Love At First Hate (Love At Firsts Book 2)(12)
I go back the way we came from and walk through the tattoo shop door.
“Welcome to Smash Monkey Tattoo, how may I help you?” a beautiful bottle red asks me.
“Just popping in to say hi to my buddy Nate.” I chuckle as I hear a muffled f*ck off.
“You two know each other?” she asks with too much excitement in her voice.
“Yes, we’re very intimate,” I drawl.
“What do you want, Matt?” he walks toward me wiping his hands with a dirty cloth. His limp making it look like he has a natural swagger in his step. So hot! However, I do wonder how he got that limp.
“You left so quickly last night. I missed you,” I whisper stepping closer to him, and he glares at me. I’m not sure if he’s embarrassed by my teasing or if he is turned on. I hope it’s the latter.
“This is so hot,” the girl whispers fanning herself.
“I know. We’re perfect for each other.” I wink at her and wrap my arm around Nate’s shoulders.
“I’m trying to work here, what do you want?” He glares at me, and I drop my arm.
“Spoilsport. I just came in to say hi, and I want you to tattoo me.” I smirk and see his face fall. I’m not sure if I should be offended or amused.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re a good tattoo artist, even though you can be a jerk. Talent is talent.”
He groans. “You know I could easily f*ck it up for you.” He smirks.
“And you know I could easily f*ck up your reputation if you do such a thing.” I raise my eyebrow at him.
“Fine, what do you want to have done?” He sighs, clearly unimpressed by my statement.
“I started a Japanese leg sleeve a while back, and I want to add to it. Anything you think will fit with the rest of the design.” I’m not fussed about what he’d tattoo on me as long as it keeps with the theme and flows nicely. It often works best to let the artist draw what he feels would fit.
“I noticed,” he says through gritted teeth as if he’s frustrated that he actually saw it or maybe he wanted to see more than just the tattoo.
“Only the outside of your thigh or inside too?”
“Inside too.” I smirk seeing his discomfort.
“Obviously.” He rubs his face. “Can you get me my schedule, Mina?”
“Here you go.” Mina, the shop manager, hands him his schedule, and he flips through it.
“When do you wanna do it?”
“When do you have an opening?” I walk closer to him and place my hand on his shoulder, and he tenses. It’s out of habit, I’m very tactile, no matter who I’m talking to. Some people don’t mind it, some hate it.
“After the opening party, it’ll be tight to fit you in before then.”
“A tight fit can be good.” I smirk, and he looks at me. I don’t know if I detect disgust or lust in his eyes, but his face is made of stone. “After the party is good. I’m easy.”
“Don’t I know it,” he mutters.
“I heard that.” I chuckle, taking no offense.
“What’s going on between you two?” Mina asks.
“Nothing, we’re just neighbors.” I wink at Mina. “I need to go back to my busy day. Have a good day, and if you need to see my thigh in person before the big day, you know where I live.” I wink at Nate before walking out of the shop, rather happy with how my day is going.
It took the whole of ten minutes from when I walked through the door of the outlet store until I paid for my suit for Haven and Spencer’s wedding. I never take long when I shop, much to my sister and girlfriends’ despair. As much as I enjoy fashion and shopping, I don’t really fancy spending hours looking for something.
Remembering how the lady was to me in the bridal shop, I decide to go to the café next door to the shop to wait for the girls to finish. I was gone for an hour, and they still aren’t done. Women…
Three hours later, the dresses picked and cake consumed, Haven drives me home. I tell her about my time spent torturing Nate at his shop, and she tells me about her afternoon shopping for dresses. She shows me pictures of her in the dress, and she looks marvelous in it. I can’t wait to see her on her big day. Seeing her this happy to plan her wedding makes me wonder if I’ll ever have my own.
She drops me off at home, and I log onto the app, amused that even without pictures, I have quite a few messages already. I upload a few carefully chosen ones, without showing my face. I don’t want anyone to recognize me, especially if they are clients. Not that I’m ashamed of it, but it could end up being awkward.
I take a quick look through the app at who’s online and do recognize a couple clients. Some have their fetishes listed, and I never suspected that from some of them. I will have to thank the girls for setting up the app for me. It’s highly amusing on this boring evening spent on my own.
I could go out or just find someone to f*ck on the app, but I can’t stop myself from thinking about Nate and the things I wish I could do to him, even though he annoys the shit out of me.
Matt had to come to the shop and taunt me. Who does that? It’s so f*cking childish, and it’s messing with my head. I wasn’t expecting to see him at all today. We don’t see each other that often despite being neighbors. It’s usually on Sundays when he goes for a run and I come back from the gym that we cross paths, or whenever he’s being too loud, or when he was with his boyfriend and I had to ask them to be quieter, because they were f*cking or arguing. Most of the time it was the latter. Thinking of it, the amount of time I had to go over there to ask them to be quiet because they were f*cking can be counted on two hands.