Chapter 9 #2
As if he could hear my thoughts, JJ smirked but thankfully reached down and pulled his pants up. “So what do you think?” he asked, threading the strap of his belt through the buckle and yanking it tight. “Want to get some ink with me?”
I hesitated, not wanting to kill his excitement, but eventually shook my head.
“Look, I get the whole ‘tattoos are the scars we choose’ spiel, I really do, but I feel like my first one needs to represent something for me. I don’t know what that is yet, but when I finally do, I’ll let you come with me. ”
JJ’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose that’s reasonable, but I’m holding you to that promise.”
I nodded.
“Good. Now scoot.”
He motioned with his hand for me to move over, and I barely managed to shift my position before he flopped down.
The beanbag was a two-seater that Stella and I easily fit on without any issues, but JJ took up more space than the average person.
As he settled down beside me, I felt the brush of a knuckle against my thigh.
My breath caught. I wanted to think it was an accident, but something about the curve of his lips told me he’d done it on purpose, and I didn’t know how to feel about that.
Frustrated, maybe? I knew JJ was a flirt.
He openly admitted that to me. Heck, he started flirting within a minute of discovering me in Drew’s room at the frat party.
It hadn’t bothered me before, but from the moment I agreed to be his fake girlfriend, our relationship shifted in my mind.
I was hyperaware of him now—the way his eyes crinkled when he teased me, the easy way he took up space, how he listened with his whole body—and I had a bad feeling that would make keeping my vow more difficult than I imagined.
“If you’re not ready for a tat, you’ll have to explain some of your list to me,” he said, casually dropping an arm around my shoulders. His cologne smelled like citrus with a hint of cloves. “There’s not much left on it that makes sense.”
“You don’t actually need to help me with this,” I said, not because I didn’t want his assistance but because I had the impression he would ask about number eleven again.
And there was no way I was telling him about that.
“Seriously, I’m perfectly capable of completing it on my own.
I’m sure we can find something else to do. ”
JJ turned his head to the side, and for a quiet moment, the two of us studied each other as if we could figure out everything we wanted to know about the other in the span of a few heartbeats.
There was just enough light filtering through the window for me to take in all the little details of his face.
Two small beauty moles marked his left temple, and a thin, barely visible scar half an inch wide ran parallel to his jawline.
I was most intrigued by his eyes, however. They weren’t just brown but a deep amber color ringed with gold. I always thought blue eyes were the prettiest, but staring at JJ now, I realized how wrong I was. Blue could be striking, but brown was warm and tender. Sensual even.
“Cara,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “I want to help, truly.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, but the little resistance I’d felt was already melting away.
He nodded. “I just need some clarification. For example”—he paused to pull out his phone and reference the picture of my list—“who the hell is Colonel Mustard?”
A laugh escaped me. “He’s kind of this local hero? He fought for the Union in the Civil War. Apparently he snuck into a camp of Confederate soldiers and sabotaged a bunch of their cannons or something? I’m not entirely sure on the details.”
“Wait…so he was a real colonel? And his surname was Mustard, like the character from Clue?”
“Yup.”
“Wow, major props to him. If my last name was Mustard, I’d want to be a colonel just so I could say, ‘Yes, it was me in the billiards room with the candlestick!’ every time I was introduced to someone.
Not sure if I could handle life in the army since I hate following rules, but props to that dude. ”
I frowned. “I highly doubt that’s why he joined the army.”
That earned me a half smile. “How do you know? Unless you’re a freaky spiritual medium who can speak to the dead, it’s impossible to know what his motives were,” JJ replied. “Which leads me to a very important question—how do we take a picture with a dead guy?”
“Well, that’s not—”
“Wait,” he said, cutting me off. “A more important question just occurred to me. Why do you want a picture with a dead guy?”
“Not a dead guy,” I said before he could interrupt me again. “A statue.”
“Let me get this straight. You want a picture of yourself with a statue of a dead guy?”
His bewilderment made me grin. “Yeah, pretty much.”
JJ shook his head. “I’m so confused right now.”
“That’s because it’s not actually about the picture,” I told him. “It’s about the challenge of taking said picture.”
It took a second, but understanding finally flickered in his eyes. “Now I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
“Okay, so when Colonel Mustard came home from the war, he purchased a stretch of land right outside Rochester. A few years later, he married the mayor’s daughter, had five kids, and lived happily ever after. When he died, the city commissioned a statue of him to honor his service.”
“And where did they put this statue?” JJ asked, leaning to the side so he could extract a box of Tic Tacs from his pocket.
“It used to be housed in the atrium of city hall,” I said as he popped the lid, “but they removed it thirty years ago during a building remodel.”
“Where is it now?” He held the mints out to me, and after I took one, he tapped three onto his palm.
“Well, Colonel Mustard’s descendants still own the land he built his home on.
Back in the seventies, they turned the property into a super ritzy private country club,” I explained as JJ crunched on his Tic Tacs.
“During the city hall remodel, his family offered to relocate the statue for safekeeping. It’s been in the foyer of Wyndgate Country Club ever since. ”