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That pleased me more than it should.
By the time I finalized the design and placed it, making sure she was okay with the size, Charlee’s closeness was beginning to get to me. Rolling myself next to her as Charlee lay back on the chair, putting her arm up as I’d asked, I was well beyond questioning this decision.
A tattoo. What the hell had I been thinking?
“I really like the way it looks,” she said, lifting up her wrist. “Oh, sorry.” She put it back down and looked at the needle I’d loaded with ink. “Um, Lucas?”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“I do,” she whispered.
It was the softness of her voice, the conviction in it, that gave me pause. Poised to begin her tattoo, I looked at her instead, in some ways as if seeing her for the first time since I’d come back.
Could this woman be more than just the one who broke my heart? The only one I’d ever allowed close enough to do that?
What a goddamn, scary, fucking thought.
“Ready?”
I knew I wasn’t.
“Yep.” She nodded, clearly scared. Charlee did not like pain. That, I remembered. “Ouch,” she said at the first touch of the needle.
“Just do me a favor and hold still. This is a delicate design, and it is permanent.”
“Okay.” She nodded again.
She needed a distraction.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing all these years.”
Charlee winced. “You know, college. Job. That sort of thing.”
“You ended up at Syracuse?”
I already knew the answer.
“I did. Hotel management. Then an MBA in business.”
“No graphic design?”
A shadow passed over her features just before she winced again. “I’m not sure I can talk at the moment. Answer the same question. Talk to me.”
Christ, Charlee. I’d dearly love to talk to you. Tell you all of the things that have passed through my mind since I saw you last week.
Pretty sure that’s not what she meant.
“You know I enlisted in Brooklyn. I was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division.”
“What’s that?”
“An infantry division of the Army.”
“Infantry. Like the ones who actually fight bad guys?”
That was one way to put it. “You can say that.”
“Then what?”
