Page 50 of Getting Over You

“It depends on what you get,” I tell her.

“Any ideas?”

“You’re considering this.”

She nods. “Let me see what you’ve done.”

“I can show you my portfolio,” I say, trying to find the album on my phone.

“I do want to see that,” she stops me, putting a gentle hand on my bicep, “but I was meaning the tattoos on your body. I know the daisies are for your grandma, but—Well, what about the rest?”

“You don’t need to come up with such a plan to see me naked. I’d strip for you willingly, princess.”

She rolls her pretty eyes. “I’m serious, Cade. I want to see them. To better understand the art.”

“Speaking of,” I say as I take off my shirt, “how’s the artist guy?”

I see a flash of something in Gigi’s eyes as I toss my shirt away, but it’s gone before I can really feel it. She tears her eyes down my chest, at the tattoos I have there—a rose with thorns sitting beneath my collarbone, the vines I have winding around my ribs—and then she’s surveying the sidepiece I got from Eddy justweeks before leaving town—a word, the only one on my body: Ruin. The letters are in flames, melting away.

“Wow,” she says. “That’s… You’re… Wow.”

“My uncle Eddy did most of these,” I say.

She’s not even looking at me. Her eyes are darting around, studying ink. “What can you tell me about him?”

“About Eddy? Oh, man.” I’m searching my brain for bullet points. “He loves doing tattoo work. He probably looks as sophisticated as your artist friend when he’s painting your naked portraits.”

“Has Eddy ever tattooed a naked woman onto someone?” she asks, ignoring my attempt at a slight. “I bet somebody is dumb enough to get that tattoo.”

“He hasn’t, but I’m sure someone, somewhere, has.”

Within moments, Gigi is shoving her phone in my face. “It’s been done already,” she says, feigning disappointment as she shows me a man’s bicep on her screen. And on that bicep—sure enough—is a naked woman, lying down like she’s waiting to be fed grapes.

“Jesus,” I say. “Can’t say I’ve ever done a piece like that.”

“I don’t wantthat,” Gigi tells me with a scowl as she tucks her phone back into her pocket. “But something small. A flower. A symbol of confidence. Something.”

We watch the waves for a while, and I think Gigi has given up her tattoo dreams. With one crisis averted, I start another. “Did I make things awkward for you? When I crashed your date?”

“Can we pretend that didn’t happen?” Gigi asks. “I’d like it if we did.”

“Oh. Uh.” Now she’s the one that doesn’t want to express herself and talk things out? Veryun-princessof her. My stomach drops with the weight of disappointment. “Sure.”

She looks relieved. “Thank you. It’s just… I know you drank too much. You had no control over yourself.”

“Was I that bad?”

“No,” she says. I can tell she’s lying.

We get caught up in watching the waves again, neither of us speaking.

After a while, Gigi turns to me, an excited sparkle in her eyes, a smirk playing on her lips.

“What?” I ask, eyebrows raised.

She tosses me my shirt. “Put your shirt on. I need you to come with me somewhere.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Oh, no. Where we going?”

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