(And I Like You)

Chapter 3.

The three of us stay silent as the tall stranger—I assume he's the artist Katherine was referring to earlier— approaches us. He has a bored expression, albeit slightly annoyed. I watch as he takes the bell from where it sits near my hand and hides it somewhere behind the counter.

"Now what is so extremely important that you felt the need to ring that bell an excruciating amount of times?" His tone is nothing but sarcasm and annoyance.

He lifts his brow while placing his hands on the glass case and leaning forward a bit; that's when I notice the shiny metal sticking through his eyebrow.

Once again, neither of us say or do anything. I look over and see that Kate is twirling her hair and Emma is chewing on the tip of her thumb. I cough in attempts to get their attention but I'm no match for punk James Dean, so instead, I give Kate a shove. It's harder than I intended cause she nearly falls onto Emma. Neither of them gets the clue so I speak for the two.

"I only rang the bell twice," I call out his exaggeration, "And they have appointments."

"Well, I don't have anyone scheduled for today and Max's still working on his last appointment for the day so you're going to have to come back some other time." He turns to leave but Emma and Kate finally snap out of their trance.

"Wait, wait, wait we have appointments. I called in a week ago and even confirmed it yesterday." Kate crosses her arms.

"You're not on the schedule."

"You already said that, but I'm saying there's a mistake because we scheduled appointments."

"Not my problem." The man doesn't stop to look at her.

"I think that is your problem if you're the one we spoke to on the phone," Emma speaks up, crossing her arms.

The two seem ready to charge at the man who has been nothing but rude since we walked in. He didn't even introduce himself. Come to think of it, he didn't even look at any schedule or appointment book or whatever the hell they use to keep track of these things.

He refuses to look back at us as he disappears behind the curtain once more. Part of me wants to take the bell he hid and throw it at him, but instead, I reach behind the counter and ring it again. He doesn't come back.

Instead of ringing it only once, I obnoxiously pound on it until he appears again and this time he doesn't look bored, he looks pissed.

"Will you stop with the damn bell." He furiously walks up to me and snatches it away, "I told you there's nothing on the schedule for me today. If you want to get tattoos to come back tomorrow or don't, I don't care." He looks down at me and I very quickly take into account the vast height difference.

"But if you're free now then why can't you just—" I start but he cuts me off.

"Appointment only, princess." He smiles sarcastically at me and backs up a bit. If I wasn't annoyed before, I am now.

We hold each other's stares for a mere second before he scoffs and shakes his head, looking away.

"Okay." I take a deep breath and turn to Kate and Emma, "let's just go somewhere else? It's not like this is the only tattoo parlor in New York." I expect them to agree but I'm surprised when they argue against my suggestion.

"No. I made an appointment here and I'm going to—"

"What's going on out here?" Another guy, a dirty blonde one, comes out from behind the curtain followed by two girls. The guy is covered in tattoos like his co-worker, but he seems like he could be more reasonable.