inked | l.t.

1

Violet

"Back so soon?" My brother, Michael, asked sarcastically after I walked into the tattoo parlor. He was stenciling a large skull onto a man's forearm.

"Ha-ha so very funny." I retorted as I headed for the front desk to look through the appointments made for the day. I sat down and draped my leather jacket on the back of the chair. It looked like we were all booked up, which was good. Business didn't halt completely during my absence. I skimmed over the list of appointments again.

Carter: 10:00, 12:30, 11:30

Michael: 11:00, 1:30, 6:45, 11:30

Nick: 9:30, 2:00, 5:30

"Mike, since when do we stay open past 11 on week nights? Wait- who is this Nick person?" Dad had always been so adamant about closing the shop at 11 during the week since on the weekends we were open 24 hours. And last time I checked, we never hired anyone named Nick. Michael sighed and took a break from his work to talk to me.

"A lot has changed since you've been gone, sis. Maybe next time you decide to run off into the wilderness, you should keep your phone on." He told the man to go sit in the back room and that he'd be back there in a moment to start the tattoo. The man complied, leaving us alone at the front of the shop.

"Ok I didn't run off into the wilderness, I went to New York with Jess-"

"Either way you left without telling me and you were gone for nearly a month, so I had to hire an extra hand to make up for what you left behind." Okay, he had a right to be mad. But to replace me? That's a little too far. I started speak again but he cut me off again. "Your regulars weren't happy. We almost lost business because of you. What do you think dad would say about what you did?" There he goes, dropping the dad-bomb on me. Our dad had died 2 years ago in a car accident. He left the tattoo parlor to the two of us, trusting that we could keep up his good reputation and keep his legacy alive. Our shop was relatively well known; we tatted a celebrity here and there. Being on the outskirts of L.A. made it a convenient hide-away spot to get inked without the spotlight of the media hounds and crazed fans. Luckily for dad, both Michael and I got his artistic gene, so his legacy could live on. (Though I would never compare the tattoos I've done to any of the masterpieces dad had created.)

I sighed in defeat. "I'm sorry. I'm here now though, is there anything I can take off your hands?" I rolled up my sleeves, hoping he wouldn't punish me with paperwork and let me go start the man's skull tattoo.

"I'll handle this one, you can finish entering in the payments from our morning appointments." Busy work, ugh. "I'll let you take my 11:30 tonight though, Rachel wanted me to go out tonight anyway." Score. "Don't get too excited though, it's just a small one for some bored poster. Nothing too elaborate." With that, he went back to the waiting customer and left me alone at the front desk.

I started entering the numbers from the files on the desk, but that quickly got boring. It was only 1:45, Michael wouldn't be back in there to check on me for another hour and my 'replacement' Nick wouldn't be in for another 15 minutes. I changed windows to open up spotify and quickly changed the front rooms playlist from Michael's death metal playlist to my more moderate one. He'd probably get mad later but who cares. While looking for other distractions, I let my curiosity take over and I searched the system to see what Mike's 11:30 was asking for. "Two hands shaking" on the lower part of his upper arm. Attached was an image of a rough sketch. Looked easy enough.