“Yeah, I got a doozy for you.”
Finally something to cheer me up after I acted like a dick to Charlotte. “Don’t tell me it was another ‘no regerts’ tattoo.”
“Soooo much better than that.” He holds his hands high in the air like he’s about to paint me a masterpiece. “Big dude. Not as big as Wrath but close.”
“This should be gold.”
“You have no idea. So, he wants a saying and an arrow. Piece of cake.”
“Never.” I shake my head. Doesn’t he know by now. “It’s never a piece of cake.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” He lifts his shirt and traces a line along his lower stomach. “He wants the saying down here and the arrow pointing to his dick.”
“Please don’t say he wanted ‘You must be this tall to ride.’”
“No, that would’ve been infinitely better.” He pauses and takes a breath. “He wants‘Your next tragic mistake’tattooed above the arrow pointing to his dick.”
“That’s…weird.”
“It gets worse. I kept a straight face. No judgment, right? That’s what Bronze always says. Can’t judge the customers. Everyone has the right to decorate their bodies the way they want.”
I can picture Bronze saying that.
“So, he pulls this scroll out of his back pocket and says, ‘I want it written out like this,’ and I’m like, ‘Cool. Let me look at it so I can draw up a stencil and we’ll get rockin’ on this bad boy.’” Carter mimes someone rolling out an ancient scroll and pretends to peer at it through a monocle. “Uh, sir, this is spelled wrong.”
“Let me guess. He got the wrong ‘your.’” I’ve learned this particular error is one of Carter’s greatest peeves.
“Yup. It reads, ‘You’re next tradgec mistake,’”he says, spelling out the misspelled words.
“Damn. Sounds more like a prediction than a tattoo.”
“Right? So anyway he was super pissed. Yelled at me. Called me an elitist asshole. Like, dude, I don’t want to ink misspelled words into your skin that you’ll be wearing for the rest of your life. Chill.”
I’m laughing so hard, it takes a second to respond. “What did Bronze do?”
“Stopped him from killing me. The dude was pissed.”
“Are you sure you weren’t a little judgmental about it?”
“Maybe a wee bit?” He shrugs. “He was more embarrassed than mad I think.”
“Did you end up doing it?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “He had to sit there and stew in his wrongness, but I had to pick up his belly flap and get way too close to his junk for my comfort. Bronze gave me a bonus.”
I’ll have to thank Bronze for looking out for Carter next time I see him.
I glance at his black T-shirt with a drawing of scattered pencils and crayons. “A little bit sketchy” is printed in a flowery font in the middle. “Cute. You design it?”
He tugs on the shirt and stares down at the design as if he’d forgotten what he was wearing. “Yeah. Funny, right?”
“Yup. You going to the party like that?”
He drops the shirt and stares over my shoulder. “You sure you want me to come?”
“Of course I do. Why would you ask that?”
“I know I’m not family.” Carter drops his gaze. “Or a brother—”