“This is it,” I told myself. Reaching forward I flipped the sign in the door to open. I didn’t have any employees yet, but I had a few interviews to schedule, and I had more than enough administrative duties to catch up on for my other ventures. It was time to get busy, I told myself. It was time to find her, the hope in my chest told me too.
Here we go again.
Reaching for the door handle this time, I was just about to get inside and get to work when I heard something behind me. A voice. “Hey, buddy. Whatcha got here?”
Buddy?
Turning, I took in the guy behind me. Some skinny hipster kid with a bunch of sticker tatts he was obviously dying to show off, judging by the fact that it was sixty degrees this morning and he was in a tank.
I immediately got bad vibes from him. Douche vibes. Which is why my eyes narrowed as I turned and squared my shoulders on him. Slipping my hands into my pockets I tipped my chin. “What’s it look like?”
He wrinkled his nose and slipped his eyes up over my new baby like it’s some kind of pest. Then he shrugged… Shrugged! “Looks like a cute little arts and crafts project.”
Yep. Douche.
“Does it now?” I asked.
“Mhmm,” he said. Slipping his hand in his pocket he pulled out a card and passed it to me. Lowering his voice–his very condescending voice–he added, “Let’s see how long it holds up though.”
I scoffed. Wow.
In the few months since I had closed on this place and worked to get to this opening day, the people I’d come to know in Seaside were pretty nice. So I was genuinely surprised this guy was so outwardly douchey. It was almost like he was threatened…
I looked down at his card.
Oh.
As if he was timing it, the douchebag tapped the card as I read it.Tore Tattoo, it said in that traditional tattoo font.
“Come by if you need a job in six months. Your ink is pretty good, but not Seaside’s style,” he said. And then the fucker turned and sauntered away.
I scoffed, my eye catching on a blue SUV with the top down and three heads of hair, two brown one red, whipping in the wind. Music blared loud as they zoomed by and I could hear their cackles of laughter all the way from the road. But a second later they were gone and my eyes were slipping back to the card.
I guess I’d just made my first enemy in Seaside.
Fucking Tore.
I fucking hated this place.
The walls, white and bare with no personality or individuality.Hated.
The chairs, thin and aesthetic with little to no cushion that weren’t even actual tattoo chairs.Hated.
The fact that I passed my girl’s car parked on the street outside on the way in this motherfucker.Goddamn fucking hated.
She was somewhere in here. My girl, my world, my Alta.Somewhere with her skin bare and her first ink about to be some terrible hipster tattoo and worse, it wasn’t even going to be done by me. Call me possessive but—well, no buts. Because Iwaspossessive and if there was one motherfucker who could not have my girl it was fucking?—
“Tore!” I refrained from yelling but just barely as I burst through his shop—if you could call it that.
“Oh hey, buddy. What can I do you for today?” he asked in that same condescending tone he’d possessed since I met the fucker.
“Where is she?” I got right to the point.
He blinked. “Um, who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” I seethed. “Where’s my girl—she’s about this high, dark hair, big eyes, cute as hell.”
“Oh!” Recognition lit his eyes as soon as I said cute and it made me want to punch him. “Ally, wasn’t it?”
