How do I get myself into these messes? One minute I'm getting Zoey's drunk ass cleaned up and in bed. The next I've agreed to get a tattoo so she'll drink another glass of water. How the fuck does that even make any goddamn sense? Drink a glass of water for a tattoo. I've got zero tattoos Zoey has about eight of them. They might not be a big deal to her, but to me, tattoos are no joke. A fucking neck tattoo. What was I thinking? I mean, if I'm going to get a tattoo, I should have made the deal for something bigger. I slap my head, making a meaty thwap noise.

Asher looks up from bolting the tattoo chair into the bolts on the bus floor. Concern crosses his roguish features. "It's ok if you don't want to get the tattoo, Sabali." His hand has completely stopped moving on the chair. Asher doesn't appear disappointed or not disappointed. It seems as if he doesn't want to pressure me into something. A part of me doesn't want to be a chicken.

"I've always wanted a tattoo," I repeat my earlier sentiment because it was true. I've always wanted one, but my brother told me to wait. He got a bad station house tattoo that had to be fixed. All the rookie firefighters at his station on the last day of them being a rookie got a tattoo. They went to the same place to get the tattoo, but the guy did an awful job on him. It was all hard lines and looked weird. It took a lot of money to fix it, so it was right. So, I was triggered when Zoey started getting her tattoos. "I'm a little nervous. Of course, it's my first one."

"Oh, ya..." Asher's smile is warm and very. Full, I'm just a normal guy, not a rock star. He put the final touches on the tattoo chair in the studio. "Hidden talent number three. I also cut hair." I was a little taken aback by that hidden talent. It was unexpected of him.

"That hidden talent was given out for freebie. I'm not sure if I'm willing to count it." I tease.

"Nope, count it! It goes with the hidden talent number two I can tattoo." Asher wipes down the chair with a cleaning solution. "We went to so many countries that Rux and his brother couldn't always get a haircut or tattoo in every country. The tattoo artist didn't know how to handle Rux and his brother's darker skin. And as for the haircut, they couldn't get either. So, we all learned to do tats and hair. It saved time. Which came in handy in many countries. I could already draw and it wasn't that huge of a jump."

All the pictures on the bus wall started to make sense. The pretty tattoos of Asher, Dustin, Rux, and his brother. Some of the pictures are black and white, while others are in color. Add to it that Asher voiced a lot of the worry I had and I partly wasn't afraid to say ok to getting the neck tattoo. Even less so now that he vocalizes my unsaid fear.

"Huh?" I answer, knocked out of my inner thoughts. Asher pats the chair. "Oh," then I sit down in the chair with a large gulp of air. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

"I promise you, this is going to hurt." Well, at least Asher tells the truth something to remember about him. I take my journal out of my bag and flip to the page of drawings. He leans over my shoulder.

"A bird?" Asher says with a smile. The kind of smile that has something hidden behind it but not hidden in a bad way. Just a little something extra I couldn't put my finger on. "Do you want to see the tattoo drawing before I put it on?" I shake my head no silently. I'm getting lower on courage the longer this takes. Asher draws out on a piece of paper the way the tattoo should look, but my eyes are a bit unfocused. I didn't want to take a close look at it because I was so close to chickening out.

"Ok, Birdy. One bird tattoo is coming up." Asher says. I settle deeper into the chair. A part of me worried that the tattoo chair was a sex chair for something. It was so heavy-duty with padding. I partly worried that I was going to be strapped down. If I'm honest with myself, if he asked to strap down and fuck me. I'm such a dork and give it a try at least once. I mean, this man brings out the wanna fuck low bar in me. There's something about him. It's not just the music either. We blended, and he got me in a way that few people get me in that Van ride home. Something was there, something intangible. I felt it vibrate through me and it rang like a bell, a note... I felt it. I felt it...

Maybe for him, that kiss in the parking lot wasn't more. But for me, it was more. Had we gone further in that parking lot with that kiss? Well, I have no shame in my game. There's something about Asher. It's not because he's some rock star or something. It's because he got my grandma's story and understood some of it. I don't know if it's something.

