“I was thinking about it,” Andie said, “but I don’t really know how to throw a punch. It would have taken away from my point if I was making it from the back of an ambulance on my way to get x-rays.”
She felt his chest bounce with laughter again. “Plus,” he added, “how could you have lived with yourself if you messed up all this pretty?”
It was quiet for a beat before Andie sighed. “You are such a smug bastard.”
He laughed outright then, pulling her body up the length of his until they were face to face, and he brought his mouth to hers, kissing her with an expertise that made Andie feel like they had been kissing for years instead of just a few hours, almost as if she’d never kissed anyone but him.
He rolled them onto their sides as he ended the kiss, smiling softly as he brushed the hair away from her face. As he lifted his arm, Andie’s eyes were immediately drawn to the side of his torso. In the heat of the moment, she had vaguely noticed the ink there, but now that she was lucid, she lifted her head to get a better look. She brought her fingertips to his skin, and he moved his arm, giving her better access as she dragged them over the words written up the length of his side.
KNOW REGRETS.
Andie lifted her eyes to his. “Isn’t it supposed to be no regrets? Like, n-o?”
“What! It is?” he said, jumping up in fabricated alarm. “You mean it’s been spelled wrong this entire time?”
He looked up at Andie with mock incredulity, and Andie laughed, playfully pushing him back down onto the bed.
He reached up and pulled her down next to him, and she immediately crawled back into the nook of his body that seemed to be made just for her.
“It actually did say no regrets when I first got it. I was sixteen. Me and my friend went to this shady tattoo parlor that didn’t card. I’m lucky I made it out of that place without hepatitis,” he said, and Andie smiled against his chest. “I added the k and the w a few months after my mom died.”
Andie trailed her finger over the ripples in his stomach. “I don’t get it,” she said softly.
“Because when I got it, I was this headstrong, self-important teenager. I was gonna grab life by the balls and not care about what I left in my path.” He laughed softly before he looked down at her. “But as it turns out, I grabbed life by the balls, and it turned around and shoved a huge piece of humble pie down my throat.”
Andie pressed her lips to his chest, thinking of everything he had endured that he shouldn’t have had to: the pressure from his overly critical father, the divorce, the loss of his mother.
“A lot of shit happened to me after that and, I don’t know, I guess I just realized I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who had no regrets. Honestly, I wouldn’t trust someone who had no regrets. It means that they’ve never learned from their mistakes, or they’re too arrogant to realize they’ve made them in the first place.” He shifted onto his side, facing her fully.
“I think having regrets makes us better people,” he said. “So…instead of having no regrets, we should know our regrets.” He lifted his arm and looked down at his side. “Wear them like a badge of lessons learned.”
He brought his eyes back to hers, and the intensity behind them caused a flood of butterflies in Andie’s stomach. “If we can’t recognize when we’ve messed up, then how will we know when we’ve gotten it right?”
Andie bit her lower lip, fighting the words that were on the tip of her tongue. She had told him earlier that she was going to fall in love with him.
But she knew then, with absolute certainty, that she already had.
She brought her lips to his, and his kiss once again took her breath away. I love you, she thought as she laid her head back on his chest. I love you, Chase McGuire.
“So,” Chase said softly, “do you have any secret tattoos?” He lifted the sheet, peeking underneath, and she squealed as she tugged it back around herself.
“No,” she laughed.
He pulled her body against his beneath the sheet. “I figured. I think it’s safe to say I’ve thoroughly acquainted myself with your body tonight,” he