Our Favorite Days (My Favorite Mistake #3) (11 page)

“Hey, so I think we should do our tattoos this weekend.” It was a decision I’d made the other night when I couldn’t sleep after thinking about some of the clients at the center.

“Really?” I nodded. He beamed at me and I knew I’d definitely made the right decision. My mom was going to kill me, but this was important. To me. To him. To us together.

“Cool, okay, I’ll start looking around. I haven’t gotten one in a while so I want to find someone who’s good. I’ll ask Summer.” His friend from class had a ton, so she was sure to know who the good artists were.

“Sounds good,” I said, moving my hand and resting my head on his chest. His fingers tangled in my hair. I sighed and closed my eyes.

Things were going to be okay.

“A
re you sure you’re up for this?” I asked Taylor as we stood outside of Mainely Tattoo and Piercing. Punny name aside, Summer told me this was the place in Maine to get a decent tattoo. She was good friends with the owner, Rush. I looked at a ton of his stuff online to make sure he was the real deal.

“Uh huh,” Taylor said, nodding her head jerkily and looking up at the sign above the door as if she was looking at the entrance to Mordor.

“Missy,” I said, turning her toward me. “You don’t have to do this. We can turn around right now and go home.” She bit her bottom lip, which was sexy as hell, but then shook her head and squared her shoulders.

“Nope, I’m doing this.” With that, she turned on her heel and reached for the door, holding it open for me. I flashed back to the first time she’d seen all my tattoos.

“This one, you can see is a seven. It’s a lucky number in many cultures. This is your standard horseshoe. Sailors used to nail them to the masts of their ships to help them stay out of the path of storms.” I turned my back to show her the scarab beetle right on my spine.

Having her see all of me like this was somehow more intimate than if she saw me fully naked. She didn’t know it, but I was showing her parts of me that I didn’t show everyone else.

“You’re really mixing up your mythologies there, Z,” she said and I looked over my shoulder. The nickname zinged in my brain and I rolled my eyes at her.

“I’m all for diversity,” I said, trying to blow the whole thing off, but deep inside I was freaking out. I wanted her to like my ink, because it was such a huge part of who I had become. I nearly swallowed my tongue when she got off the bed and walked toward me.

Her fingers reached, as if she was going to touch the beetle, but she stopped herself before they got that far. I couldn’t read the look in her eyes.

“So there you have it,” I said, turning around quickly. “And then I just have a little star on my foot. So that’s my ink history. Now show me yours.” I smiled, just imagining what she could be hiding under those clothes. I’d probably lose my fucking mind.

“Sorry, dude, none to show.” She put the distance back between us, as if she was slamming a door in my face.

“I wasn’t asking about your tattoos, Missy,” I said, leaning forward and bracing my arms just outside her sexy legs. I was screwing with her again. Messing with her was the best part of my day.

“Why, Hunter, are you asking to see my lady parts?” she said sweetly. Her voice when right to my dick.

“Asking is putting it mildly,” I said, telling the truth. Her eyes flicked to my mouth and back to my eyes, as if she couldn’t decide what to do. Her cheeks flushed and she was so damn pretty.

“You’re just messing with me. You said you didn’t screw girls you liked,” she said, her voice not quite as strong as she probably wanted it to be. I looked down and saw that she had the sheets clenched in her hands. Ha, score one for Team Hunter.

“Oh, Missy, if you only knew,” I said, leaning forward like I was going to kiss her. I was so fucking close, but then I pulled back and walked out the door.

“You coming?” she asked because I’d clearly zoned out into the memory.

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

I
hadn’t told Taylor ahead of time what I wanted to get. Rush had a fair amount of ink himself, mostly portraits, but he had a few traditional American tattoos, including an anchor on his arm, as well as sparrows flying on the backs of each of his hands.

“You are not getting that,” Taylor said as she leaned over my shoulder to look at the printout I handed to Rush.

