“Come on, give,” Ally pressed.
“I’d give,” Roxie whispered to me. “She’s relentless.”
I put my hip to the counter on the other side of Ally and sighed. “They’re… good,” I tried.
“Good?” Indy asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“That’s boring,” Ally muttered.
“Maybe Sadie needs boring,” Roxie said to Ally.
“No one needs boring,” Ally retorted.
“Maybe Sadie does,” Roxie defended my need for boring.
Ally’s eyes came back to me. “Do you need boring?”
I looked at her a second then shared, “I have to admit, I could use some boring. But when I say things are good, I didn’t mean they were boring.”
“What did you mean?” Indy asked and they all leaned forward.
I briefly debated my options.
I could go Ice Princess and tell them nothing (which they were probably not going to accept, nobody was paying the least attention to my Ice Princess anymore). I could tell them everything (which would take all night). I could tell them what was going to happen when Hector and I got back to his place (which might be embarrassing). Or I could tell them about the tattoo.
I told them about the tattoo. When I was done, they all stared at me.
Then Roxie breathed, “Oh… my… God.”
“I’ve just decided Lee needs a tattoo,” Indy declared.
“No!” I burst out. “If you say something to Lee then it might get back to Hector.”
Ally jumped down from the counter, put her arm around my waist and started to guide me to the dining room while Indy and Roxie followed.
“Learn fast, sister,” Ally said. “Nothing stays a secret in this clan for long. And that tat is way too good to stay a secret.”
Well, wasn’t that just great.
We entered the dining room and I went back to my seat by Hector.
After dinner, during the photo orgy, he’d done the scooting my chair close to his move. Now he was lounging with his arm along the back of my empty chair. I had no choice but to sit in it with his arm still there.
The minute I did, it curled around my shoulders and he got in close.
“Ready to go?” he asked softly in my ear.
No. No, I was not ready to go. No, I was not ready to go to his house and have him put his mouth between my legs.
Well maybe I was ready to go and do that since it was almost all I thought about all day (except, of course, my f**king father and also the photos but it was mostly all I thought about).
I didn’t think about it in an “Oh my God no way I can do that” way. I thought about it in an “Oh my God I can’t wait and I hope I don’t mess things up again” way.
However, I did have one matter of business I still needed to attend to before I went onto what would likely be the next trauma of my life.
I’d had an idea and I had to get the wheels in motion before I headed off to Crete because I wasn’t going to be going alone. So I put my latest plan into action.