@reattachmcnts
Mateo still wasn’t entirely convinced Tattoos After Dark was a real event and not something the studio owner had invented after one too many beers. Midnight walk-ins sounded optimistic at best, but a guest spot was a guest spot, and Mateo had never been particularly bothered by strange hours. He’d worked in enough shops up and down California to know that the best clients were the spontaneous walk-ins. So he stayed planted behind the front desk, one boot hooked over the other atop the counter while Hot Mulligan played through the studio speakers, loud enough to keep the silence from getting too comfortable.
The glow of his iPad lit his face as he worked at a half-finished design, dragging the stylus across the screen before undoing the same line for the third time. Silver rings flashed against the glass each time his hand moved, matching the chain resting loose at his throat. He was dressed almost entirely in black: a faded T-shirt hanging easy over baggy trousers, the hems bunching around a scuffed pair of DMs; the kind of thrown-together outfit that made him look more like he’d wandered in from a gig than spent the last few hours working behind a tattoo counter.
The bell above the door finally cut through the music. Mateo looked up, gaze settling on the stranger as he stepped inside, and paused like he needed a second to register that someone had actually taken the late-night promotion seriously. He set the iPad down, lowering his feet off the counter top and stood up. “Damn. A real person,” he said, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smirk. “I was starting to think they made this whole thing up just to keep me here past midnight.” His eyes moved over the stranger briefly before he tipped his chin toward the rest of the studio. “You here to get tattooed, or did you just wander in looking for somewhere with better music?”