The Bucket List [ON HOLD]

The Bucket List - Part 7

          “Well fine, but don’t you need parental permission if you’re under 18? I don’t think your parents would approve of this.”

          Chance scowled, one of those rare things he almost never did. “I don’t care if it ruins my rich-boy image, I’m getting the freaking tattoo and that’s final.”

          Chance was one of the richest kids at our school, a fact that always bothered him. Unpredictable, outgoing Chance hated all the ceremony and stifling manners that his parents always demanded. But as quickly as his bad mood had come, it passed and he was grinning again.

          “Besides, I have my fake ID saying I’m 19, so it’s all good,” he said comfortably.

          Yes, in Canada our legal drinking age is 19. I guess it all works out, after all.

          “All right,” I sighed, leaning into Chance when he opened his arms. Something had changed between us; maybe it had been the summer apart, or the feeling of having Chance give up on me – even if it lasted for only a day – but suddenly, I didn’t mind all of Chance’s touching and cheesy jokes, and cheerful attitude.

          It scared me, but the feeling of Chance idly drawing designs on my back lessened the beating of my heart. If only he knew.

          I gave a shudder as his light fingers trailed over the nape of my neck, touching bare skin, and Chance froze. “Cold?” he asked.

          “Um, yeah,” I lied, pulling away from him. “I guess its sun today after all,” I babbled, crossing over from the shade to sit in the sun.

          But Chance was already smiling at a pair of girls who had come up to him, talking about some project and subtly flipping their hair. I sighed and looked away.

***

          “GAHH,” Chance was hissing as I recorded. I bit my lip as Chance winced again. The tattoo artist rolled his eyes, continuing drawing lines into Chance’s muscular skin. It had taken awhile to convince him that Chance did indeed want a tattoo of a barcode.

          “If you relaxed, it wouldn’t hurt so much,” he informed Chance for the twentieth time. Chance tried to relax his stiffened bicep, but cramped again the next moment the needle slid into his skin.

          “Son of a mother’s lover,” he muttered through gritted teeth, “Motherless child of a holy Pope, daughter of a self-absorbed lawyer, son of an almighty mother, father of a newborn child...”

          “Wow, Chance,” Carmen remarked in a monotone, “You really know how to cuss.”

          Chance glared at her, wincing now and then. “I try.”

          It took another good five minutes for him to be finished, and Chance vented out the pain with more strange, yet amazingly inoffensive phrases.

          Ian and Lacy had wandered off in the semi-lit room, inspecting pictures of previous customers. I preferred not to look at them in too much detail; some of them looked like they had been tortured, with pieces of metal stuck in places I never knew I had, and indecent tattoos drawn in even more indecent places.

          “Hey, guys,” Lacy said, rejoining us. She wore a purple wig and paste-on rings which customers could try to see where they wanted their piercing done and how it would look.

          She had two crystal stickers in her nose, her eyebrows ringed all the way up, and she had attached a fake one to her lip. Ian appeared beside her, also ridiculous, looking like David Bowie.