Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (160 page)

My head hurts. I’m hung over, and I can’t believe I got that drunk last night. We only shared a bottle of champagne. Though, in retrospect, I had most of it.

But even more, I can’t believe I let Pierce
kiss
me, and touch me… humiliate me.

The woman before me clears her throat. Tina Azume. She’s way more intimidating than she looks on her website. Her face is all sharp angles, and her black eyes tunnel hard into my own. She’s studying me. I haven’t seen her smile yet. From the way she looks, I wonder if she’s ever smiled before.

It’s definitely not what I expected. Then again, I don’t know what I was expecting from one of the best tattoo artists in the world.

“You got your visiting artist visa?” she asks me. Her thin lips barely move as she speaks. Her voice is monotone, uninterested, unenthused.

Already, my stomach is crunching up tight. Already, I’m worrying that I’m not going to get this apprenticeship placement, that I will have come all the way out here for
nothing!

My confidence falls out from under me. Why
should
I get it? Who is to say I’m better than the dozens of other people who have surely already interviewed for this position?

Oh God!
I’m starting to panic.

I take a deep breath, calm my nerves. I’ve got to get through the interview. I can’t let my nerves show.

I clear my throat, and tell Ms. Azume, “I can’t yet, as I need a current tattoo artist to vouch for me.”

She purses her lips. They are a dull pink, but even so manage to stand out against her chalky-white complexion. “I’m unfamiliar with the visa requirements for visitors. How long does it last?”

“Thirty-one days, to allow me to apprentice, and then you can vouch for me to get a different visa that lasts for longer if you want to keep me on.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says. She’s flicking through my black, leather-bound portfolio. Tina Azume is my favorite artist. She’s got such an idiosyncratic style, and I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.

Like her face, the lines she draws are full of sharp angles, and yet have this wistful, flowing quality to them. It’s almost like if water was geometric.

I can hardly believe I’m sitting in her office, talking with her! I’m star-struck. I burp, and taste stomach acid mixed with champagne.

“You did the tattoo on your foot yourself?”

I look down at my right foot instinctively. I’m wearing my favorite blue-and-white pinstripe flats, so I can’t see the whole web of intricate and interwoven beanstalks that I designed myself. But I do see a bit of it.

“Yes,” I say.

“How?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“How were you able to? I mean, with what instruments? Where?”

“I was friends with a local artist back home in Chicago. She said that if I wanted to practice on myself, she’d let me and watch me.”

“And you weren’t her apprentice?”

“No.”

“So she just let a unlicensed friend use her tattoo equipment?”

I swallow. My heart stops dead. Should I have lied?

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Quite a risk for her to take.” Tina Azume is eyeballing me now, and her face has gone from mere indifference to something approaching hostility. “I don’t do that in my shop.”

“I understand.”

“Take off your shoe.”

I blink, and then immediately slip it off. She extends a hand, and I’m not sure what she wants me to do.