"Something tells me we're not talking about Celia anymore." Dr. Travetti offered me a small albeit sympathetic smile.
I wiped a hand over my face and allowed myself to chuckle. "Wow, Doc. What the fuck was your first clue?"
***
"What'd you end up doing on Sunday?" Celia asked with trepidation. She stood at my station, hip checked and arms crossed, as I cleaned and got things set up for my first client.
"I hung around the house," I answered without missing a beat. My morning session with Dr. Travetti had left me jarred, open and vulnerable. But I wouldn't let Celia know about that. "How was your day?"
"Good. I actually had a date after my ex picked the kids up for dinner," she replied.
“Wow,” I muttered dryly. “You don’t waste any time, huh?”
Her cheeks pinked slightly. “Actually, I, uh, already had the date planned. I just hadn’t told you about it, ‘cause I—”
“Didn’t want me to be jealous?” I lifted a brow, uttering the inside joke I only understood after my session with the good doctor.
“Yeah, maybe.” Celia grimaced. “So, uh … Are you?”
“Nope,” I replied. Then for good measure, I added, “How did it go?”
“Great, actually.” The thrill of potential love pricked at the corners of her lips. She had never looked at me that way. Nobody ever had. "We went and saw the new Marvel movie, grabbed some dinner, and went back to his place to chill."
Chill was code for fuck, or at the very least, mess around. Even though I knew Celia in the biblical sense, knew what she sounded like in the heat of the moment, I noted that it didn't bother me in the slightest that she had been intimate with someone else. It felt marginally triumphant, knowing for certain that I didn't in fact want her, if there'd been any doubt in my mind at all.
"He a good guy?" I met her eyes with sincerity, and she smiled, nodding.
"He is. He's sweet. Divorced with two kids.”
I laughed. "Holy crap, Cee. You're divorced with two kids. If you guys get married, you could have some real Brady Bunch shit going on."
"Oh, God," she groaned and rolled her eyes playfully. "I'm not even close to thinking about another marriage."
The front door jingled open and I stood up from my stool. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Cee with a baby carriage," I sang teasingly as I walked away.
"Shut your damn mouth! My tubes are tied!" Celia called back as I grinned to myself and entered the waiting area.
I'd been expecting my first client of the day, a guy named Felix, with a fondness for skulls. Another person who’d found my work through my Instagram account and had wanted something dark and gloomy permanently imprinted on their skin. That's who I had expected to find waiting on the old, brown leather couch, but who I found instead was a tall guy, about my height and with my shared affinity for black attire. Black, white, and shades of grey crawled from the collar of his jacket, covering his neck and creeping over the curve of his jaw and chin. He slid a pair of sunglasses off, revealing a small cross beside his left eye, and I watched as he took in the shots of art covering the walls.
"Hey, can I help you?" I asked, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
The guy turned to face me and a cool smirk quirked his lips. He pointed toward a few of my more popular pieces and said, "This shit is absolutely sick. Yours?"
"Yeah, they're mine," I confirmed casually.
"So, you're Blake Carson." I nodded affirmatively in response and he stepped forward, hand extended. "It's awesome to meet you. I'm Shane Easton, editor for ModInk Magazine. Ever heard of us?"
ModInk was one of the leading publications showcasing body modification. If you were in the business, or at all interested in tattoos, piercings, or other realms of the body mod world, you knew of ModInk. Shaking Shane's hand, my heart hammered a mile a minute, beating much faster than was healthy. Still, I managed to keep my composure, as I smiled cordially and nodded.
"Of course. Been a fan for years," I replied coolly, while hoping my palm wasn't too clammy. "What brings you to Salem?"
"You mean other than the history and awesome shit to do?" He released my hand and took a step back. "I came to check you out in person, my man."
I crossed my arms and cocked my head. My resolve to remain cool and collected was slipping away by the second. "No way. How, uh ... how did you find my work?"
"Well, I was checking some stuff on Instagram," he said, pulling his phone from a pocket.
"Ah, of course," I replied with a nod. "You found my page."
"Well, no. Not exactly," he corrected, and turned his phone to me. "I found this one, and from there, I found your page."
I had to blink and clear my mind of the image before I could look at his phone again, just to be sure I'd seen it correctly. But when I opened my eyes, there it was, just as I had thought. The picture of a butterfly, one half beautiful in splashes of color and the other bold in black and white, gritty and dripping with morbidity. I had once forgotten I'd even tattooed this image onto anybody's body, and now, I couldn't seem to escape it.
"This piece is absolutely killer," he went on. "I mean, there are so many talented artists out there, and so many of them can adequately dabble in multiple styles. But this vision, the flow of the watercolor and the seamless transition into this sooty black and white ... I don't know. It's not exactly unique, but at the same time, it's nothing I've ever seen before. The craftsmanship, man ..." Shane laughed, shaking his head as he looked around the shop's waiting area. "I gotta be honest, I didn't expect to find you in a hole in the wall like this."
I was too in shock to laugh with him about the grungy, outdated state of the shop. Too startled to react. Shane's laughter waned as he tucked the phone back in his jacket pocket.
"Anyway, I was hoping you'd let me run an article about you in an upcoming issue of ModInk," he cut to the chase, eyeing me with hopefulness.
"Shit," I uttered. I heard footsteps approaching from behind me. Celia had overheard. "You're serious?"
"Fuck yes, man. I'd love to interview you and show off some of your work. And hey, if you have some free time, I have a bit of skin on my leg that's all yours." He patted his left knee and chuckled easily.
I knew what was being presented to me. It was an open door. The opportunities that awaited me over the threshold would change my life and leave me without a shred of down time for years to come. But fuck fuck FUCK! I also knew what that meant for my personal life. What would I do about Jake? How could I continue to closely care for him while experiencing a surge in my career? God, this was all I’d ever wanted and dreamed about, but the call of real-life responsibility had its hands tight around my neck, and it was choking the fucking life out of me.
"I'd be happy to get you in. How long are you here for?"
Shane grinned with the promise of fresh ink on the horizon. "I took the week."
"Awesome. I'll check my schedule and get you in sometime over the next couple of days."