Chapter Two

River was a creature of habit. He began each day with a cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and his secret indulgence: his daily yoga routine and the local morning news. He liked knowing what was coming next, liked having everything in place in his life, in his station, in his schedule. It made tattooing and art more exciting. Too much of River’s life had been unpredictable in the worst ways, the turmoil of a dysfunctional family shaping over twenty years of his life. Tattoos and clients were variables River looked forward to, their choices and stories unexpected and surprising.

When River looked up to meet the eyes of his new client, though, he was caught off guard.

“So, Erik”—River swallowed and scooted back on his stool, adopting nonchalance—“you’ve been working with Nick, right?”

“Who up and left, yeah.” Erik had a good voice.

River remembered him; it would be hard not to. It was nice to put a name and a body—a fantastic one at that—to the possessor of an undeniable physicality he’d been secretly thinking of as “dragon dude.” A good voice with a gorgeous face, even marred by the tape on his cheekbone. A face meant for breaking things. Were he ever to touch it, cupping that cut-glass jaw, he imagined he’d come away with his palm bleeding.

River had never met anyone who wore confidence and warning at the same time, and certainly not in denim on denim. The curve of Erik’s mouth was less than what River would categorize as a smile, just a quirk on the right, but it was clear from Erik’s eyes that River’s gaze wasn’t unwelcome. He took his time, from the top of Erik’s battered boots and back to those eyes. Everything underneath them was hidden, barely masking the tight energy and elegance of a honed physique.

Across the room, raucous laughter spilled from another artist’s station. River snapped back into the moment. He gestured toward his chair, all burning cheeks and aborted movements.

“So. What were you thinking of?” River put his pencil down, flipped his sketchbook shut, and took a moment to look over Erik’s exposed ink to get a sense of his style. The tribal black dragon on his neck told a story: this was someone used to pain. Lettering across his knuckles, indicators of either impulse control issues or someone chasing a certain kind of high.

Or River was full of shit.

“Here,” Erik said, fishing his phone out of his back pocket. His thumb moved over the screen, unlocking it with practiced flicks. “Something like this.” The glass screen was shattered in a starburst, and under it, a stylized dragon in all black. “There’s a few.” Erik cleared his throat. “I’m not married to anything, design-wise, but I want this kind of dragon.”

River darted a glance up. Erik’s face was a study in contradictions, tight-jawed and warm-eyed. His posture, coiled predator and lean strength, was still and careful. River swiped gingerly, mindful of the glass splintered under his thumb.

“So, color? Black and gray?”

“Yeah, black and gray,” Erik said. “I don’t want it small. I’m thinking about this size, maybe bigger.” He held his hands about eight inches apart. His hands were big. Capable. River’s fingers wanted to search out calluses on them, to have them seek him out as well, his rough edges, River’s well-worked skin and bones.

He steered his gaze from Erik’s hands back to his face and nodded. “Where at?”

Erik rolled up his sleeve, exposing pale, unmarked skin. “Coming down my arm and onto the back of my hand. Head up and tail down.”

Or we could reverse that. River barely bit the words back, but not the image they made, and not the whispered thought of how his hips would bruise, pulled back against Erik’s.

“Yeah.” River turned, picking up his pencil blindly. Christ, he needed to slow the fuck down. “I can come up with some rough sketches if you like. How attached are you to these, stylistically?”

“I was looking through your Instagram,” Erik said. “The memorial skull you posted; I liked that one. Something about it…”

“Sharp edges and curves,” he said.

Erik cocked his head.

River picked his own phone up from his table. He opened Instagram, navigating to the right picture. “See, how I’m juxtaposing the angled lines here with softer edges fading in and out? It creates an interesting visual effect, almost like weaving, which makes the play with the chiaroscuro different as well. Is that maybe what drew you to this one?” He handed his phone to Erik, aware that they were now each holding the other’s.

“Chia—Char—what?”

“Chiaroscuro,” River said. His palm worked the frayed strings of his distressed jeans. “It’s an effect in black and white used to create more contrast or draw attention to it. For this, rather than a head-on look, I approached it as if the light were coming from here.” He leaned forward to look at the screen. Erik smelled fantastic, like leather and vanilla. “The play between light and dark gives it a different kind of drama.”

