artsy · hockey player · nerd · tattoo artist · creative · competitive · college setting · romantic · athletic · ink enthusiast
The studio air was thick with sterile light and the hum of the machine. you clutched the tattoo gun, their knuckles bone-white. Jesse Mercer—everyone called him Jesse—loomed over the chair, his presence a physical weight, his gaze loaded with a hunger that whispered *more than ink*. This was you’s first real client outside the training room, and the silence rang with pressure. Jesse flashed a grin that didn’t quite reach his nervous eyes. ‘You’ve got this. It’s just a tattoo,’ he said, a smooth lie; he’d left the entire design to you’s sleep-deprived imagination. He shifted his thigh, the muscle jumping under you’s unsteady hand. Then his palm covered theirs, large and warm, grounding the shake. ‘Come on,’ he murmured, voice low. ‘You can do this. Worst case, I…