So instead of staying with one firm and doingan eight-to-five desk job forever, I started my own business.
Salesmen would send me the raw data theyfound boring and unintelligible, and I would send back information they coulduse. Mostly it was just a matter of feeding the raw data into some programsthat I’d set up so it would give them information in an easier format. I wasstarting to build up enough clients that the job was actually paying my bills, butI couldn’t imagine leaving Leashes and Lace, no matter how successful the dataanalysis business was.
I was curious enough about the lingeriethat when I’d seen the advertisements, I wasn’t shocked by the idea of workingthere. I’d originally thought it would be just a part-time job to keep me fromhaving to eat Ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese every meal until I built upthe business. But it quickly became more than that. They were like a familynow.
I just wished my family was as open-mindedand understanding. I knew they loved me, but they’d been easier to deal withwhen I was back in college and doing everything they’d expected. Once I startedrunning my own life, things had begun to unravel. Finding out I was gay hadn’tbeen that much of a shock to them, but I had a feeling that the lingerie andother things I’d discovered would horrify them.
Having a son who was gay was one thing, buthaving a son who liked panties and more feminine things, and was drawn totattooed guys, would have given them a heart attack. Luckily, aside from a fewconversations a month and the occasional family dinner, they weren’t in my lifemuch. Recently, though, my mother had decided to start fixing me up, but I washoping that it was a phase that wouldn’t last very long. I couldn’t imagine herunderstanding what I liked in a guy.
One day, I knew I would stop hiding fromthem and just let the cards fall where they may, but I wasn’t in any hurry. Notbecause I was ashamed or hiding, but the conflict and drama would make mecrazy.
Eli and Roman had already nearly given mean ulcer, and that was just watching their relationship.
I didn’t like conflict; it was one of thereasons I’d stayed in the closet until college was almost finished. I wasn’thiding from myself and had actually dated a few people seriously, but tellingmy family had been hard. They liked arguing and debating issues to death. Evenif they didn’t care that I was gay, I knew it would be a difficultconversation—and I’d been right.
So I’d just stopped telling them things. It’dmade everything easier.
When my small apartment was clean and therewas nothing else to burn my energy off with, I flopped down on the couch andturned on the television. Flicking through the channels, I let my body relaxand tried to calm down.
Before I’d run into the tattooed guy, whosename seemed to be something like Will from what I’d managed to hear from thebarista, I hadn’t usually had any caffeine from lunch onward. Even iced tea atdinner would keep me up most of the night. It’d been helpful in college whenI’d needed to stay up all night, but most of the time, it was just frustrating.
I kept telling myself that it would help mework up the nerve to talk to him sooner just so I could stop going in forcoffee as often, but so far, I hadn’t managed to do it. Eli had started makinga habit of coming with me for moral support, though, and I had a feeling he waslosing his patience. Thankfully, he understood how hard it was for me andhadn’t pushed too much.
My goal was to at least say hi to the guybefore Eli did somethinghelpful.
However, knowing Eli, that might’ve beenhis intention the entire time. It was hard to tell, though. As the channelswent by, I tried to picture how the meeting would look. Just saying hi to theguy wouldn’t tell me if he was gay, but at least it would be a start.
A greeting one day, asking what he wasreading the next, and eventually, it would all lead to a real discussion. Lifewould’ve been easier if I’d been attracted to more clean-cut guys, as my motherwould have described them. But I didn’t want to date a banker or lawyer, thatwasn’t the kind of man I was drawn to. Unfortunately, the average bad boy thatwas covered in tattoos was generally an asshole straight guy. But not always; sometimesthey were polite straight guys.
I tried going to a biker bar one time thatadvertised it was for LGBT riders. It had been a little like heaven and hell atthe same time. Most of the men had been a lot older than I’d expected, way tooold for me. There were some guys that were in the right age range, but they’deither ignored me as someone who was just there to gawk, or they’d come on sostrong I’d been uncomfortable.
If I’d been a more confrontational person,I could’ve made it work. But I’d just frozen and hadn’t been sure what to do.Dating in college hadn’t prepared me for anything like that. So while itintrigued me and had led to countless fantasies, I hadn’t gone back.
When I’d been spending countless hoursgetting the business started, it’d been easier to ignore my lack of a lovelife. Unfortunately, I didn’t need to keep up the frantic pace any longer, andit left me with too much time on my hands.
As I flicked the channels, slightly lonelywith just the television and numbers to keep me company, I vowed to at leastsay hi to the guy on Friday. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be a start. Andthat was better than nothing.
Chapter 3
Tattoo Guy
The week would’ve passed faster if I’dknown what I was going to do on Friday.
It shouldn’t have even been a debate,really. But as I put aside the project I was supposed to be working on andstepped away from the kitchen table, I admitted to myself that there had to bea reason he was still on my mind.
The sketches I should’ve been working on wouldhave to wait. My brain just wouldn’t focus. Normally, my art let me pusheverything else aside. It’d been that way since I was a child. My earliestmemories were coloring while my parents fought in the living room.
Over the years, it had developed into apassion that had given me a focus for my life.
I didn’t know where I would have ended upwithout it—certainly not in a brightly lit modern downtown loft. In college, I’dspent more than a few nights worrying that I’d picked the wrong majors. Doublemajoring in English and art might not have been the most practical decision,but since I was paying for everything myself, I’d wanted to spend my money onsomething I loved.
Glancing back at the sketches on the table,I wished there was a way to go back in time and tell my younger self that itwould all work out…just not in the way I’d ever envisioned.
I’d been surrounded by interestingindividuals on all sides, and working as a tattoo artist to put myself throughschool hadn’t been the most outrageous part-time job I’d seen. I’d just alwaysimagined that it would be something I’d quit when my real career took off. Butover the years, it’d turned into a real career I couldn’t imagine walking awayfrom. Luckily, both of my passions were things that didn’t require traditionalhours.
Three or four days a week, I did tattoos,although some weeks I was there a lot more depending on the demand. The rest ofthe time, I spent working on my art. When people looked at me, they thought thetattoo artist label made sense.
A big, brawny guy with tattoos equaledtattoo artist in their head, or leader of a motorcycle gang, depending on whatkind of romance novels they read. Those women got nuts. Finding out I alsoillustrated children’s books always threw them for a loop.
