Page 53 of Why Not Us?

She gets into the car, and I watch as it drives away. I already miss her.

Chapter 17

Adalie

As the weeks pass, Nate and I continue this weird dance around each other. When he doesn’t have Dani, we find excuses to meet up. Sometimes we go out for a ride on his motorcycle if the weather is nice. Sometimes we go for a walk around his neighbourhood. I’ve been to the brewery when he’s working and sit at the bar while he takes care of customers. When he has Dani, I go over on Thursdays for the painting lesson, but otherwise, I stay away, letting them have their time together.

And every night, whether we see each other or not, he calls me before I go to sleep. Sometimes the call is short because one or the other of us is tired. On the longer calls, I continue working on the painting I started of him.

Every day, we get a little closer and I forget all the reasons why kissing him, sleeping with him, dating him, would be a bad idea.

When the tattoo appointment rolls around, he convinces me to let him pick me up, saying he doesn’t want me to chicken out. So I meet him downstairs and he takes us to Ink & Steel. We go inside, and Syn greets us again.

“Welcome back,” she says, leading us into the back room where Sam is already waiting. She’s setting out ink and organizing the space. When she sees us, she smiles.

“Hey. Here’s the drawing.” She hands me a paper with an image of four roses in full bloom connected on a branch with a bunch of wicked looking thorns. There are also a few rosebuds spaced throughout the open ones.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, excitement mixing with my nerves making my stomach ache.

“Have a seat,” she says. “Good choice of shirt. Can you take the strap down?”

I’d worn a spaghetti strap top with no bra underneath. My eyes meet Nate’s as I slide my arm through the strap, heat pooling in my core at the desire I see there. He’s staring at me like he wants to eat me alive and I kind of want to let him.

“Okay. I’m going to clean the area, then I’ll get the stencil on.” Sam gets to work, wiping my shoulder and collarbone and placing the stencil carefully on my skin.

“There. Go take a look. Make sure you like where it’s sitting. If you don’t like it, we can wipe it off and try again.”

I stand in front of a floor length mirror, staring at the purple lines on my skin. The tattoo will run parallel with my collarbone, over my shoulder, and curl around to the top of my biceps. I turn, looking at what will become the tattoo on my back, but I don’t say a word as I stare at it.

After a moment, Nate takes my hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “You can use your safe word, and we’ll leave right now. I’ll take you out for lunch and we can do something else.”

I meet his stormy grey eyes, finding sincerity and concern.

“I’m ready.” I turn to Sam. “The stencil is perfect. Let’s do this.”

She sits me down so my right shoulder is against the back of the chair and my left is free for her to work. Nate sits on a stool in front of me, taking my right hand in his. I smile gratefully, squeezing his fingers.

“Here we go,” Sam says.

The tattoo machine buzzes before she touches it to my skin, drawing it along in a short line.

“How was that?” she asks. “Because if it was awful, I can turn it into a smiley face and we’re done.”

I laugh. “It was okay. You can keep going.”

“All right.” She gets back to work. It doesn’t immediately hurt much, but the more she works, the more it burns. Every time she wipes the space with the cold antiseptic wipe, I breathe in relief. Then she continues.

She moves around to my front, forcing Nate to shift further to my side, but he doesn’t ever let go of my hand. While Sam is working, we chat about art. I tell her I’m a painter and she tells me that she started drawing in elementary school and fell in love with tattoos in high school. She got her first one when she was sixteen.

“Is that even allowed?” I ask.

She chuckles, wiping away excess ink. “No.”

Nate doesn’t say much at all, but I’m used to that. I don’t try to bring him into the conversation today, focusing on talking with Sam because I can only focus on one thing at a time right now. When we run out of things to talk about and fall silent, all I can feel is the pain of the tattoo machine.

After only a moment of this, I blurt out, “Can we talk about something else?”

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