about her parents.
Like me telling her about Lorna, when no one in my current life aside from my family and a few friends knew what had happened between us.
Like this, spending a quiet hour with her next to me, sketching something she was going to have on her body permanently.
That was the moment I stopped thinking about the past.
Instead, I stepped into the present, forgot about the baggage and hang-ups and hurts. I wanted to do this for her and . . . I wanted to do this for me. But I still had to ask.
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” I asked gently. “This isn’t something you can go back on.”
Her smile was soft. “I’m sure, Garret.” A beat. “And I think you just proved how much of a reformed asshole you are.”
I snorted, opened my mouth—
“Thank you,” she murmured. “For caring enough to ask.”
I cupped her cheek. “I’d say something nice back, but I think we’ve both had enough nice for one evening, don’t you think?”
“You mean you want me to give you a hard time?”
“It’s one of my favorite things about my day.” Her lips parted on a quick exhale, eyes darting to mine and then away, but before I let her—or me—really consider what I’d just said, I dropped my hand and started gathering supplies. “Where do you want it?”
While I’d imagined it would go on the inside of her forearm, filling her skin from wrist to elbow, it was her choice. And either way, I’d have to copy it over to transfer paper and needed to know what size I was going to make it.
She touched the inside of her left arm. “I was thinking here.”
I’d be lying if I’d say that didn’t make my heart skip a beat, the sign that we were still on the same wavelength, still in that same private little bubble as we’d been since I picked up the pencil and began drawing. “Okay,” I murmured. “Let me get set up and I’ll do it.”
Charlie nodded, her teeth coming out to nibble at the corner of her bottom lip. “Okay.” She blew out a breath. “I’m doing this.”
I grinned. “You’re doing this.” Standing, I grabbed my stuff. “I’ll be right back.”
It took me approximately five minutes in the back to get the image sized correctly and use the copy machine to get it onto the transfer paper, and I half-expected Charlie to be gone when I came back.
But she hadn’t disappeared.
She was still sitting on the chair in my station, a notebook in her lap. My breath caught when I realized what she was looking at. Or more specifically which notebook she was paging through.
Her gaze flicked to mine when I paused a few feet away. She held up the sketchbook, said lightly, “Interesting drawings you have here.”
Air hissed between my lips. “Char—”
“Is that how you really see me?”
I glanced down at the page, the image of her profile taking up almost all of the available space. I set down the paper and notebook, dropped into the chair next to her. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.”
Now her breath caught. “Garret,” she whispered.
Gently, I tugged the notebook from her hands. “Not tonight,” I said. “Let’s not think about any of that tonight. Let’s just focus on you, sweetheart.”
She sighed heavily and nodded. “Okay.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
And then I got set up. The template placed on Charlie’s skin, inched millimeter by millimeter until we had it exactly right. Then the ink went into small wells, all different shades of gray and black, each tiny plastic container held in place by tiny drops of A&D ointment. A larger pile of ointment nearby to keep the skin smooth and needle sliding when I got down to actually tattooing. Then my gloves on, fresh needles out of the box and attached to the gun exactly as I wanted them.
Only then did I stop and stare into Charlie’s eyes again. “You ready?”
Eleven
Charlie
“Ready?” Garret murmured.
I should have said no. Every cautious bone in my body was screaming at me to stop this insanity, grab my shit, and just get the fuck out.
But . . . the drawing.
I couldn’t have begun to conjure it up in my mind and yet, it was absolutely perfect. The delicate lines and soft curves of the petals, juxtaposed with the solid stalk, and my parents’ names hidden in each of those had made the image more than a simple transfer of