Page 69 of The Roommate Lie

Be less endearing, Blythe. Help a good girl out.

I don’t mean to drift closer on the blanket. It just sort of happens.

We finish our strawberry scones, and Charlie lies back with his arms tucked behind his head. He makes that pose look so casual, but it’s also the most seductive thing I’ve ever seen. It makes the muscles in his arms pop, the pale underneath of his biceps taunting me for reasons I can’t explain. Something flutters deep in my stomach, and I don’t know how to look away. How to pursue Charlie when he’s lying there like that.

One of his t-shirt sleeves rides up on his left bicep, revealing a small tattoo I’ve never noticed before. Three thin rows of numbers and letters that are so high up on the inside of his arm, I’d never caught sight of them once. Not even yesterday when he took off his shirt.

“What are those?” I lean over him without thinking to trace his tattoo. Faint goose bumps prickle his skin from my touch, and my breath catches.

Is this what pursuing someone feels like?

I’m not sure. I don’t even know why I’m touching him, but it feels better than it should. His goose bumps don’t fade as my fingers glide over his tattoo—they deepen—and I get the oddest surge in my chest, satisfaction or pride.

I’m flirting.

On a picnic blanket surrounded by strangers.

We had a plan to save his reputation, and I’m actually pulling this off—I think. Maybe I’m not such a lost cause after all. Unless I’m doing this wrong…

The whole point of our new plan was for me to make all the moves, but I can’t tell if I’m making the right ones. Doubt creeps in, and this either counts as some serious public flirting, or I’m being weird. An awkward wallflower who should really keep her hands to herself.

My cheeks flame a little, and I almost retreat. Hesitating, I trace the outline of his tattoo one last time. My fingernail drags lightly over his skin, and Charlie’s eyes lock on mine. Those hazel depths darker and deeper than I’ve ever seen them.

I like the look he’s giving me, the intensity of it. Maybe I should glance away, but I don’t.

Sometimes being the good girl is overrated.

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 besidesI 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?”

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