Heart Bones - Colleen Hoover Page 0,74

pattern of rotation.

“It says pinwheels are supposed to turn around bad luck.”

“It’s perfect,” I whisper.

Sara and Marcos have been outside since we filled out the paperwork for the tattoos, which was a good two and a half hours ago, but they haven’t come inside to complain about the wait. I’m sure they’ve found something to keep themselves occupied.

My tattoo is finished. It’s perfect. He lined the outside with a thin line of black ink and then filled it with color, but the colors bleed outside of the lines like dripping paint. I got it on my left wrist. I showed Samson and then took a picture before I let the guy cover it up with a bandage.

Samson’s tattoo artist wipes his down one final time. Samson hasn’t peeked once. “All done,” the guy says.

Samson sits up in the chair without looking down at the tattoo. He stands up and walks to the bathroom, then summons me to follow him with a nod.

He wants to look at it with no one else around. I don’t blame him. He might hate it and that wouldn’t just make me feel bad, it would make the tattoo artist feel bad.

I walk into the bathroom with him and close the door behind me. It’s a small bathroom, so we’re standing really close together. “Are you nervous?”

He says, “I wasn’t. But now that it’s done, I am.”

I smile, and then I start anxiously bouncing on my toes. “Look at it, I’m dying.”

Samson looks down at his tattoo for the first time. It’s about the size of a fist, right beneath the inside crease of his elbow. I’m staring at his face, waiting for his reaction.

He has no reaction.

He just stares at it.

“It’s Hurricane Ike,” I explain, running my finger across it. “I used a radar photo of when it was right over Bolivar Peninsula, and had him turn it into a tattoo.”

The only thing I get from Samson is a sigh. And I can’t even tell if it’s a good sigh.

I feel anxious now. I was so convinced he would like it; I didn’t think about what it might mean if he didn’t.

Samson slowly lifts his eyes. There’s no give in his expression that would hint at what he’s thinking.

But then he grabs my face and kisses me so sudden and so hard, I fall against the bathroom door. I think this means he likes it. He lowers his hands to my thighs and slides me up the door until I’m wrapped around him, like he’s trying to tie us in a permanent knot.

He’s kissing me with a freshly dug-up feeling he’s never kissed me with before. I’m not sure any other response to seeing his tattoo would have been an appropriate one now that I’ve been met with this response.

He moves against me in a way that makes me moan, but as soon as I do, he pulls his mouth from mine like that moan was a big red stop sign. He drops his forehead to mine and his words are full of emotion when he says, “I’d take you right here if you didn’t deserve better.”

I’d let him.

TWENTY-TWO

“No.” My father’s response is absolute.

“Please?”

“No.”

“I’m nineteen.”

“She’s on the pill,” Alana says.

I set my fork down and press a hand to my forehead. I don’t know why I even asked him if I could stay the night with Samson. I should have just snuck out and come home before he woke up. But I’m trying not to break any of his rules.

Sara finished eating before this discussion started, but she looks like she’s enjoying it. She’s seated at the table with her knee pulled up to her chest, watching this conversation like we’re playing it out on a television. All she needs is a bag of popcorn.

“Does your mother let you spend the night with guys?” my father asks.

I laugh half-heartedly at that. “My mother didn’t care where I spent the night. I want you to care. I would just also appreciate it if you trusted me.”

My father runs a hand down his face like he doesn’t know what to do. He looks to Alana for answers. “Would you allow Sara to spend the night with Marcos?”

“Sara and Marcos spend the night together all the time,” Alana says.

I glance at Sara just as she perks up in her chair. “We do not.”

Alana rolls her head. “I’m not ignorant, Sara.”

There’s a look of complete surprise on Sara’s face. “Oh. I thought you were.”

I laugh at that, but no