about that one,” she said, pointing to it.
He took another long swallow and thought back. Almost twelve years now. “I was eighteen. First one I got when I made it to California. Hurt like hell.” “Does it mean something special?”
“Nah. I just liked the design.” He turned his arm in the moonlight, and the body of the dragon seemed to grow on his biceps.
“What about that one?” She pointed to his other arm. A sunburst covered his shoulder and most of his biceps. Small black footsteps walked away from it, down to his wrist.
“I was twenty-three.” He tried to ignore the memory of Edie picking it out, just a week or two after they’d met. “It’s a reminder to keep the sun at my back. Keep looking ahead.”
Sienna nodded. He could feel her wanting to ask about the others. “No tattoos for you?” he said before she could.
She hesitated. “They’re so permanent. I think I’d choose the wrong one, and five or ten years later, I wouldn’t like it anymore.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
She took a sip of her beer and stared into the fire. “What happened out in California? If you don’t mind my asking.”
He minded. He minded so much it hurt, because if he told her the truth, she’d look at him differently. Once people knew you had a record, they always did. He rubbed his nose and watched the pattern of the light on the ceiling. “I made some bad decisions,” he finally said.
“How long were you there?”
“Eleven years. Give or take.”
“Did you like it?”
“Sometimes.”
“I bet your mom was glad when you came back.”
“She was.” Wish I’d done it a lot sooner. He wished a lot of things.
“She ever go out and visit you?”
Once, the month after he went to prison. He did his best not to think about her drawn, white face looking at him under the supervision of an armed guard. “Nope. She’s not really a traveler.” He finished his beer and set the bottle on the floor. “Tell me about you,” he said. “I mean, I know you were, what? Three years behind me in school?”
“Four. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have known I existed even if we were closer.”
“Why’s that?”
“Aw, come on. You and I ran in different crowds back then.”
She had a point there. “Can’t say I spent a lot of time in school, to be honest.” And here he was sitting next to a schoolteacher. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
“See? And I loved school.” She made a face. “Well, the classes and my teachers, anyway. The other kids, not so much.”
“Why not?”
“I was a nerd.” She shrugged and lifted both palms. “Am a nerd.”
“No, you aren’t.”
A funny look passed over her face, quick as lightning. He tried to read it but failed. “Let me guess,” she said. “You had tons of friends and a different girlfriend every other week.”
“Not tons. And not every other week.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“You used to eat in the library,” he said suddenly. “I do remember that. My buddies and I sat on the wall outside that big picture window.” When we were cutting class, he almost added. And smoking weed. And telling lies about which cheerleaders they’d slept with over the weekend. A couple times he’d looked inside to see a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl sitting at a table full of books, eating a sandwich and tracing the words on the page. Huh. Funny to think that now, that girl was sitting in his living room, tracing the pattern of the cushions on his couch.
“You knew where the library was?” she said in a teasing voice.
“Sure. Someone told me.”
They both laughed. Yeah, he’d had a good time in high school, at least until he dropped out. Nothing had mattered too much, and no one ever had stabbed him in the back.
His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see an unfamiliar number. “Sorry, Let me get this.” He put it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey there, handsome,” a female voice purred into the line.
“Ah, hello?”
The voice gave a little huff of exasperation. “Dash, it’s Ella. Ericksen.”
He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. How had she gotten his number? “Hey.”
“Found a date for you.”
He glanced at Sienna and lowered his voice. “What are you talking about?”
“For the fundraiser at Villa Amore.”
“I didn’t say I was—”
“You know Clarice Pontice?”
He searched his memory. “Nope.” “She’s on the board of directors of the Silver Valley Medical Center. And the