Page 30 of Game Changer

“Enough about me. Tell me about the tattoo you’re getting.”

“I want a big one.”

“I see.”

“Huge. Angry.” She spits out the words.

“Angry what?”

“An animal. A cougar, or a bear, or a lion. Something that will tell people I’m feral and there’s no point getting close to me.” She turns toward me. “Are you laughing?”

“A little.”

“I didn’t know you laughed.”

“Once a day. You’re lucky I didn’t hit my quota yet.”

“Must’ve been a rough day.”

“I guess,” I admit. “You?”

“Same.”

Traffic is sparse at this time of night.

We drive in silence a minute, but it’s lighter than before.

“Do you ever feel like the walls are closing in?” she asks. “As if every time you enter a room, it’s smaller than the last time, but no one notices but you?”

My hands clench the steering wheel as I think of the pressure from the guys, the fans, myself. “Every day.”

The plan was to take her for the tattoo, watch her from a safe distance, and figure out what it is about her that I can’t kick from my head.

Getting a tattoo in a dark moment can be a reminder, but I don’t want her doing something she’ll regret.

I pull a U-turn and go south, heading out of town.

“This is the way to the tattoo parlor?” she asks as the buildings thin out.

“No.”

“You said you’d take me.” Nova straightens in her seat.

“I said I’d pick you up. Never said where we were going. You still want one in an hour, we’ll do it,” I say.

She groans and slumps back in her seat. For the next minute, she stares out the window.

“You don’t look worried about where we are going,” I note. “I could be kidnapping you.”

“Promise?”

Her hopeful voice starts a tightening deep in my gut.

Suddenly I’m picturing exactly that. Taking her far from this town. Not looking back.

When we get to our destination, I find parking at a lot off the road. There’s almost no one here except campers.

“Red Rocks?” Nova shifts out of the car and tilts up her face. “Wow, this place is unreal. It feels like you’re close to heaven, or space, or both.”

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