More than the stars
, written in her handwriting. It had taken some sneaking to get all the words without her knowing. I knew what people said about relationship tattoos, but I didn’t care.

“Yes, I am,” I said, turning to her. She was pissed, but I kissed her angry mouth anyway.

“You know that if you get that, something horrible is going to happen and then we’re going to break up and you’ll have that branded on you forever,” she said, jabbing her finger at the paper. Rush’s eyes flicked between us, unsure if he should intervene or just sit back and let us work it out.

“I want this branded on me forever,” I said, taking her hands. A tiny part of me had hoped that she would see it as a romantic gesture and love it, but I knew my girl better than that.

She yanked her hands out of mine.

“Yeah, you say that now!” The entire shop was watching our little display. The other artists had even turned off their tattoo guns so the buzzing that had been constantly in the background went away.

“Do you want to reschedule?” Rush said, giving me a sympathetic grin.

“Hell, no. Ink me up.” He looked at Taylor, who crossed her arms.

“If he wants to be an idiot, I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop him.” I grinned at her and I could see her fighting a smile.

“You are crazy, you know that right?” she said as I took her in my arms.

“Yup. Crazy for you, baby.” She rolled her eyes, but then smiled.

“You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do this to, like, prove that you love me. I know you love me. I’ve never doubted that.” I shook my head.

“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me. That’s all.” I shrugged and her arms curled around me. Finally. I rested my chin on her head.

“I want your words on me forever.”

I
t only took Rush a few minutes to do the tracing for my tattoo. Then he asked Taylor about hers. She pulled out a printout as well.

“I want something like this. I really like how the watercolor looks,” she said. I hadn’t been allowed to see hers either.

“Wow,” I breathed. It was beautiful. A peacock feather, but as if someone had done it with watercolors, the colors bleeding into one another and dripping a little. It was perfect. Rush asked her where she wanted it and she lifted up her shirt.

“Right here,” she said, pointing to an area right on her ribs. “I want it to go like this.” She took the picture and positioned it so that the feather was lying vertically on her side, as if it had been placed there.

“And do you want this size?” Rush asked. The design was about nine or ten inches long and several inches wide. Not huge, but not small either.

“Yup,” she said, putting her shirt back down. Rush smiled at her and shook his head.

“That’s gonna hurt like a bitch for your first one. You sure you wanna do this?” Taylor just gave him a look. I had been on the receiving end of that look many times. She might be small, but that look was terrifying.

He rubbed his chin and looked at her.

“Okay, we can do that.”

It took a while to even get to the tattooing part. We had to fill out paperwork and he had to trace the designs and then transfer them to our skin.

Taylor said she wanted to go first for some insane reason, but I talked her out of it. I wanted to give her one last chance to back out before it was too late.

I was getting the words tattooed on my forearm, where I could see them all the time. Taylor balked at that, but then caved in, muttering under her breath.

“This would be pretty easy to cover up. Uh, if the need ever arose,” Rush said, looking from me to Taylor and back. I put my arm up on the table for the transfer.

Taylor grumpily took another seat, which happened to be a rolling chair. She scooted over to me and held out her hand. I moved the arm that Rush wasn’t going to be tattooing toward her and she twisted our fingers together.

“More than the stars,” she said with a smile. Finally.

“More than the stars,” I said under the buzz of the tattoo gun.

O
kay, so everyone says that they’re scared of tattoos because of needles, but a tattoo needle looks nothing like an actual needle. More like one of those applicators they use for airbrush makeup. I only knew about that because Renee went to a wedding last summer and had gotten it done before she went.

Hunter’s tattoo took a little over an hour. Mine was going to take a whole lot longer because it required more color and detail.

“You ready?” Rush asked after he’d positioned me on the table. My shirt was hiked up and I had one of my hands behind my head. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but I was going to suck it up. I was doing this.

“Yup,” I said. Hunter moved into my line of vision, on the rolling chair, and squeezed my foot since he couldn’t really hold my hand.