Chapter 5

Jesus Christ.Calum took in the urban grunge of Blood Rush's inner workings and could hardly believe his eyes. With its black fixtures and fittings, colourful Day of the Dead skulls on the walls, and huge gothic mirrors, the place was about the most awesome studio Calum had ever seen.

He gazed at the sleek leather chairs and the latest-model guns, all interspersed with vintage machines that made his soul weep once more for Dottie. "I like this."

Understatement of the year, but it seemed to please Brix as he shut the shop door. "I work over there. Lee works here. Corey and Kim share the back when Kim's here, which ain't that often these days."

"What's the other one for? Piercing?"

"Fuck no. We don't do that here. If you want your bellend skewered, you'll have to go to the scratcher down the road."

"You sure? I can do piercing for you if there's a demand?—"

"Why would I want you to punch holes in people when you can ink?" Brix nodded at the empty bench in the corner. "The spare station is for guest artists. We had Chips Brown in last month. I was going to leave it for a while because I can't be arsed with the hassle of hosting someone else, but I'd love you to do some days . . . if you want to? You can set your own hours and rates. Just pay for the space? Ten per cent?"

It was a ridiculously fair offer. "Twenty."

"That a yes?"

"It's a maybe. What if I don't get any bookings?"

Brix grinned as the back door to the studio opened and an inked woman with electric blue hair let herself in. "Lena. This is my mate Calum from London. Can you show him the waiting list? He's worried we won't have any work for him."

By Lena's smile, Calum got the feeling he was about to be shown up. He followed Lena to the reception desk. She powered up the iMac and opened the appointments. "Brix is booked out a year in advance unless he likes a client enough to squeeze them in or he gets a cancellation. Only Corey has slots in the next six weeks. This is the waiting list."

Calum stared. He'd had a waiting list of his own back in Paddington, but nothing like this. "Are they waiting for a particular artist? Or just to come here?"

"Everyone wants Brix, but he only has appointments four days a week. He does drop-ins on Fridays, but only in the off-peak season. It would be mental if he did it over the summer. For guest artists, I offer them up as a drop-in for the first few days, until word gets out and I've publicised them a bit. How long are you around for? I can probably have you booked for the next eight weeks if you're up for it."

Calum shrugged. He hadn't given it much thought, but with a minus balance on his bank account and fuck all else to his name, a month or two of solid work sounded almost too good to be true. "Let's give it a week to start with. I might be the exception to your success."

"I doubt it. Do you have an online portfolio?"

"Nope, but I did the wolf on Brix's neck, if that helps."

"You did?" Lena's expression brightened. "That's my favourite. Brix! Come here."

Brix appeared from nowhere. "You rang?"

"Shirt off."

"Already?" He pulled his long-sleeved T-shirt over his head, revealing his long, slender torso, almost every inch of skin covered in ink, including a large, dot-work wolf that stretched up his spine and curved around his perfect neck.

Calum swallowed. He'd etched the wolf a month after Brix had inked the stag on his hand, but remembered the sensation of Brix's warm skin and the throb of his pulse like it had been yesterday. His low chuckle as he'd no doubt realised the effect his close proximity was having on his rookie protégé. "It's held up well."

"Course it has," Brix said. "It was done by the best."

Calum flushed and looked away as Lena snapped a picture. He'd been proud of the piece, but it hadn't meant much to him for the longest time. Not much had.

"All done." Lena set her tablet down and tossed Brix his shirt. "Now piss off, both of you. I've got work to do."

Lena struck Calum as a woman not to be messed with, so he trailed Brix back to Lee's workstation and studied the ink and stencils that littered the cluttered shelves. "Messy one, eh?"

"The worst," Brix confirmed. "But when you kick out the best watercolour work I've ever seen, I let it slide. Have you seen these?"

He pointed to a series of pictures on the wall. Calum traced one with his finger. He'd seen plenty of watercolour tattoos before, but none quite like the animals and plants in the photographs. He tried to picture the delicate art flowing out of his own gun. Failed, because they looked like they'd been drawn by a fairy rather than inked into flesh. "What's he like?"

"Who?"

"Lee."

"She's fucking awesome."

The new voice in the room startled Calum. He spun around to find another woman with neon hair—orange, this time—had joined them, this one complete with lip and septum piercings. "Erm, you're Lee?"

"Yup. What are you and Brix doing messing up my station?"

Beside Calum, Brix chuckled. "Couldn't mess that shit up with a cluster bomb. How do you find anything?"

"Easily, cos it's exactly where I left it if no one arses around with it. Fuck off."

"Watch your mouth," Brix said with a grin that told Calum he and Lee talked this way all the time. "I was just showing Calum your stuff."

Lee eyed Calum before she zeroed in on the stag on his hand. "Oooh, so you're the one with the famous stag? Brix told us about you."

"He did?"

"About your hand," Brix said. "I've got the stencil on the wall. Look."

Calum followed his gaze to Brix's station and saw that Brix had indeed kept the inky stencil from so long ago, framed it, and nailed it to the wall. "Jesus, it's been years since I last saw that."

"How many?"

Calum glanced at Lee. "Too many."

"I'd say so," Brix said.

Lee whistled. "You two are old."

