Devil's Due [h.s.]

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It took a few seconds of deep breathing and serious internal contemplation of what choices I must have made in life to have led up to this moment, but I reluctantly ended up following Harry through the ominous curtains and into the back of the store.

I was greeted with darkness. Darkness save for a small lamp at the very end of the narrow room that I assumed had been turned on by one scary-looking tattoo artist who now sat hunched over a table, doing something I couldn't see.

"Are you coming?"

His words pulled me out of my train of thought, realizing somewhat embarrassedly that I had been staring and hadn't noticed that he was now looking at me. Swallowing hard and willing my feet to carry me forward, I nodded and started in his direction.

One glance at the other tattoo beds had me breathing out a momentary sigh of relief that at least I wouldn't be completely alone when my friends came back to get their tattoos as well, only for those pleasant thoughts to be cut short as Harry stood up and drew another curtain around the small area – isolating the two of us.

He was a lot scarier face to face. A mess of deep brown curls with tattoos and piercings littering the majority of his body. His green eyes seemed to morph with the rest of his demeanour – cold, aloof, uninviting. Quite possibly the last person that I wanted to hold a tattoo gun to my skin.

The worst part was that he was attractive. In a down-under, incubus sort of way. It made me just that much more nervous.

"I'm assuming you don't have a design." Harry said flatly, turning away from me to take a seat on a small, rolling stool. "Or a stencil that Niall might have so kindly drawn up?"

Again, that mocking boredom in his tone had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

I opened my mouth to respond, only to close it and shake my head when he glanced back at me. He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath that I couldn't catch, before swivelling in my direction, bracing his elbows on his knees. His teeth bared in the most obnoxious, fake smile that I'd ever seen.

"Do you have fucking anything at least? An idea of what the hell you want maybe?"

I took a step back, feeling the heat rise to my face. "I didn't even know until a few minutes ago that I was getting a tattoo."

He stared at me, chewing on the inside of his cheek, before rolling his eyes once more. "Yes, I am fucking aware. A drunken, girlish whim to prove your faith to your friendship and whatnot." He jerked his chin toward the curtains, the muscles in his jaw flexing. "And what are those friends of yours getting? I'm assuming you're matching. They must have something."

They did, in fact. The thought struck me almost as hard as his words and I suddenly felt stupid grabbing my phone from my back pocket to pull up our group chat. They'd sent a picture of what they had planned on getting.

I extended my phone to Harry, who grabbed the device from me much harsher than needed and studied the image.

"Are you hoping for it to turn out exactly like this?" He asked with his back to me. He'd set my phone down on the table beside him.

"Er, well. No. Not exactly, I guess. Just as close as you can get it."

"Good," he muttered. "Because I'm freehanding this and as great as I fucking am, there's only so much I can do when basing it off of an iPhone screen."

All I could offer him in response was a pained nod, something he hadn't even been facing me to catch anyway, but I wasn't sure what else to say. The sounds of people laughing sounded out, growing louder as the seconds of painfully awkward tension of Harry sitting in front of me doing whatever he was doing ticked by before I was finally granted a moment of relief.