Marcus stifled a yawn as he walked around the shop. Another day, another forty dollars down the tubes.
Why did he bother to open his own jewelry shop? He should have stayed with the chain store in the mall. But no, he wanted to create, to be his own man, make his own hours, do his own thing. At first, he had customers who followed him from the other store. Then he had to charge them. He had to charge them for not only the materials, but his labor, his work.
People don’t like paying for work, he realized, and the customers left him in droves saying that he was priced way too high for their tastes.
Marcus couldn’t make his livelihood on the beauty of his art, so had to resort to diversifying. So when the dragon-tattooed man walked into his store, he imagined right awayy that the man was going for his “diversified” part of the store – the charms.
These were real charms, for charm bracelets, that did real magical things. The magic didn’t last long, but he didn’t have to tell them that. He had to sell it, get it out the door, and make his forty dollars a day to make the rent.
“Good afternoon, sir, how can I help you?”
“You’re Marcus Lane?”
“Yes…” Marcus tilted his head.
“‘The’ Marcus Lane?”
“What do mean by ‘the’?”
The man with the dragon tattoo said, “I heard you do your own work.”
“I haven’t done many commissions in a while,” he said.
“I heard that if I tell you a story, you can make a piece of jewelry about it.”
Marcus winced, “Like I said, it has been a while…”
“If I tell you a story, will you make a piece?”
“That depends on the story.”
The man said, “It’s the story of two men, both from the military, one very hurt after he saw the man he loved die, the other hurt over and over as the men he was involved with left him, having nothing to do with him. Both from different branches, but both coming together, respecting each other.”
“Tell me more.” Marcus reached for a piece of paper, turned it over onto its blank side, and waited.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with him, regardless of what my family thinks, regardless of what anyone thinks.”
He started to draw, scratched at it, grabbed another piece of paper, drew some more. “What branches of the military?”
“He was Marines, I was the Army.”
“Hidden,” Marcus said, drawing some more, scratching, getting more paper. “Tell me more.”
“My family – ”
“About you. About him. Together.” He drew a circle. “Together, a circle, with each other – it has to be a circle, pure, no seam.” Something in Marcus soared, as the old creative juices came back, flowing, while a part of him said, Don’t get your hopes up, he’ll never be able to afford this.
“I got hurt, and he saw that. I ran from my family, my home, to make a new home here. And I found him. Or he found me. He fixes bikes. He’s a good-hearted man.”
“Do you love him?”
There was a log pause. Yeah. I do.”
Marcus got a red china pencil and colored a part of the circle in. Then he grabbed another piece of paper, picked it up, and drew something with pencil and pen. The tattooed man watched, as something took shape. Then he held it up. It looked like a circle with ropes around it, and entwined in the ropes were pieces of red. “Titanium ropes wound thrice around the finger with ruby shards in between to symbolize the love you bear, and how he holds you.”