"He is," Calum said. "I was always the young pretender."

"You weren't pretending at anything that I recall." Brix folded his arms across his chest. "Smashed every job from the get-go."

Heat burned Calum's chest. He turned away from Brix's piercing gaze and Lee's obvious curiosity and pointed to the first watercolour piece on Lee's slice of the wall. "How did you get the ink to drip like that on the skin? The last one I did came out too pale."

"You're diluting the ink too much. It took me a while to get it right, and I only do watercolours. It woulda taken me years if I was doing all that macho black-and-grey shit too."

"Hey," Brix interjected.

Lee grinned. "It's so easy to wind you up."

"Nice."

"I think so." Lee returned her focus to Calum. "He loves me really."

"Yeah, like a mallet to the nuts."

Lee ignored Brix's grumble and pointed at the ink detail Calum had drawn her attention to. "I can show you a few tricks if you want? I've got time this morning. I only came in early to order some greens I need for the ferns I'm inking next week."

Calum glanced at Brix, who shrugged and pushed himself off the counter he'd been leaning against. "Fill your boots. I'll get your station set up and you can have a play around. I'm sure someone's got some spare skin you can test the waters with."

"You can do my foot," Lena called out. "I've got a gap needs filling."

Despite the dark mood still plaguing Calum, the urge to set a needle to skin made his palms tingle. "What do you want?"

"No fucking idea. I'll harass you later."

Lena turned back to her work as Brix knocked Calum's arm with his fist. "I'm gonna leave you to it for a while. Gotta nip home, then track down my old man. Just let Lena know when you're ready to take walk-ins. Or not. Do whatever you want. It's all cool."

He walked away before Calum could answer, striding through the studio and out of the front door. Calum watched him go, missing him already. Being with Brix had been the only thing stopping him losing his mind, and as the studio door swished shut, anxiety clawed at his heart.

What the fuck am I doing here?

* * *

It was lunchtime before Brix made it back to Blood Rush. He appeared at the station he'd assigned to Calum with a weary grin that broke Calum's concentration.

Calum withdrew his borrowed gun from the young woman's skin and mopped up some stray blood. "All right?"

Brix nodded. "Aye-aye. You?"

Calum ignored the infinitesimal rush that came with Brix's gentle Cornish accent. "Am now I've got a gun in my hand."

"Figured as much. Art is cathartic, eh?"

"That's what Lee said."

"Smart girl."

"Yeah? She said you taught her that."

Brix hummed and ventured closer, peering over Calum's shoulder at the peacock feather he was etching on the woman's hip. "Nice."

"Will be when I've finished."

"I'll bet." Brix turned his gaze to the woman. "How are you doing down there? Not too painful is it?"

The woman shook her head. "Not as bad as I thought it'd be."

"That's cos Calum here's got the softest touch in the business. You picked a good day to walk in here. Tell your friends."

He left Calum to it and drifted to his own station. Calum felt his attention drawn to Brix, but the buzz of the gun was stronger than his fast-growing reattachment to his old friend, and it wasn't long before he lost himself in his work, not looking up until the feather was complete.

"All done." He shut off the gun and pushed his stool back. "You want to check it out?"

The woman staggered to her feet like most people did when they'd been under the needle a couple of hours. Calum steadied her, then guided her to one of the huge gothic mirrors in the studio, bracing himself for the torturous wait to see if the woman liked what he'd done. He hadn't had many negative reactions, but the way his luck had gone recently?—

"Oh my God. I love it."

Calum let out a breath. "Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah." The woman turned her body from side to side, viewing the tattoo from every angle. "The detail is amazing. Is the eye made of dots?"

"Yeah, with some white ink. Dot work is my specialty, so I find it really hard not to sneak it in somewhere."

"I love it. Thank you so much."

"No worries. Come back to me when you're ready and I'll wrap you up for your journey home."

The woman nodded, still entranced by her ink. Calum let her be and returned to his station to clean up.

Lena waited for him. "I think I've got one of your clients coming in tomorrow."

"What?"

"I just heard you say that dot work is your specialty, and Brix told me you had a studio in Paddington."

"So?" Calum turned his back on Lena and started dismantling his borrowed tattoo gun for cleaning.

"This guy was booked in for a dot work leopard at a studio in London. Said he'd waited months to get in with the best dot work artist in the city, only to find out that the studio had closed down overnight."

Calum's stomach did an uneasy flip. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want to know if we've got the best dot work artist in London on our books. No other reason, Calum, I swear. No one here will give a shit about the rest of it. The fact that you're Brix's friend is enough."

"Cheers."

"Cheers? That's all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Are you CJ Hardy or not?"

"I'm Calum Hardy." Calum didn't turn around, but Lena appeared on the other side of the chair, her gaze almost as piercing as Brix's.

Almost.

Calum sucked in a breath. "Whatever. I worked at the studio. But I didn't own it. Whatever's happened since I left is nothing to do with me."

"Fair enough. Do you want your client back?"

"No."

"All right. I'll leave him with Brix and give you the afternoon off. That okay?"

"It's fine."

"Good." Lena started to move away, but seemed to think better of it. "Fair warning, I don't keep secrets from Brix. So if there's anything about this he doesn't know, you should tell him today."