man with a mound of locs piled on top of his head caught my eye. He coolly walked through the door with his back pack casually slung over one shoulder. "Hey, umm I'm here for the tattoo social. Oh and I'm Levi." He spoke.

"Oh yeah, you barely made it bro and this is my sister Raevyn. Come over this way so you can go ahead and start to get set up." Riley said welcoming him.

I hate to be dramatic but it was like he took his time looking over me as my brother spoke to him. He had pulled off his shades and his light brown eyes surveyed me slowly. I felt my cheeks growing warm so I tossed my hand up quickly and turned to finished helping Ava with her things. "Hi, glad you made it!"

    *********

The next two hours passed quickly as I ran around making sure the Dj was setup and getting everything laid out. The crowd had started to build and people were mingling.

I walked around taking a look at the three guest artist as they had started to do small tattoos on a few of our guests. One thing people loved about our socials were the party favor tattoos. You could pick out any small design and leave with a tattoo in your place of choice. At the end clients the artists pre picked would sit for a session for the artist to try and convince us with what they thought was their best work for the crowd to judge.

Ava was working on tattoo that consisted of music notes trailing behind her clients ear onto his neck. Her line work was clean and precise. I moved onto Josiah, watching as he struggled to fix his template onto his customers calf. "You're doing fine, just breath okay?" I offered. He looked up at me a bit frazzled before taking a deep breath and laying the template on smooth. I gave him a pay on the shoulder and moved on to Levi to see how far he'd gotten.