Erik took his time, and River didn’t rush him. Instead, he cataloged Erik’s face—it, too, was a study of curves and lines. He wondered at Erik’s eyes, how they might feel, dichotomous, changeable, staring back at him in the half-light of his apartment at night. Erik looked up from the phone, taking in River’s workspace. To their left was a framed watercolor and ink piece, a lotus, bleeding and almost edgeless, so pale it could be lost to the paper, broken apart by an absinth flower, slashes of ink cut with angry lines growing through and over it.

He’d bled all over that piece, his mother sharp in his mind after yet another fight with her, another failed promise. It was the newest addition to a rotating selection of his art, and it would be there for longer than most, even if looking at it rubbed him utterly raw some days. Only Cheyenne’s insistence that it might inspire trust in River as an artist kept it there.

Above the lotus was his personal favorite: Pennywise the clown, fathomless and sharp-toothed; eyes, invitingly dark, that reeked of cold. He’d made it for his older sister, Val, for Christmas a few years ago as a joke. She’d been both appreciative of his art and pissed he’d remembered her recurring nightmares from when they were teens.

“You’re an asshole,” his sister had said around a laugh, “but at least you’re talented.”

She’d re-gifted it back to him the next year with a note: may this finally see the light of day. It’s haunting my closet.

Erik’s eyes barely flickered over it before going back to River’s other pieces. Then he returned his attention to the phone and tapped the screen, zooming in. “Yeah, I think that’s what it is. It’s kind of broken up. I like that—I’ve seen a lot of dragons, but none like that.”

River smiled. “Awesome.” He checked the time. “If you want, we still have time left, I can sketch it out now, and you can think it over for later? We can get you coffee or something else?”

Erik laughed and saluted him with the coffee cup in his hand. Damn. River’s chuckle was only part show, the rest, embarrassment.

“If you don’t mind me sticking around, I’d love to see what you come up with,” Erik said. “I’ll go up front if you want.”

“Naw, you don’t have to. I don’t mind an audience,” River said, then winced. “That was… I didn’t—”

“Don’t worry, pretty boy, I got it.” Erik smirked around the rim of his coffee cup.

River loved clients who were open to slightly untraditional ideas. The longer River tattooed, the more he’d come into a particular style, and with it, a particular reputation that built a clientele. He excelled at watercolor tattoos, at a particular pen-and-ink effect some people loved. River enjoyed his work regardless of style, but clients like Erik made tattooing that much more fun. It didn’t take long for him to sketch something—he’d done plenty of dragons before, even if none had this effect.

“So.” River picked up his sketchbook.

Erik paused whatever he’d been doing on his phone—River suspected playing a game, by the way his hand had been moving. Not that he’d admit to stealing glances at Erik out of the corner of his eye. Erik leaned in to examine the drawing. His fingers hovered over the outline, tracing it on the air, testing its limits.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“I’d put in some shading here.” River gestured toward the spaces in the gaps between the dragon’s body and tail, where diagonal strips cut through them. “It’ll look smoky, so it doesn’t seem cut up and disjointed.”

“I love it,” Erik said. When their eyes met on a smile, he caught the green in Erik’s, a subtle olive. Erik’s gaze flicked down to River’s lips.

“Um, excuse me?” Cheyenne’s voice cracked the moment apart. River sat back, regretfully leaving Erik’s space.

“Yeah?” River wondered how long she’d been standing there.

Cheyenne’s perfectly arched brows lifted. “Your eleven-thirty canceled.”

“Oh.” River glanced at Erik. “Yeah. So, I mean, I don’t know if you have anything planned for today—”

“Nothing for a while,” Erik said. He winked. River flushed everywhere.

“Wanna stay?” River played with his pencil, the metronome tick of it against his sketchbook a loud thwap thwap in the tension of anticipation.

“Yeah, I guess I could,” Erik said and shrugged, nonchalance belied by his smirk.

“Fantastic,” Cheyenne drawled, rolling her eyes so hard behind Erik that River was almost concerned she’d injure herself. He reined in the face he would normally make because, you know, client. Right there. “I’ll put you down so we have a record. Have fun, boys.” Her smile was insinuation and amusement. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Oh my God, shut up. River turned an apologetic smile on Erik. “Sorry about that. She’s—”

“Don’t worry about it. Really,” Erik said.

“All right. Let’s size this up and get to work.”