Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ALICE
I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can’t even tell what I’m thinking, or if any of this is okay. Does tracing his tattoo actually count as pursuing him? Am I flirting too little or too much?
Charlie glances away first. He looks down at the tattoo I asked about, at my fingers on his skin, and I panic. He clears his throat, and I drop my hand.
“They’re coordinates,” he says, his voice a little rough. “The top and bottom rows are the same. It’s the latitude and longitude for Ponderosa Falls. The one in the middle is for the art school I went to in Virginia.”
I resist the urge to touch him again. It’s a Herculean effort. Truly.
“I got the first Ponderosa tattoo and the Virginia row underneath it when I left for college, one for where I was from, and the other for where I was going. I never planned on coming back. I was going to travel the world after school and get a new tattoo for every place I went. This arm was going to be my own personal travelogue.”
I don’t know why that idea sounds romantic to me, but it does. “What happened?”
“I got homesick and came back.” He runs his finger over the last row of Ponderosa coordinates, the tattoo he must’ve gotten when he returned home for good. “Turns out, this is the only place I want to be. Even if half the people here don’t like me.”
Somehow, that sounds even more romantic, and it’s such a foreign concept to me: feeling like you really belong somewhere. When one of your parents is in the military, “home” is wherever you wind up. It’s always shifting, always changing. But for Charlie, home has only ever been one place—Ponderosa Falls—and I love that.
He grins up at me from the blanket and snags my wrist, tugging my arm closer. “Just think how many tattoos you’d have if you did that.”
I laugh, blushing from his touch. “As a military brat? Too many.”
He lets go of my wrist, and I ask him another question, the first thing that pops into my head besides I should touch him again. “Do they all mean something? Your tattoos?”
“For the most part.”
I can’t stop thinking about the one I saw yesterday when he took off his shirt in the mudroom. His torso was a patchwork of ink, but three letters tattooed on his chest stood out the most. They were right over his heart, and I wonder if they’re for old girlfriends or women he’s been in love with. If he’s etching mementos there one by one, the same way he wanted to list all those coordinates on his arm. A map of all the places his heart has been.
Leaning over him again, I trace a few letters across Charlie’s heart, the fabric of his t-shirt soft under my fingertips. “What about the one I saw yesterday—the A, C, and R? What does that tattoo mean?”
The way he smiles as he remembers those letters almost breaks my heart. I’d give anything for him to smile that softly about me.
“It’s for my family,” he says, and something squeezes in my chest. Something unexpected and wistful.
“Your family?”
“The A is for my mom, Amber. The C is for Carl, and the R is for my sister, Roxie.”
Even the way Charlie says their names feels special, almost reverent, and I can feel how much his family means to him. How much those three letters belong exactly where they are, etched on his heart. It makes me think about my own family, the way they’re etched on my heart, and I glance away.
“What about this?” I shift my focus to his right arm, the one with all the tattoos, running my finger along the phoenix that stretches from his lower bicep and down his forearm. Enjoying the way more goose bumps crop up wherever I touch him.
I’m not sure if I should still be doing this, tracing his tattoos—touching him on this blanket for the entire hedgerow to see—but Charlie doesn’t seem to mind. He nods to the ink under my fingers and gives me an easy grin. “I was feeling dramatic—a phoenix rising from the ashes. It was my post-rehab tattoo.”
I slide my hand farther down, my fingers skimming the spiky design above his wrist. “I lost a bet with that one,” he admits. “I’m just lucky they didn’t pick something obscene.”
I laugh, and my fingers hesitate over the next tattoo, hovering above the pulse point on his wrist. Gently, I press my fingers down over the small black skull, his skin warm, pulse thumping hard.
“This one?”
He doesn’t want to answer. My smile fades, and I pull my hand away. Charlie catches me around the wrist, like he knows I’m taking this personally but he doesn’t want me to. When I glance up, I can’t tell what that look is in his eyes. I can’t tell what he’s thinking or feeling.
“That one’s for my dad,” he says quietly. “To remind me that sometimes the people you love the most can hurt you the most too.”
