So if a new friend or prospective beau didn’t pass the Bay test? It’s “don’t pass go and fuck your two hundred dollars” without a second thought.

Still, even I was surprised at how quickly he adopted Declan. A few days after the family dinner I stopped by Ritual Ink. I’d gone to my mom’s house to pick up my car, and she asked me to drop something off to Bay since his shop was on my way home. It was my day off, so I swung by Wicked Brews and grabbed a tray of coffees for everyone. I knocked on the glass door, since it was only a quarter to eleven and they weren’t open yet.

Will let me in to the front of the shop, which I’d helped make into a comfortable waiting area when Bay first opened. A tan faux-leather couch and matching chairs surrounded a coffee table full of magazines. The walls were painted a light tea green, with either framed custom art by the tattoo artists or the smaller, pre-made flash designs for people that either wanted something small and simple or weren’t sure what they wanted yet. The back wall didn’t have any frames, but instead boasted a large panther mural.

Once he relocked the door, Will immediately leaned over the coffee tray like it was one of those boxes of chocolates where you had to guess at the flavors. He wiggled his fingers over them, momentarily indecisive, before snagging the tallest to-go cup. “Pikachu, I pick you!” He took a sip and sighed happily.

Will was easily one of my favorite people. He was well over six foot, broad-shouldered, and had tattoos that started on his neck and kept going down. He made a great piercer, because he seemed to naturally generate calming waves. I’d never tested it, but I was pretty sure standing next to Will lowered your blood pressure.

Watching him pierce kids’ ears was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.

“I didn’t know you were into Pokémon,” I said, leaning into the hug I knew he would offer. Will was a hugger. He was good at it, too. Every single person in my house had stopped in on a bad day just to get a hug from Will. He should start charging.

“I’m not, but it’s been on my mind all week ever since this lady came in to test an experimental sex toy.” He let me go and took a long sip from his coffee.

I waited. Nope, he was just going to leave it like that. “You’re going to need to help me connect the dots between ‘Pokémon’ and ‘experimental sex toy’ and why you were involved in the process.”

He nodded. Totally normal conversation for Will. “Oh yeah, well, she needed to see if the jewelry we use for genital piercings would be a problem. I guess the ball involves magnets and she was concerned because she didn’t know what our body jewelry was made of.” He tilted his head and squinted. “I can imagine that it would cause issues if you had iron in delicate areas. Unfortunate tugging and all of that. I told her that none of our jewelry has ferromagnetic properties—our basic jewelry is made of implant grade titanium—but she wanted to see for herself.”