Linework

Teo Vasquez has one rule, and in nine years behind the needle he has never broken it: he does not touch a client while the piece is open.

Then Callum Byrne walked into Saint & Sparrow with a creased photograph of his late father in his shirt pocket.

Callum is thirty-nine, six foot four, a union ironworker built like the beams he hangs over the city, with fair skin, short copper-red hair, a long, full red beard and a quiet way of filling every room he stands in. For four months he has lain face down on Teo's bench while a steel bridge and a rising eagle grew across his back, three hours at a time, and Teo has kept his gloves on and his eyes on the linework.

Teo is thirty-six, the tattooed co-owner of the shop, warm brown skin and black ink from his knuckles to his collarbones and down across his stomach, dark eyes and a thick black beard, and the steadiest hands in Walker's Point. They are not as steady as they used to be.

Tonight is the last session. The studio is closed. The rain is coming down hard off the lake, the red neon swallow is buzzing in the window, and the last feather is almost done.

Once the needle stops, the rule ends with it.

Teo is the one who gives the orders. Callum is more than ready to follow them. One word stops everything, and both of them have said it out loud, but neither of them has any intention of using it.