He doesn’t explain more, and I don’t ask. We’ve only known each other a few days; it’s none of my business. He keeps his hand circled around my wrist, and it’s a long time before either of us moves or speaks. If he wasn’t holding on to me, I’d retreat altogether, and I think he knows it.
How did I mess this up?
All the fun we were having is over, his good mood is over, and it’s my fault. I asked about the one tattoo I shouldn’t have, and I can’t bring myself to ask him about anything else. Charlie has too many layers to play a game like that again.
It’s easy to forget how complicated he is, that he isn’t as carefree as he seems. More than once, I’ve gotten caught up in his friendly smiles and dangerous glances only to remember there’s so much more to him than that. There’s real pain he keeps hidden, a past he doesn’t want to talk about even when he’s in a sharing mood.
I have no intention of hurting him more than I already have, of asking another wrong question. But when I try to pull my hand away, he doesn’t let go. And when I glance down at him lying on the picnic blanket beside me, there’s something flirty waiting in his eyes. Something light and teasing to mask all that pain.
“Don’t be a quitter, Alice,” he says. “You’re almost done.”
Pleasant warmth tumbles across my skin. He has one tattoo left on that arm, and he guides me toward it. Moving nice and slow as he presses my fingers to the two black bands that circle his bicep.
The top band is half hidden by his sleeve, so I trace the bottom one instead. Gingerly, I run my fingers over that inky-black line, my touch skimming the hard muscular curve of his upper arm. Charlie keeps his hand circled lightly around my wrist, but his gaze slides, his eyes settling on mine.
His expression darkens again, just a little. It shifts into something flirtier and more dangerous that I like too much. Even if it’s fake.
I almost pull away. This isn’t the game we were supposed to be playing, no matter how much I like it. I’m supposed to be pursuing him. Though when I glance around, no one is watching us anymore. If he makes a few moves just to mess with me, just for fun, no one will ever know.
“What about this tattoo? What does it mean?”
I try to sound casual, but Charlie is about to go full rake—I can feel it—and my voice is quieter than it should be. Shy and breathless and every good-girl thing he doesn’t like about me. Yet he doesn’t seem to mind. His smile deepens, those wicked dimples mocking me, and he bites his lip.
Rake move.
How is he such a natural? Charlie lets that look on his face linger for a breath or two, letting it work its magic. Then he answers my question.
“Each band is for someone who’s looked out for me. Even if they weren’t family and didn’t have to. Even if they didn’t owe me anything.”
That explanation surprises me. His last tattoo is more meaningful than I expected, more important than all his flirty glances would suggest, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe serious conversations make him nervous, and this is how he protects himself. By pretending nothing is serious, that it’s all just fun and games.
Though if this is a game, that means two can play.
Charlie doesn’t say more. He strokes his finger over the soft underside of my wrist to distract me, as if he wants to leave those two black bands and who they represent as vague as possible. But curiosity gets the better of me. If this is my chance to learn more about him, I’m taking it. And if I borrow a page from his playbook, if I flirt my way through it and act like this is no big deal, maybe he won’t even mind.
Glancing down at Charlie, I unleash a lip bite of my own as my gaze drifts to his tattoo. Slowly, I walk my fingers backward over that inky-black line, letting my fingernails graze his skin ever so slightly because I can already tell he likes that. “Who’s this one for?”
It works. He answers instantly, no hesitation. “That’s for my AA sponsor, Gunnar. The guy who taught me how to work with glass.”
He doesn’t offer more details, and I don’t press my luck. I’ve got one more mystery to uncover on his arm, one last tattoo to help me learn a little more about Charlie, an enigma wrapped in devastating dimples and an easy grin.
That final black band is mostly tucked under the sleeve of his shirt, and I edge my fingers underneath. Slow and teasing to keep Blythe distracted. “What about this one? Who’s that for?”
When I look down at Charlie again, his gaze burns hotter than it did a few minutes ago. Those hazel eyes are endless dark pools. But then he blinks, his smile hitches, and that man is a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.
He’s been playing games like this a long time. You can’t rake a rake.
“That one?” His voice is rough and playful. If there’s anything vulnerable lingering in his eyes, it fades fast. Hidden behind a wink and a smile. “That one—Allie-cat—is none of your business.”