As she sat hunched over Kelly’s thigh, tattooing her contribution to Ink the Night, Sam remembered why she’d stayed off the competitive circuit for so long. She couldhearthe spectators discussing her legitimacy, or more accurately, tearing it apart. She was too young, too female, too—and as much as it sounded like a compliment, it fucking wasn’t—good-looking to be taken seriously. And when people found out who her father was? Game over. All Sam’s career, the consensus was anyone could be an artist if they had her background. Forget that Nicole, heridentical fucking twin,couldn’t draw a stick man, her career was based on nothing but nepotism. All the bearded dudes with the same nine steampunk tattoos? They deserved to be tattoo artists. She and Tabby were Kat Von D wannabes riding on their daddy’s coattails.
“Are you okay?” Kelly whispered after a man in his fifties stage-whispered that he had t-shirts that were older than she was.
“I’m fine,” she said, keeping the needlepoint moving slow and steady down Kim’s thigh.
There were ten minutes left on the clock, no room for bitching. This wasn’t about her ego, Silver Daughters Ink needed this, and when she won the Fadeout Festival slot, these assholes could bitch all they liked—she’d be a winner.
The competition theme tonight had been ‘Paradise Lost.’ A more perfect motif Sam couldn’t have asked for. She sketched Adam and Eve on a background of lacy green leaves. Their bodies were narrow and smooth in style of the sixteenth century Flemish oil paintings, their eyes wide and full of anxious fear. The apple of knowledge hung between them like a ruby and a viperous green snake twined itself around Eve’s curves, hissing poison in her ear.
Kelly, her friend and model for the night, had said ‘fuck yeah’ to the design and away they went. As she filled in the edges of the leaves, she could feel her wrist seizing. Her weekly trips to a massage therapist had gone the way of the dodo when business started running out of money. She was paying for it now, her whole body was stiff.
It doesn’t matter.Win the comp, get into Fadeout, win Fadeout, save Silver Daughters, be a hero, die of exhaustion. Everybody wins.
“No one’s work looks anywhere near as good as yours,” Kelly whispered, craning her neck to peer at the nearby TV.
There were cameras on all nine of the tattooists, displaying their work more clearly to the crowd. Sam had so far refused to look at them. Adam, Eve and their immortalization on Kelly’s skin was her concern, not the competition and not the crowd which was growing rowdier by the minute.
Watching people get tattoos was boring after about thirty seconds and the fifty or so people crammed into the pub were marking time as they always did—by drinking and bitching about the artists.
“Oh my god!” Kelly shifted in her chair and Sam lifted the needle just in time to avoid streaking. “What the fuck, Kel?”
Kelly flushed. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I saw a hot guy and I wanted a better look.”
Though she’d come dangerously close to a heart attack, Sam grinned. She and Kelly had been mates since school and her friend was still as unapologetically boy-crazy as Claudia from the Babysitters Club.
“If you’d fucked the tattoo I’d have been forced to murder you,” she told Kelly, dropping her gaze to her thigh and resuming her work. “Since we averted crisis, I’ll ask what he looks like.”
“Gorgeous,” Kelly sighed. “Tall and wearing a suit. Not one of those shiny Lowes suits, either. A nice suit.”
That was appealing enough for Sam to risk a quick glance. Seeing nothing but the same heavily tattooed crowd she’d seen all night, she dropped her gaze back to Kelly’s thigh. “Can’t see him. What the hell is a guy in a suit doing here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s a pub manager or something?”
Sensing her friend wanted to crane around for another glance, Sam tapped her thigh. “Hot guys come later. Hold still for two more minutes and you can go impress him with your new ink.”
“Okay.” Kelly slumped back into the dentist’s chair. “You’re going to win, by the way. You’ll win tonight and then you’ll tattoo me at Fadeout. Then you’ll winthatand we’ll both become Instagram famous.”
“That’s the plan,” Sam said, her stomach squirming like a bag of live eels. A certain amount of bravado was necessary in this business but she was having trouble calling it up tonight. There was just so much at stake. She let her focus dip back into the ink, which always calmed her.
“Ooh!” Kelly said. “Your sister’s here!”
Sam smiled at Kelly’s thigh. Tabby’s presence was guaranteed by the free bar, but she’d hoped Nix would tear herself from the office and come. They hadn’t had much time to bond so far and a solid night out was just what she needed.
“Can you wave them over?” she asked Kelly. “Nix always gets shy at competitions. So many people know dad, it’s like being a celebrity’s kid.”
“Nix? She’s not here, I meant Tabby.”
Sam felt her good mood stiffen. “I thought you said ‘your sisters’ are here’? As in both of them?”
“Oh, no, I just meant I could see Tabby! I’m sorry babe, were you expecting Nicole?”
“Nope,” Sam lied, refocusing on Kelly’s thigh. Nicole wasn’t here and that was fine.
A couple of minutes later, the buzzer sounded and she stepped away from Kelly. She took a detached pleasure in the tattoo. The lines were crisp, the faces detailed. Eve was torn between fear and lust. Adam, stern yet uncertain.
Kelly beamed at her. “This is your best work ever.”
“You say that every time, but thanks.”