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than simply a table with working space. Instead of a curtain it was closed off by a wall with a window in the middle of it and had a set of double doors which stayed open unless they had a big project or an extensive modification.
    The window was used for easier communication but had a pull out cover if the client wanted privacy.
    "It's a rush as always. I have a friend coming later. A rock star wanting his first tattoo." Adam smirked at what seemed like a private joke.
    "Someone I know?" Zach asked almost absentmindedly as he prepared his working surface and took out the disinfecting supplies.
    "'Guessing Game,'" he said, "I don't know if you even listen to music anymore, but they've been around for a few years. Hit it big last spring."
    "Never heard of them," but the girl in his seat obviously had because her eyes got big and glazed.
    "You know who they are?" Zach asked, and she nodded quickly, gripping at her seat.
    Adam laughed on the other side of the window, working on the shoulder tattoo. "Noah is an attention whore. Everyone who's bothered to turn on the TV in the past year has heard of him."
    "Yeah, well, I'm not one of those people," Zach said and sat down on his chair, pulling up closer to the girl and appraising her ear.
    "You'll meet him today," Adam said with a much more subdued tone.
    "I bet you would like to stay here until he comes?" Zach grinned at the girl patiently sitting there while Zach measured the bars she'd picked out with Jill.
    "Yes!" It was more a squeak than an answer and she blushed, forcing an honest grin out of Zach.
    The procedure was standard considering how many of them he'd done over the years. Zach talked her through it, made sure she really wanted it and disinfected everything twice just to make sure. This was something he always did since the first piercing he'd had done got infected. There wasn't a better learning curve than personal experience.
    As soon as Zach started working, time started slipping by him. After the girl came another, then a guy, and after that he just lost count. He wasn't fast when it came to the job, since he tried to give everyone the time they deserved and the best focus an artist could give them, but by the time noon rolled over quite a few people had passed over his chair and only the sudden commotion at the front of the parlor made him look up from the cute little belly button and through the uncovered window. The curtains were drawn on a couple of stations, enough to block his view so Zach turned back to the job at hand.
    "Noah!" He heard Adam scream but Zach was a professional and managed to finish and clean the piercing before looking back up again and noticing the exchange of handshakes and hugs with the tall man standing in the middle of Adam's employees.
    Suddenly the girl in his chair screamed and Zach turned back to her, fear gripping his insides. He had moved all the sharp objects from her vicinity. But the girl wasn't looking at him, she was staring through the window, red in the face and fanning herself.
    It seemed so ridiculous in that particular moment that Zach lost it.
    He laughed all the way down from his belly like he hadn't done in months and even though he knew the girl was embarrassed and people were starting to look, he just couldn't stop. Through his laugh he reached for the aftercare pamphlet and somehow gasped out to the now grinning girl to talk to Jill up the front. Jill always repeated the care instructions after the artist was done with the client.
    The girl stopped once she reached the crowd and thrust the pamphlet to the man in the middle who procured a pen from what seemed like thin air and signed an autograph. Oh, well, at least that meant she would keep the pamphlet at hand.
    As the man grinned, giving the girl her autograph he looked up and suddenly held Zach's gaze.
    Saying lightning struck would be excessive, but Zach couldn't look away and his laughter was a thing of the past. He was close to smitten as those make-up