The Second Chance Theory

Chapter Two: Not Everything Has to Be an Innuendo, Quinland

"You're nicer to customers than you are to us," Kres complained from the other side of the room. "It's just because they're giving you their money, isn't it?" I looked at him.

"No," I corrected, "I just genuinely like customers more than you. And just you, Kres." I beamed in his direction.

He flipped me off, a gesture of which I all too happily returned. Our little exchange was interrupted when the door swung open yet again, revealing the entrance of a tall—and I mean fucking massive six feet and five or so inches—fairly limber-looking guy with dark brown hair. It was a color that in one light, reflected a dusty dark chocolate, but induced shiny auburn highlights in another. Overall, though, it remained dark. He stopped at the counter, leaning into it and whistling. Quinland jumped up, with all of her jewelry dangling and rattling, and began talking with the guy. I watched their conversation, just out of earshot. One corner of his mouth tugged upwards in a half-grin a few times, and Quinland flashed her charm to a potentially new client. She looked over her shoulder and called over to Kres. "Yo, bad boy, you're up." Kres sprang to his feet and jogged over to the reception desk. As he passed by me he slapped the back of my head. I once again sent him the bird, but this time to his back.

The dude's eyes landed on Kres as he traveled over to the party, but wandered over to me for a second. We met eyes for a brief moment, but then he switched his attention back to Kres and Quinland. I dismissed our eye contact. I settled back in my chair to try to make out what was being said. It looked possibly like Quinland was transferring the job over to Kres. Must've been some really intricate tattoo design the guy wanted for Quinland to transfer the job like that. Kres and I were pretty much the only ones in the shop with a natural hand for very detailed tattoos.

Soon enough Kres was searching for a piece of paper to sketch out a design, and Quinland was pulling a chair up beside mine. "Thanks for getting the last guy. What did he want, a bridge?" I turned my head to look at her.

"Yep. He was actually pretty nice, too." She raised her eyebrows. "Why does 'nice' have to be an innuendo? He was a nice guy, that's all," I said, a bit agitated. My voice rose a little bit, attracting the attention of the customer working with Kres. He looked up from their conversing and looked in my direction. I smiled warmly at him, like I would to most clients, and pointed at Quinland, silently declaring my outburst at her fault. He smiled back.

"Fine, fine," Quinland brought me back to our conversation. "Nice means nice." We quieted down for a moment, sitting back comfortably. Kres straightened up from his position, hunched over the countertop ahead of us, and muttered something to the guy. The pair then began walking back to Kres' desk.

Kres looked in my direction. "Siri," he called, but my nickname came out as more of a whoop. I pushed away from Quinland in my "spinny chair" and pushed myself over to Kres' desk.

"Y'sup," I greeted, glancing curiously down at Kres's paper. He had a rough outline of... Maybe a wolf's head? Looked like it.

"Seren, this is Deiderich Fryskov." He gestured to Deiderich. "Deiderich, this is Seren Daugherty, a very talented artist on both paper and skin," he finished, this time gesturing to me for Deiderich's benefit. I raised my hand over the table and shook hands with him, exchanging pleasantries.

Deiderich cleared his throat. "As much as I would like to trust Kres here, you look kind of young. You don't seem that experienced with tattoos," he spoke in a deep voice, slightly accented. It sounded northern European. Russian, more of.

My eyes narrowed. I got that question all of the time, trust me, but there was something in his tone that made me despise that statement. Maybe it was a hint of mock, maybe it was a bit of humorous disbelief, that I, out of all people, had, possibly, more experience than he did with tattoos.