Home | Happy Lowman/OC (Book 1)

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VICTORIA
TACOMA, WA

Victoria's hands felt clammy as she walked into the tattoo shop in downtown Tacoma. Her best friend, Jacquelyn was close behind appearing to be as calm as ever. The blonde had talked Victoria into their current plans and now it was time to see them through.

She wasn't sure why she'd gone along with it, why she'd agreed in the first place. Tattoos had never been her thing. She was raised in a conservative home, and despite her unruly history with following the rules, a permanent mark on her skin brought back the fear she still carried in her heart for her father's disappointment.

Your parents don't dictate your life anymore, she thought to herself. You're an adult.

And yet even at twenty-five, what her parents had seeded in her brain all those years ago when she was too young to think for herself was still there, hidden beneath layers of maturity and personal growth, of life experience.

Jacquelyn on the other hand, was covered in tattoos from head to toe. She was so vibrant with all of the color littering her skin alongside the sparkling jewelry through her ears and nose. Victoria and Jacquelyn, best friends since their first year of junior high school when Victoria's brother Gabriel invited her over after class one day. They were complete opposites, but Victoria couldn't imagine a life without her. The three of them were nearly inseparable for years, some of the best of their lives.

But Gabriel was gone, now, and it was just the two of them left. He was older, already graduated when tragedy struck. No matter how hard their parents tried, they couldn't keep Gabriel from taking the wrong path, from befriending the wrong kind of people. He paid with his life. The dark side seemed to call to him and it called him home with a vengeance. Victoria still felt the pain of his death even now. They were at the tattoo shop to honor him, at least Victoria was.

The moment they stepped into Boneshakers, Victoria felt like she was submerged into a different world, a world she knew once when she was much younger, when Gabriel was still round, a colorful world she very much used to be a part of.
 

There was heavy rock music playing from a stereo behind the counter, and the smell of cigarettes and patchouli were thick in the air. The walls were littered with artwork that pulled her eyes in a hundred different directions. Pirate ships and portraits, sleeves of multicolored flowers and bible passages in intricate script. There was so much to look at, so many options, so much talent and Victoria found herself feeling completely out of her element, totally overwhelmed. Once, she'd fit in there, but the present version felt the opposite.

Jacquelyn stepped up to the desk where a man with spiky black hair was flipping through a magazine. His expression was entirely uninterested until he looked up to see the hot girl in front of him.

"Welcome, welcome," he said with a smirk, closing the edition of Rolling Stone. "I'm Jake."

"Jacquelyn, this is Victoria. I made appointments for both of us a few weeks ago." Victoria pulled her eyes from the walls to see him smirking at her friend.

"Did you request a specific artist?"

"Frankie for me. She started a touch up on my sleeve a few weeks ago and I'm just back for the finishing touches. Victoria wants something small, so I trust you can pick someone for her."