CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIZ
“Tell me again how you managed to remain clean and dry through that fiasco?” I ask, using a dishtowel—the easiest thing within reach—to absorb the first bit of water drenching my clothes and hair. If I can just get to the bathroom without dripping the entire way, I’ll be happy.
“I guess because the man with the charm and the muscles didn’t feel like wrapping himself around me to roll around in the mud.” Holly shrugs innocently before her expression turns feline.
I scowl. “Don’t be gross. I already have mud inside my bra. I don’t need anything else to feel disgusting about.”
“Right.” Holly nods, still smirking. “Disgust. That’s what you feel.”
I’m about to insist that it’s exactly what I feel when the door opens and Jovi walks in shirtless and blows every argument to smithereens.
Goddamn. I knew he had that tattoo on his arm, some dumb boys’ version of a friendship bracelet between him and Trent, but I had no idea about the mandala art sprawling from his chest over his left shoulder, spilling partially down his other arm and all across his back.
And are those...nipple piercings? Not surprising, but annoyingly, infuriatingly, fucking hot.
I also hadn’t realized just how much fucking time the man must spend working out.
I obviously knew his clothes fit him well, and his frequently exposed forearms certainly hinted at what lay beyond, but I never let my mind trail beyond the visible.
Never cared to know. Never fucking dared to consider it.
“Kids are hosing each other off,” he says, running a hand over his head to catch the wet strands of hair that didn’t make it into the messy bun-meets-ponytail situation he threw most of his dirty-blond hair into.
Irritatingly, this only makes him more attractive.
“But they’re definitely going to need a bath.
” His eyes land on mine and he grins. “You have something crawling on your head.”
“I do not.” I fight every instinct to reach for my head and shake out my hair in a panic. There’s no way I’m falling for this stupid prank.
“You do,” Holly adds, taking a step back as if the thing crawling on me might be prone to jumping.
“Are you serious?”
She nods. “It’s big. I think it was hiding in your braid.”
“Oh my God!” I start dancing nervously in place. I want the thing out of my hair, but I also don’t want it to move from my head to other parts of my body. “Get it off!”
Jovi’s hand curls around my elbow. “Hold still.” He chuckles softly as the other hand reaches for the top of my head and he uses his bare fingers to grab whatever creepy crawly beast was prowling around in my hair.
“Got it.” In one smooth motion, he releases me and goes for the door, returning whatever was crawling on me back into the wild.
“Wanna know what it was?” he asks, coming back around to face me.
“No.” I wiggle my head back and forth, suddenly convinced I feel a hundred little legs moving across my scalp.
“Want me to check and make sure he didn’t have any friends?” He steps in closer, both hands moving for my head before I have a chance to answer.
“Yes, please.” I dip my chin toward my chest to give him better access. Not that he needs it. Standing this close to him it's impossible to miss how much he towers over me.
“I’m going to undo what’s left of your braid, okay?”
I nod, struggling not to fidget. I’m not so sure I can even blame my nerves on bugs in my hair anymore.
Jovi’s hands move gently over my head and through my hair, trailing down to carefully tug free the hair tie. He tosses the hot pink rubber band onto the counter with one hand while the other starts combing through what’s left of my braid, softly giving the strands a shake as he sets them free.
After taking the time to examine the length of my mane, he works his way back to my scalp. The way his fingertips rove over my skin feels so damn nice I almost sigh out loud.
I catch myself only to realize I’ve closed my eyes. As if this is some sort of spa treatment, not Jovi searching for crawly things in my hair.
Annoyed with myself, I don’t simply open my eyes, I full-on let them bug out. Another bad move. Because I’m inches from Jovi’s chest. His bare chest. “When did you get your nipples pierced?”
I feel a surprised tug at my hair as Jovi huffs a laugh. “Six years ago. You really do like to pretend I’m invisible, don’t you.”
My nose scrunches. “Just because I don’t make it a point to look at your nipples doesn’t mean I act like you’re invisible.”
His fingers glide through my hair one last time. “You’re good. No other spiders.”
I flip my head up with a gasp. “You weren’t supposed to tell me what it was.”
“Sorry.” But he doesn’t look sorry. He looks smug. “Wanna know what else you missed while pretending I don’t exist?”
“No.”
He grins. “Yeah, you do.”
