TATTOO PARLOR | daniel howell

e i g h t

Now, let's skip along a bit more, shall we? It was a Wednesday, i think. the 13th, i believe. We got into our first fight. It was a small fight over a small issue. If you want to know what the fight was about, he was over at my flat and he had left the toilet seat up. Again. For the third time. But still, for whatever reason, we didn't talk for about five days. During those five days, I took up more shifts at the parlor to earn a little more to provide for myself. And by 'provide for myself,' I don't mean, "I don't have enough money to eat today," I just mean, "I broke my last charger and I need a new one." 

Anyway, I realized something strange on one of those days. I realized Dan hadn't come to the parlor since we started dating, which I thought was a little peculiar. But at the time I didn't really think about it much more than just those few minutes.

It was the middle of my work week, so it was Tuesday. I work from Sunday through Thursday, so Tuesday is my midweek. Thankfully, though, Tuesday is one of our less busy days. I was just finishing up wiping down my desk after a customer left when the door jingled. I looked up to see James walk through to clock in.

I threw the ink-stained Kleenex in the bin and ran to give James a huge hug.

     "James! I haven't seen you in forever! How are you?" I said to him, my words muffled by his chest. 
     "Better now that you're here." he said after pulling away from the hug. "What are you doing here? Your shift ended, like, and hour ago!" 
     "Well, I'm trying to earn some more money by working overtime, you know?" After I finished, he sighed and shook his head disapprovingly. 

Just then, a girl who looked about 16 walked in. She had a neon-rainbow dyed fringe against the rest of her jet black hair. She was wearing hot pink fishnet stockings, a bright yellow skater skirt, and a black "normal people scare me" t-shirt. She was obviously one of those "scene girls" who looked like they just jumped straight out of 2012. 

She walked up to the front counter and I walked behind it, preparing myself to tell her that she was too young to legally get a tattoo.

     "Hello, how can I help you today?" I said, politely. She rolled her eyes. I plastered a fake smile on my face.
     "Yeah, hi, can I get a black snake on my neck?" she said with an attitude. I was not in the mood to deal with rude customers but I still kept up the polite persona.
     "Okay, can I see your ID?" I asked sweetly. She scowled at me in disgust.
     "I'm 18," she said like she was offended. I still tried to be nice about it.
     "Okay, but we still need to see your ID just in case. It's the law." She rolled her eyes again and walked away from the counter. Before she left, however, she stuck up her middle finger at me.

When she left, James and I started laughing.

After work, James and I thought about going out to dinner sometime to catch up. We hadn't really talked much since I started dating Dan.

"Is Friday good for you?" I asked James.
"It's good for me if it's good for you! Where do you want to go?"
"That little burger joint across the street? The one near the coffee shop?"
"Oh, yeah! I love that place, I go there all the time! How about 5:45?" he suggested a time for us to meet.
"That's perfect. I'll see you then!"

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Heyo! This is still pretty short, but much longer than last time! Like more than 400 words longer. I promise next week there will be a new chapter. Love you all!

-ella