Opposites Ignite by Sadira Stone (crime books to read .txt) 📗

The buzzing from Victoria’s station stopped. She poked her shaved head through the velvet privacy curtain and waggled her multi-pierced eyebrows. “Hoo boy—fake skin now. Rosie’s moving up in the world.”

Magda pointed to the stencil machine on a side counter. “Pick one of your more complicated designs.”

Rosie bit her lip. To tell, or not to tell? After watching hundreds of tutorials and reading thousands of online articles, she knew the usual progression by heart. You start with fruit, then move to sheets of synthetic skin, maybe pig’s ears, then to your own skin. Finally, an apprentice is allowed to tattoo another person, but only the simplest designs at first.

Never the patient type, she’d jumped the line, buying her own rotary tattoo machine last fall and filling sheet after sheet of synthetic skin with tattoos. Her first attempts were splotchy messes, but she was improving fast. Since last Saturday’s wedding disaster, she’d filled her sleepless late-night hours with tattoo practice, drowning out memories of Eddie with the angry-hornet buzz of needles.

Rosie flipped through her sketchbook. Its peacock-blue cover was yet another painful reminder of Eddie, but her practical nature balked at wasting so many blank pages. Better to think of it as exposure therapy. Gradually, she’d come to tolerate reminders of him until sharing a workspace didn’t hurt anymore. Because now, even the slightest glimpse of his dark curls behind the bar was like a gut punch. Every damn time.

She sighed and flipped the page. Which design to practice on today?

Magda’s cool hand fell on her shoulder. “Go back a page.”

Damn, she’s sneaky. Must’ve been a spy before becoming a tattoo artist.

Magda tapped the page. “That eagle thingy. What is that?”

A dull, pulsing ache bloomed behind Rosie’s forehead. “It’s from a friend’s belt buckle.”

“German?”

“Russian Imperial Army.”

Joining them, Victoria whistled. “Fancy. You should do that one.”

Magda clapped her shoulder. “Make us a Russian eagle, grasshopper.”

Rosie gulped down the huge, spiky lump blocking her throat. “I’d really rather not.”

Magda’s perfect eyebrow arched. “And who is the teacher here?”

She hung her head. “Okay, okay, one eagle, coming up.” Couldn’t let her personal feelings get in the way of her dream job. Maybe she could get through this task without bawling if she visualized the fake skin as one cheek of Eddie’s smooth, taut, needle-phobic ass. She chuckled grimly as she headed for the stencil machine. But this flat, rubbery stuff had no shape, no sweet little curve she used to trace with her fingertips and tongue...

With a groan, she fed her photocopied design into the thermal printer. This would be easier if the shop were busier today—more noise to distract her, more chatter between artists and customers. Easier to quit replaying those bittersweet memories and just let the surrounding sounds flow through her. But Magda had cleared the afternoon to catch up on bookkeeping, and Tina was out for a medical appointment, leaving just Victoria and her stoic, silent client. The place was so quiet she could hear the tick of the antique clock behind her desk.

“Mind if I put on some music?” When no one objected, she switched on a soothing electronic playlist, very woo-woo and not at all sexy, and carried the stencil to an empty workstation. Mindful of Magda’s sharp eyes on her, she gloved up and sterilized the fake skin with alcohol before smearing it with Stencil Stuff lotion. No need to shave it, at least.

“You skipped a step.”

Shit. “It’s not hairy,” she protested.

“Nevertheless, you’re building good habits. You want every step to become automatic.”

“My bad.” Grumbling inwardly, she wiped the sheet clean, squirted it with green soap, pantomimed shaving it, then finally applied the stencil. Before beginning, she sheathed her equipment in disposable plastic sleeves, set up her ink caps, and dabbed A & D ointment on the back of her hand.

Buzz, glide, wipe. Over and over, the steady rhythm claimed her focus and loosened the tension gripping her. Bit by bit, the Imperial eagle took shape, proud and scornful.

As symbols go, this two-headed bird was a pretty poor symbol for her lost love. It wasn’t pride that kept Eddie from following his dreams, just a sense of duty and obligation to a family who loved him. Was that so bad? And she could hardly call him two-faced—he’d been straight with her about, well, everything. Which made letting go of him all the more difficult. His memory was inked on her heart.

She set down the tattoo machine and shook the stiffness from her hand. God, I’m such a sap. Good thing I’m an artist and not a writer.

Two hours later, she switched needles to ink the fine lines of the eagle’s feathers. Her shoulders and back ached from hunching over her workstation, but Eddie’s eagle was nearly complete. She’d snap a picture and show it to him tonight at work—

Heaviness seeped into her chest. That thought belonged to the before times—when Eddie was her sweetheart, her ally, her friend. The image before her blurred. A tear splashed onto the eagle, then another and another. A choked sound escaped her tight, scratchy throat.

Passing on her way to the break room, Victoria paused at Rosie’s workstation. “Hey now, don’t be upset.” She placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to inspect Rosie’s work. “This is really good. Why are you crying?”

Their exchange caught Magda’s attention. Victoria’s customer too. All three women huddled around Rosie, witnesses to her humiliating breakdown. The more they patted and cooed, the harder Rosie rocked with sobs.

Magda nudged Victoria. “Get her a cup of tea, will you?”

“And cookies,” the customer added, holding her half-tattooed arm away from her body. Pretty design, a pair of joined hearts wrapped in a banner inscribed with dates, the whole image surrounded by a wreath of thorny roses. Fuckin’ lovey-dovey shit everywhere I look. Her muscles tensed with the urge to bolt.

Magda’s strong, wiry arm closed around her shoulders, pinning her in place. “Deep breaths, darlin’.” She nudged the box of tissues closer. “I’ve seen artists cry over a failed