Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
An hour later I sat on a cushioned chair in a tattoo shop and tried not to throw up.
“Are we sure I need to do this right now?” Mia and Kitty glared at me from the spinning stools they perched on nearby. “Fine, fine. I’m doing it.”
“It’s not so bad,” the tattoo artist, a woman around my age with electric-green hair and gorgeous floral tattoo sleeves, said.
I looked over at the tattoo machine. “Needles make me queasy.”
Mia nudged a wastebasket closer to me with her foot.
Alex, Nina, and Greyson remained at the front of the tattoo shop, giving me and the girls some privacy. From what I could hear of their conversation, it seemed they were arguing over Greyson getting a cartilage piercing.
When we’d arrived, Mia, Kitty, and I flipped through a binder of colorful designs, but I’d already known what I wanted. The truth was I’d known it all along, ever since I’d returned home from charter season and stood in my garden.
The tattoo artist sketched out the design and placed it above the crease in my right arm. I stepped over to the mirror and held my breath, moving from side to side, examining it from every angle.
“Do you like it?” Mia asked.
My eyes met theirs in the mirror. “Yeah. Do you?”
The girls nodded, and for once I didn’t get a snarky remark.
I let out a breath and turned to the tattoo artist. “All right. Let’s do this.”
I lowered myself into the chair again and squeezed Kitty’s hand, gritting my teeth as the tattoo artist leaned forward. The needle buzzed to life and bit into my skin, but the sting was more bearable than I’d imagined, and my grip on Kitty loosened.
“You know what they say, Jo,” Mia said.
“What do they say?”
“It only takes one tattoo to get addicted.”
“Have you ever seen a yacht stewardess covered in tattoos?”
Mia spun in a slow circle on her stool. “No. But you and Nina are the only ones I’ve met.” She paused in her spinning. “We could’ve gotten one together.”
“Yeah right, your mom would love that. As if she needs another reason to be mad at me right now.” I’d had Mia and Kitty call Beth as soon as they’d gotten in the van and tell her they were staying.
Seriously? she’d said. I switched my shift to pick you up.
Now my sleep schedule will be off. But she sounded relieved.
When the outline of the tattoo was almost finished, Kitty said she was bored, though I suspected the sight of ink and blood had gotten to her.
She joined Greyson and Nina at the front to look through displays of jeweled earrings, belly button rings, and nose rings.
Alex caught my eye and shot me a small smile that I returned, reminding me of the first time I saw him.
My heart fluttered like a sail again—no, again wasn’t right.
It just kept on fluttering. I don’t think it ever really stopped.
Mia nodded to my arm. “What’s it mean?”
We were alone with the tattoo artist, our voices muffled by the buzzing.
I looked in the mirror and watched the progress unfold.
It felt like scratching at a sunburn, but it was more uncomfortable than painful.
The tattoo artist had finished the outline and began filling it in with bursts of red.
A sword lily, or, as Samson had called it, a gladiolus. Our birthday flower.
“It’s for Samson.”
“Obviously.” Mia rolled her chair closer to me. “But why that one?”
I told Mia about the morning Samson had discovered my blog.
How he’d helped me pick out flowers for my garden and answered every question I had about taking care of them.
I told her what he’d said about Roman gladiators wearing them around their necks for protection.
How whenever I saw them in my garden, I took a picture for him, even though I couldn’t send it.
I told her how I imagined the most beautiful ones were ones he’d sent for me.
Mia stared at her hands in her lap. The hard lines that had taken over her face this summer softened. “I can’t stop thinking it’s my fault.”
“I know,” I said. “But it’s not your fault. And I wish I could’ve told you that sooner. I spent all summer trying to distract you—and myself, I guess—from thinking about what had happened. But all along we should’ve been facing this together.”
Mia laughed. “You come up with pretty good distractions.”
“I do, don’t I?” I winced as the tattoo artist passed over a sensitive part of my arm. “Though maybe this wasn’t my best idea. I’m only trading one type of pain for another.”
“Which hurts worse?”
“I think you know.”
Mia nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“You’ll be okay,” I said. “Not all the time, not every day. But you will be. And I know you can’t forgive yourself right now, but eventually you will. I promise.”
Tears ran down Mia’s cheeks again, and she pressed her hands to her face. “Ugh, what are you doing to me?”
“What I should’ve done all along,” I said, reaching out with the arm that wasn’t currently being jabbed by a needle to take her hand.
—
When we returned to the condo after getting the girls clothes at Target and stopping to pick up pizza, the six of us piled into my living room to watch My Super Sweet 16.
Nina sat on one side of me, and Alex on the other.
The girls spread out on the floor in front of the TV.
With everyone here, safe, I relaxed for the first time all day.
“My first charter season I had a primary whose kid was on this show,” Nina said. “That kid thought he could get away with murder.”
“He probably could,” Alex said. “I don’t get the appeal of this. It makes me scared for the future.”
