“You missed one hell of a fight on your day off yesterday,” Rose says as she hands me my schedule. “Torment found out Slim had ordered his own supplies, and they weren’t the quality Torment wants for the shop. It got so loud that a couple of the fighters came in and pulled Torment away. Slim’s had it. He says we’re outta here at the end of the week. His shop isn’t finished, but he says it’s good enough to get things going.”

“It’s going to be hard to leave.”

“Hard?” Rose rolls her eyes. “It’ll be impossible. I’m ruined for tat studios for life.” She motions me forward with a crooked finger and then whispers in my year. “I’m gonna ask Torment to keep me on. He’ll need a receptionist who knows the business when he fills those chairs.”

My breath catches in my throat. “You can’t. We’re a team. Slim will be devastated.”

Rose shrugs. “I don’t think his heart is in the new shop or he would have pulled out all the stops to get it done. He never liked the business side. He’s too much of an artist.”

“Then why does he keep going head-to-head with Torment? This is the perfect setup for him. Torment handles the business and he handles the art.”

“Pride.” She pulls her chair up to her desk and taps on her keyboard. “It brings the best of men down.”

Before the clients arrive, Christos, Duncan, and I sit down to check out the modeling programs Torment has had installed on our new superpowered computers for the increasingly popular 3-D surrealistic tattoos. By the time we open the shop, I am so nauseated by the 3-D images of guts, muscles, and flesh that are all the rage, I am perversely grateful when Doctor Death walks in the door.

“Good morning, beautiful ladies.” He beams and Rose laughs.

“Good morning, beautiful man. To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“I was looking at my ass in the mirror the other day,” he says, his expression growing serious, “and I had an idea for an addition to the cover Sia did for me.” He hands me a piece of paper with a drawing of a bird perched on a broken heart. “Hope.” He points to the bird. “From the Emily Dickinson poem. I thought the broken heart might be a bit depressing for the ladies, but if we add the bird—”

The door opens and closes behind me, and I shiver as cool air brushes over my skin.

“It’s lovely.” I hand him back the drawing. “I’ll be happy to add it. Do you want me to make a stencil from your drawing or make up one of my own?”

Doctor Death tilts his head to the side and gives me a questioning look. “I was hoping you could do it freehand.”

Rose coughs and bangs her coffee cup on her desk.

“Freehand?” Very few artists will do freehand work because, if the client doesn’t like the tattoo, there is no going back. It is the ultimate statement of trust between a client and the artist. And something Slim has always claimed for himself.

“Slim doesn’t let anyone in the shop work freehand except him. If you don’t want a stencil, he’ll have to do it for you.”

Doctor Death strokes a finger over my cheek. “I trust you, Sia. You do great work. I was almost disappointed I’d asked you to do that cover on my ass because I would have liked to show that piece around.”

“Sia!” Rose shouts even though I am only a few feet away. “Someone is here to see you.”

Only then do I turn around.

Ray is sprawled on one of the big, brown leather client couches, taking up the space of four clients. This I know because the four clients that were there are now huddled on the other couch, clearly afraid to ask Ray to take his arms down from the back of the couch or perhaps close his legs so his manliness is not on full display. His posture is powerful, aggressive, controlling. And maybe he seems a tiny bit annoyed.

I make the wise decision to ask Doctor Death to come back another day, and I keep his attention focused on Rose and her appointment book so he doesn’t see Ray glowering in the corner. Catching on, Rose positions her screen so Doctor Death’s back is to the reception area. But I can’t stop Doctor Death from giving me a final peck on the cheek when the appointment is made and saying he looks forward to having my hands on his ass again.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see Ray watching this exchange with avid interest, although his face remains an expressionless mask.

“Your boyfriend is pissed,” Rose mutters from behind her screen as she writes out the appointment card. Doctor Death’s phone rings, and he stands by the desk as he takes the call.

“How can you tell?”

She shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the extremely aggressive, intimidating alpha-male gonna-getchu posture, or the way his eyes drilled into Doctor Death while he was flirting with you. Or it could have been the ‘When the fuck did he get here?’ he growled at me when he walked in before heating the place up so much I thought he was going to combust. But that’s just me. I might have it totally wrong.”

“You do.” I draw frowny faces on her notepad as I mentally prepare myself for an unexpectedly irritated Ray. “He’s not my boyfriend. Well, sort of. Anyway, it’s work. No big deal.”

“If you say so.” She lifts a perfectly manicured eyebrow and turns away. “Although I think someone forgot to tell him that.”

Doctor Death ends his call, and Rose hands him the card. But just as he turns for the door, Ray pushes himself off the couch and closes the distance between them in three easy strides of his long legs. Positioning himself between Doctor Death and the door, he folds his arms and glares.