Page 119 of Dirty Like Zane
I’d sworn to him this morning that if he let me come along with him to the tattoo parlor today while he got his tattoo, I wasn’t gonna freak out. Just because I’d almost fainted when I saw Jude getting a tattoo once didn’t mean I was gonna be a freak aboutthis.
Or so I’dhoped.
It wasn’t like I’d ever seenZaneget a tattoo before, though. How did I know for sure how I’d react to watching him gettortured?
Until today, Zane didn’t have any tattoos. Jude had a ton of them, Brody had several, and Jesse had one big one on his forearm, but for a bunch of rock stars, the members of Dirty weren’t all that into tattoos. Zane himself had claimed aloud, more than once, that he didn’t want to “desecrate” the work of art God had made—i.e., his body—by putting ink onit.
I was pretty sure that comment was aimed at Jesse, since Jesse’s tattoo was pretty damn sexy and girls were always wanting to touchit.
When I asked Zane this morning, seriously, why he’d never gotten a tattoo before and why he suddenly felt the need to get this one, he told me,Just feelsright.
He was getting a Viking ship, one of those cool dragon boat things, on his right shoulder. Except that the dragon part of the boat turned into this giant serpent that wrapped around the boat. He had it all sketched out by a tattoo artist; he’d been conversing with this guy Jude had connected him with for a couple of weeks already, and had made an appointment to see him while we were here inNashville.
When I’d asked Zane the meaning behind the tattoo, he’d asked me in return,What are Vikings famousfor?
When I’d answered,Uh, raping and pillaging?he’d given me a mildly dirty look and said,Boats, Maggie. They were seafarers, explorers. Feel like I’m conquering new ground here, that’sall.
Later, I’d heard him tell the guys,It’s to commemorate some big shit in my life. I’m fucking serious about staying clean, and marring the beauty of this God-given body of mine? Serious as itgets.
Then he’d winked at me, and I knew that last part was kind of a joke. Except that it also reallywasn’t.
He was serious as hell about stayingclean.
Then he’d explained to me privately that the serpent symbolized his addiction, that it would always be with him, but he wasn’t going to let it take himdown.
I’d almost cried when he told me that, I was so proud of him… But I’d managed to keep mycool.
Right now, I was totally losingit.
“Maggs,” he said, “why don’t you go get some air, stretch your legs? You know, take a walk around the block and chillout.”
“Oh…” I glanced nervously at that buzzing needle scraping at his flesh and shivered. “I can stay with you though, you know, for moralsupport.”
“Sweetheart,” the tattoo artist drawled, “that’s his polite way of asking you to getgone.”
I looked at Zane and he justsmiled.
“You want me togo?”
“Why don’t you go find somewhere for us to eat? And I’ll take you for lunch afterthis.”
“Oh. Okay.” I got up and retrieved my purse, taking a final glance at the ink that was permanently marking him. The tattoo artist glanced up at me and smirked. I gave him a narrow eye, then told Zane, “Text me when you’redone.”
Then I went to find someplace yummy for us to eat… even though the thought of eating right now was making me feel a littlequeasy.
I pushed through the door of the tattoo parlor to be greeted by sunshine and crisp spring air, and Shady, who was leaning against a lamp post. I waved at him and took a deep breath, trying to relax mynerves.
Apparently, I had a major aversion to seeing Zane in physical pain, and watching him get inked made me want to stab that tattoo guy in the eye with his tattoogun.
But other than that… it was a pretty goodday.
For the last five weeks, I’d been enjoying my life as assistant manager to Dirty again—a hell of a lot—and working literally side-by-side withZane.
Actually, I’d been spending every possible moment withhim.
I’d even started accompanying him to his interviews and appearances. He’d started doing them again, at a much gentler pace than usual, and so far, sogood.
I hadn’t gone to a single interview on this tour before Zane got clean. I could have. I worked closely with our publicity teams and was the main point of contact for all of them—we had a main publicist in Vancouver, a company we worked with out of L.A., and another one in Europe—and I probably would’ve gone along with the band members more often for their day-to-day promo stuff on this tour, if it didn’t mean I’d have to see Zane somuch.
