1 Chapter 1

1

Toronto, 2006

“No,” Gabe said again. He pushed his damp hair away from his forehead, his mouth twitching involuntarily at the sweat that clung to his skin. It was mid-July, and Toronto had hit its stride for summer temperatures. “No. I’m sorry, but I’m not putting a goddamn baseball-sized teddy bear on your ass,” he told his latest customer, some kid who’d probably forged the Liquor Control Board of Ontario ID card he’d used to prove he was nineteen. “First of all, I’m pretty sure you’re too drunk to know what you’re doing. Second of all, the design you want is stupid. Third, the place you want to put it is stupid. And fourth, you’re going to look like an asshole for the rest of your life.”

“Dude, it’s my ass!” the kid yelled, flecking his lip rings with spit. “If I want something there, you fucking put it there! I’m paying for it!” He tossed his head, making his frizzy curls flip, scattering drops of sweat. A couple landed on the glass countertop and Gabe grimaced, glad there wasn’t anything on the counter that would need to be sterilized again.

“Hey,” Rob said. His voice was quiet and he didn’t do anything more menacing than lift his head a little from the back of the ancient burgundy chaise lounge under the elaborately painted front window, but the kid goggled and shut up like Rob had slapped him. “It’s his choice if he slings the ink or not.”

Gabe shrugged, smiling in completely false apology. “Sorry.”

“Fuck you,” the kid snapped at him, narrowing his bloodshot eyes. Gabe watched bemusedly as he stalked out of the shop, swaying a little in his black leather boots. There were at least half a dozen other tattoo parlors within easy walking distance of Atlantis Ink, and Gabe was sure a couple of them would put whatever the hell the kid wanted on his ass, no matter how large, ugly, or permanent.

“Jesus, what a dick,” Gabe said. He shook his head and went over to where Rob was lounging. The normally spiky twists in Rob’s thick curls looked wilted, and sweat glistened on his cheeks and in the hollow of his throat, adding a golden sheen to his dark skin. “He’s going to be forty one day, you know? And he thinks he’s going to want to wake up to a teddy bear with a vivisectionon his skinny ass for the rest of his life? If he’s that broken up about his stupid girlfriend, he should just get another piercing—I think he has room for one more on his face, maybe.”

Rob smiled. “A third lip ring, to balance the other two. I’m sure Dee would be happy to do it.” He chuckled, then stooped to grab his half-empty bottle of Coke from where it was sweating condensation onto the old hardwood floor. “You know, Gabe, you just cost us a lot of money. Stupid as that tat would’ve been, it would’ve been about four hundred by the time you finished with the details of the fur and the ripped-out heart.”

“Which I would’ve demanded up front, believe me,” Gabe said. He scowled. “But I’m not going to encourage people’s stupidity, let alone help them wear it.”

“Okay,” Rob said, “I hear that. But what if, one day, you come across someone who wants an amazing tattoo—a real work of art—but you don’t like the meaning behind it?” He grinned. “Does that fall under your ‘Do Not Ink the Idiots’ policy, too?”

“It depends,” Gabe said, wiping at the sweat on his forehead with his hand, then drying his palm on his pant leg. “I mean, I might’veinked that kid if he had a better idea, even if it was ‘cause he’s all emo over a breakup. But like I said—it depends.”

“Depends on what?” Rob asked. It was so hot Rob had left his eyeglasses on the counter, and Gabe kept being surprised at seeing his big, dark eyes with nothing framing them. Rob stretched out and lifted one brown bare foot to let it thump lazily down on the chaise.

“I don’t know,” Gabe said, feeling a little defensive. “Maybe what meaning it has for the client. Like…” He thought and then snapped his fingers. “Like, if he wanted a Nazi swastika on his arm, but he meant it as an ironic anti-Nazi symbol, I might…” He paused. “Okay, I still wouldn’t ink that.”

Rob smiled. “Good.”

Gabe thought some more, automatically clearing the newly beading sweat off his forehead again. He glanced wearily up at the ceiling fan, which was spinning sluggishly, as if the heat had sapped its strength. Their building was too old to have air-conditioning; normally that wasn’t a problem, but normally Toronto didn’t get this hot. Gabe hadn’t been in heat like this since the last time he’d been dragged along to visit family in India, and he hated it as much now as he had then. “All right, something religious, I guess. Like, I don’t know…Okay, say they want Jesus on their shoulder or something. That’s not my thing, right?” He smirked ruefully. “I mean, that’s reallynot my thing. But I’d do something like that, because people are allowed to have their own religious beliefs, right? As long as they don’t hurt anyone because of it or try to shove it down my throat.”

Rob nodded. “What if it was really ugly?” he asked innocently.