I took the last bite of my pizza and leaned over Alex to set my plate on the side table. “You don’t have to worry. For every kid like that, there’s three like them.” I nodded to Mia, Kitty, and Greyson.
“You mean for every entitled brat, there are three trespassing delinquents?”
I elbowed him in the side. “You know what I mean.”
When Nina went home, Alex and I left the girls to another episode and escaped to the patio.
We each took a lounge chair and leaned it as far back as it could go.
After the chaos of the morning, Alex had been quieter than usual all afternoon.
I wondered what he was thinking about as he sat there, so near to me, and yet not near enough.
“Alex?”
He turned his head to me. “Hm?”
“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. I didn’t mean it. I don’t really think you’re a . . . a martyr or anything. Greyson’s lucky to have you. And I understand if you never want to speak to me again. I shouldn’t have brought her into it.”
Alex shook his head. “How could you think I’d never want to speak to you again? I was mad, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. You can’t get rid of me that easy. And I shouldn’t have said what I did either.”
Relief flooded through me. At least I hadn’t pushed him away completely. “No,” I said, holding back a laugh. What he’d said about me was true. Ever since Shitty Peter and I broke up, I’d said I wanted to be alone, and that was exactly what I’d gotten. “You were right about me.”
Alex held my gaze. “Maybe you were right about me too.”
“I’m serious about paying you back for that flight I didn’t take.”
Alex put his arms behind his head and looked up at the sky. “I told you, it was an early birthday present.”
Which was what I figured he’d say, so I let it go.
“Remember when you asked me what Samson was like?”
Alex turned his face to me. “Yes.”
“And I said he was great.”
“You did.”
I watched the palm trees sway in the breeze. “Will you ask me that question again?”
Alex sat up. No almost smile touched his lips, but his expression was kind. “What was he like?”
I closed my eyes, picturing Samson as he’d been the last time I saw him.
He’d come with Mark to drop me off at the airport.
Before wheeling my suitcase inside, I’d turned back to wave, and Samson was already hanging out the window, waving back with both hands, laughter in his eyes.
“He was . . . busy, for one. Energetic like Greyson.” I laughed, remembering how I’d once told Samson he’d probably found every good climbing tree in Palm Beach.
“He was crawling, and I mean full-on crawling, not army crawling, at six months. Walking at nine. I caught him climbing a windowsill when he was two. He was always climbing things.”
“What else?”
“He loved baseball, plants, and video games. He never cared what anyone thought, even when they said he was girlie for liking flowers. He was kind, but you’d regret it if you made him mad.
You can ask Kitty about that. They were always at each other’s throats.
The last few years we’d, uh . . .” I took a slow breath, the memory sharp and painful.
“We’d call each other right at midnight on our birthday, so we’d be the first ones to say happy birthday to each other.
My sister didn’t know about that, she’s strict with bedtimes. ”
I tried not to cry, but it was impossible, because I missed him.
What was I supposed to do at midnight on my birthday this year when my phone didn’t ring?
“I know I’m not supposed to have favorites,” I said.
“And I love Mia and Kitty so much it hurts, but Samson was my favorite. We just had this . . . bond.” I wiped my eyes with Alex’s shirt I hadn’t yet changed out of.
“That’s what I meant to say when I told you he was great. ”
“You must miss him a lot.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. All morning as we’d raced from place to place in pursuit of Mia and Kitty, I thought about what Alex had said about trying long-distance.
I loved being around him, listening to him sing, watching him cook, having him close.
I loved him. But the events of the last two days had only made me more certain long-distance wasn’t what I wanted.
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t do long-distance.”
“I know.”
I sat up in my chair, pivoting to face him.
We were only inches apart, which was too far for me.
I crossed the space between us and sat beside him, feeling the warmth of his thigh against mine.
He watched me, silent, and I ran a hand through his hair, unable to keep myself from touching him any longer.
“But I don’t want to keep my distance either,” I said. “I want to be together until you leave, even if it makes things harder when you go.”
His eyes searched mine, and he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I stared at him, wanting to keep him forever in my mind exactly how he was now.
I memorized the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck, the precise angle of that almost smile, the exact shade of his eyes, more amber than honey, really.
He took my face gently in his hands, that intense look in his eyes again, and I was sure I’d die if he didn’t kiss me right then.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait, because the next moment he leaned in, brushing his lips against mine.
The kiss was intimate, unlike our kiss at the bar when we were strangers.
Tender, unlike the desperate kisses in the parking lot of the karaoke restaurant.
My hands found his shoulders and I tugged him down on top of me, kissing him until I forgot where I was.
When he pulled away, I felt light-headed in the best possible way.
But already, the distance between us was too much, and I tried not to think about how much I’d miss him when he left.
He hovered over me, out of breath, eyes all mischief. “Friends?”
“Absolutely not,” I said, the two of us laughing as I pulled him to me once more.