"Thanks." Adam might have blushed at the compliment, pleased as he was by its offering; like many fans of various body modifications, she seemed to regard the art form with something akin to reverence, and her praise meant quite a lot. Instead he merely shifted his weight, one booted foot to the other, drawing his lower lip between his teeth.
The innuendo utterly escaped Adam, as did the hasty retreat of the lurker who had seen them. He was merely pleased to know her artist would work with an already heavily painted canvas, and that something even more impressive might be made of his work in progress. "He's welcome to," Adam laughed, oblivious. He looked down to the path of her soft fingertip, smiling as he studied those lines for what might have been the thousandth time. Each session was a memory, a snapshot of his life at that one moment in time. It brought him a deep sense of joy to think on it, to share a piece of him with someone else this way.
"Left arm," he said, his shoulder lifting to indicate the patterns inked and re-inked over time. "Cooper was good enough to overlook my age, probably so he could use me as a guinea pig for his new style and his own art. Worked out well for us both. So he started up here." He pointed to the curve of his shoulder, one black nail tracing inward toward his collar bone. "I could cover that with my shirt and still get a lot done on it before eighteen. After that, things went faster." Belatedly he realized his tee shirt still hung limply from his hand. He slipped back into it, easing it gently over the sharp points of his dark hair. "I'd be interested to see how your friend would add to it. We should head east some time and find out."