Cade Tomlin is a tattoo apprentice. His first client is almost more than Cade bargains for...
***
The customer -- whose name was Kip, Cade thought, but he
hadn’t been paying attention to much but Graham’s technique -- watched Cade
tape a square of plastic over his fresh tattoo. “So, do you tattoo?”
“Not on people. Oranges, pigskin. I’m learning.” Cade taped
a corner and didn’t bother to say that he’d tatted himself, too. Then the guy
would want to see it, and Cade wasn’t ready for anyone to see the portrait he’d
done of his mom on his own thigh. Well, Graham had seen it, because he’d
watched and given pointers. But that was different.
Kip nodded. “Cool. How much longer do you have to do that?”
“Until Graham says I’m ready. Couple of months, I guess.” It
was getting harder and harder to wait, but Cade trusted Graham, and he knew
that most apprenticeships lasted a year or more. The good ones, anyway. Cade
had gotten lucky.
“Graham’s pretty good,” Kip said. He stood and stretched a
bit from side to side, likely to loosen muscles that had gotten stiff from
sitting still for so long. The session had been almost three hours, but Cade
thought it had been worth it. Kip now had a beautiful memorial portrait of his
brother who had been lost in combat overseas.
Cade looked up from where he’d begun to clean Graham’s
station. He meant to reply in the affirmative, but he took his first real look
at Kip’s face and forgot what he was going to say.
***
Don't forget to check this out on Wednesday of this week at Torquere Press!
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