Page 23

He nods like that’s all the warning he needs.

As the purple stencil disappears beneath the black, I can hear the recording in my head. I listened to that chorus so many times while I was drawing that I know where the crowd gets louder and where the sound falls away again.

Zander notices I’ve slowed down. “Is that the Amsterdam part?”

“Yeah. This is where the crowd comes in.”

He turns his head enough to look toward me. “You really did listen to it.”

“I told you I did.”

“How many times did you listen?”

I smile without looking up. “Enough that I could probably recognize that chorus anywhere now.”

He’s quiet for a moment while I finish the next cluster of lines.

“You put a lot more into this than I realized.”

“That’s generally how custom work goes.”

“I’m starting to understand that.”

There’s no joke behind it this time, and I appreciate that he’s starting to understand.

I finish the last peak in the section and wipe his arm clean. His skin is irritated and pink, but I can already see what it’ll look like once everything settles.

“Want to see?”

“Definitely.”

He tries to turn far enough to look over his shoulder, but there’s no way he can see the whole thing from that angle. I grab the hand mirror and position it so he can see the progress in the wall mirror.

Zander studies his arm for several seconds, rotating it carefully.

“It looks better than it did on paper.”

I smile. “I’ll take that.”

He keeps looking at it. “Is it because of the shape of the arm?”

I point to the long curve along the outside of his upper arm. “That line looked almost straight on paper, but once it follows your shoulder, you can see the movement in it. That’s why I was so picky about the stencil placement.”

He looks from the tattoo to me. “I always assumed you drew something, transferred it, and just followed the lines.”

I pause and look at him.

His mouth tips into a smile. “I can tell by your expression that was the wrong thing to say.”

“Very wrong.”

He laughs quietly. “All right. I won’t say that again.”

I shake my head, but I smile as I pick up the machine again and turn my attention back to his arm.

The conversation drifts, and he tells me about the not-so-glamorous version of life on the tour buses. The cramped bunks. The weird sleep schedules. The way four musicians, crew, and equipment can turn a bus into a moving storage unit with people inside it.

Then he tells me about Macklin Row, not as celebrities but as musicians. He talks about how tight their live sets are and how much preparation goes into making a show look effortless, and his whole tone changes when he talks about music.