He’s right. But only because I’m nosy. And now that he’s hinted at something, I need to know what it is. Not because I care. Because my sanity depends on it.
“No. I absolutely don’t.” The lie makes my jaw hurt.
“Forget her stubborn ass,” Holly chimes in sliding her hip along the counter until she’s standing right beside me and across from Jovi. “I’ll play. What did she miss?”
“I missed nothing,” I insist. “He’s taunting me, that’s all.”
Jovi shrugs. “If you say so.”
Fine, so I wasn’t aware of the second tattoo either.
But I'm going to choose to believe I haven’t seen him shirtless and missed this obvious change to his appearance.
The barbells in his nipples, those I definitely missed.
And yes, I do make it a point to avoid looking at him from the neck down when he’s not wearing a shirt.
I also avoid looking at his smug face. Hell, maybe I do prefer to pretend he’s invisible.
“It’s not like you know what’s going on under my clothes either,” I counter. A mistake, I realize when I see the flash in his eyes and the smirk curling his lip.
“I know that you’ve had the words ‘I believe in fairy tales’ tattooed on the left side of your ribcage since your eighteenth birthday.
I know you have a burn shaped like an L on your lower back over your right hip.
That’s been there since you were twenty-three and that jackass you were dating wasn’t paying attention when he pulled a cookie sheet out of the oven and bumped into you.
You were wearing a crop top. And in his panic, the idiot nearly dropped the sheet and then knocked into you a second time, making the mark bigger. ”
He takes a step closer, his voice dropping lower. “And I know this time of year, you’re covered in freckles from your chest all the way down to your belly button.”
I gulp. The only thing that could possibly be louder is my pounding heart. “It’s a little weird that you know all that,” I whisper.
“It’s only weird because you think pretending the other is invisible is a mutual thing we do.
” Then he has the audacity to wink at me and turn away as if the last two minutes never happened.
“She was right,” he tells Holly, “I was just fucking with her.” He snatches the already wet dishrag from my hands and tosses it on the floor, using his foot to mop up the trail of water he left in his wake.
That’s when I see it. The scar running the length of his torso, now partially camouflaged by the tattoo. And I remember why I refuse to look at him. Because I was there the night he got it.
For all the dumb jokes we’ve told of that night, of that dumbass decision to skateboard on the roof, the underlying truth is anything but funny. He could have died that night. He should have died that night. And that damn scar reminds me every single time I see it.
So I don’t look.
“Are you okay?” Holly sidles up to me murmuring under her breath. “You look really pale for someone who should looked flushed from being all hot and bothered right now.”
“I’m fine.” I force a smile. “Chilly from being soaked.”
“You sure?” Holly frowns like she doesn’t believe me.
“Trust me,” I say as Jovi continues wiping up the floor pretending not to hear us. “And for the record, Jovi never gets me hot.” I start for the hall. I need a shower to wash all this ick away. The Jovi-ick and the mud still clinging to me. “When he’s around I’m just bothered.”
Jovi chuckles quietly.
I knew that asshole was listening.
JOVI
Maybe it was realizing I could lose her to Brennan.
Maybe it was the coffee maker she snuck into my place without either of us ever acknowledging mine was broken.
Or maybe it was the damn curry mac and cheese that finally gave me the balls to give up the lie I've been telling since I was sixteen and admit the truth. I'm in love with Liz Penny.
Did I find her obnoxious and uptight when we first met? Fuck yeah.
It was easy to hate her. She was one more person expecting me to be responsible. To want me to do better.
Worse. She represented everything I knew I needed to become and was certain I would fail to be.
I didn't look at her and see an ally, someone who could understand me in a way no other person could. I saw her and saw the future I feared most. The life I knew was coming for me whether I was ready or not.
And since I couldn't fight my fate, I fought the next best thing. Her.
For a while it worked for us. Life just made sense that way.
Then she left for college. And my father’s cancer was in remission. Distance settled between us.
Wasn’t until the night my mother sat me down to tell me the cancer was back. That it was worse. More aggressive. Fatal. That I lost it.
I don’t remember having a single thought that night. Just this drive to do something insane. Something that would really piss Liz off.
Falling off her damn roof did the trick.
I almost died. Probably should have. And she was there. And I'd never been more grateful.