The tips of Asher's cool fingers help me out of my top. I shiver from the simple touch. Then his big finger hooks into my bra strap, pulling it to the side and down. I bunch my top against my chest and rest my head to the side of the leather chair. My nipples rub against the slick leather chair through my top. He puts on black gloves and acid worries coat my stomach. Coolness as he wipes down my neck. A careful touch as he wipes coolness down behind my ear. Then that coolness slides down my neck with his hand. In the wake of his touch, heat follows. Stopping at where I'm holding my top in place above my breast. Asher puts the tattoo paper against my skin, rubbing hard back and forth in place. Then he peels it off, leaving the outline.

Oh shit, this is really happening? My breathing quickens, and I fight with myself, trying to suck in air calmly. But my body is like a bomb slowly, the explosion zone getting bigger in an unstoppable way. And the more he touched me, the more my body reacted. Asher turns on the tattoo gun with a loud buzz. It vibrates in his hand, resting against the back of my shoulder. What the fuck am I doing? In the glass of the picture frame, I could see that tattoo gun and I stared it down.

"Birdy?" Asher says. The question in his voice was heavy-weighted. I turned my head to him, looking into his nebulous hazel eyes. Warmth spread in me and my breathing slowed down. For a second, I was thankful that he gave me this chance to back out. It wasn't like he was trying to judge me or anything. He seems to be waiting for my ok to go on. I'm glad I learn that about Asher. He didn't like a jerk push me into tattoos. He made it my decision. I like that.

"Do it," I said with more steel in my voice than I felt. The tattoo needle hit the dark skin of my neck. I close my eyes and tried to sit still.

Oh, god the pain. Sharpness and pain, and again, and again. Strike, strike, strike. Through the red hazy pain something happened, Asher started talking.

But as time passed, the vibration of the needle changed. Pain and his whiskey-deep voice mixed together. The pain shifted into something else in the lower part of my belly, warmed by his hands working on me.

The dark chocolaty pleasure-pain stopped. His booted footfalls as Asher walks around the chair to my other side. He stops and my breathing goes a mile a minute. Sucking in a thick gasp of air as I try not to rub my hard nipples, looking for friction against the leather chair. I'm so close to it. So close to needing that last bit. In the depths of my heart, I wanted that chocolaty pleasure-pain back for just a few more seconds.

My needy little groan at his absence slipped out. Shivers rack my body as I'm held in the in-between. He reaches over to my side, leaning in. Our eyes meet my dark brown and his golden nebulosus. All those possibilities are still there. His body is in contact with me as he does the last little corner of my tattoo. The buzz of the gun back on my neck and the chocolaty pleasure-pain back. Crunchy burn in my belly and my breathing is out of control as that last bit I was missing hits. It came hard, sharp waves of pleasure-pain, and our eyes never left each other. He watched it spread through my body. The tips of my hard nipples rubbed inconspicuously against the chair in small moves. Bit the shit out of my lower lip. The buzzing sound stop the pain stopped and nothing was left but wave after wave of pleasure.

Asher was finished, but I was even more done. Sweat rolled down my back. He held a mirror to the tattoo, and I saw it. Smiled, because it was a birdy, the same one I drew in my journal. But the one in my journal wasn't like this one. This one was a mix of stars and flight. It was so dang cute and free. In the mirror, I watched the concentration in his hazel eyes as he put the patch on my neck. He did it without talking about what had just happened.

When I stood up from the tattoo chair, my top was still pressed against my chest. I felt so damn exposed, even though I wasn't naked. Wheelz.

"Good night Birdy," Asher says.

I walk out of there as fast as I could. Cleaning up in the tiny bus bathroom and carefully not looking at myself in the mirror.

What the fuck just happen?

I went back to the small bedroom at the top of the bus. I got into bed with Zoey fast asleep and snorting up a storm. Then I stared at the ceiling with the small window. The Tule fog blocking the stars. With so much learned and so much to think about until I couldn't remember slipping into sleep.

A/n: this is a split more to come.