Текст книги "Song of the Fireflies"

Автор книги: J. A. Redmerski

Соавторы: J. A. Redmerski
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen Bray

My hands fell away from his and rested at my sides. I took a step back, swallowed, and announced, “I like sex. A lot.”

He raised a brow. “And that’s a problem why, exactly?”

I wanted to laugh at that, because it was funny to me admitting to a guy that his girlfriend loved sex and he was supposed to frown upon it. But I couldn’t laugh because it was the next part I was the most afraid to admit.

“Well,” I said, “it’s a problem because I… I’ve been with quite a few guys.”

He’s going to be so disgusted with me and just walk away, I know it…

“The same can be said about me with girls,” he responded casually. “Did you use protection with them?”

I was dumbfounded by his response. Not his admittance, but his lackluster reaction to mine.

“Yeah,” I said. “I-I mean, once or twice it didn’t go down that way. Heat of the moment, I guess. Stupid as hell, I know, but I always did after that second time. And I’m clean. They tested me for everything when I was in the hospital.”

He looked up in thought for a moment and then nodded. “Well, so am I,” he said casually.

It didn’t matter that he seemed OK with the truth. I was still worried and felt the need to explain further. Just in case.

“It started out I was only trying to fill a void,” I said. “I think I was just looking for affection. But then it turned into something else.” I ran my hands over my face and then the top of my head and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I swallowed and looked at him nervously. “I had a threesome with this guy and his girlfriend. And I liked it.” I couldn’t look at him anymore. I felt so ashamed. I felt like the biggest slut on the planet. I didn’t deserve him. “I think that’s what changed me. I’m sorry, Elias. I really am.”

“Why?” Just like before, there wasn’t a trace of disappointment or disgust in his voice. “Bray,” he said, and I looked up, “I had a threesome with Mitchell and Jana. And it wasn’t my first.”

“I know,” I said. “Jana told me that night on the ridge.” I thought about Jana for a moment. I saw her dead eyes looking up at the night sky. The blood on the rock underneath her body.

I forced it away.

“So then what’s the problem?”

“Doesn’t it bother you that your girlfriend has been with so many guys, or that I’ve done really kinky stuff?”

He shook his head and looked at me as if I were being ridiculous. “So it’s OK that I do it and not you?” he asked. And before I could say anything, he added, “Baby, this isn’t 1950. You have as much right to as much sex as you want, however you want, as I do. You didn’t cheat on anyone or screw someone’s husband.” He narrowed his gaze and said, “Did you?”

“No.”

“Then you have nothing to be ashamed of. Definitely not with me. As long as your love for sex doesn’t land you in some other guy’s bed now that we’re together, we’re good. I’m not an asshole. I’m not going to throw your past up in your face.”

I should’ve known all along that Elias, of all people, would not judge me. Not on my sexual history. Not on anything. The only thing I regretted was the seventeen years I wasted not realizing it sooner.

Elias took a hold of my hands again and wedged his thumbs underneath my bracelets to find my scars. “I love you, Bray,” he said, and the moment changed in an instant. “But you’re gonna have to promise me something. You have to promise that you’ll never do anything like this again. It scares the hell out of me to even think”—he put pressure on my wrists with the emphasis of that word—“of you killing yourself. You can’t leave me in this world without you. Do you understand? Look in my eyes and tell me that you’ll never try anything like that again.”

“I won’t,” I said. “Like I told you, I only did it once because of the side effects of that medication.”

“But you did it once,” he pointed out. “You had it in you all along. You even admitted to having suicidal thoughts before that, Bray. That means you had it in you. And that is terrifying to me. Just knowing that it’s there.”

“I won’t,” I said again, hardening my gaze. “I’m past that now. I’m stronger than that.”

He thought about it for a long moment. I hoped he believed me.

Then he leaned in and kissed me long and soft. The feel of his lips against mine and the emotion in that kiss melted me. I felt weak in the knees, and I draped my hands around his neck, interlocking my fingers. He lifted me up around his waist and held my butt in his hands.

“Elias,” I said softly onto his lips when the kiss broke.

“Yeah?”

“You said that it should’ve been you.”

He drew his head back slightly to better see my whole face. “Huh?”

I kissed the tip of his nose.

“Earlier,” I went on, “when you said that about my ex. You said you were pissed when you thought I was engaged, that it should’ve been you.”

His eyes smiled and shortly after, his lips followed. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“So then why don’t we?” I blushed. “You know… get engaged.”

His smile turned into a grin. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

My whole face flushed as hot as a Georgia summer. I wiggled my way out of his arms and stood upright in front of him again, shuffling my toes in the sand. “I-I don’t know… I guess so,” I said meekly.

“Might as well,” he said. “I think it’s safe to say after seventeen years we’re pretty much stuck with each other. So sure, why not? We’ve been doing all kinds of crazy shit as of late. Might as well add it to the list.”

I just stood there, blinking rapidly, with my lips parted. Then I pursed them, crossed my arms, and popped my hip to one side.

“That was the most romantic fucking proposal I’ve ever heard in my life,” I said with heavy sarcasm.

Elias smiled hugely, baring his prefect set of white teeth. “Wasn’t it, though?” he joked.

My arms unfolded and I slammed the palms of my hands into his chest, knocking him on his ass on the sand. He just looked up at me and laughed.

I started to walk off, fuming pissed, but I loved it just as much, and he knew it.

“Baby, where the hell are you going?!” He couldn’t stop laughing.

I raised my middle finger in the air high above me and just kept walking. I could hear his laughter carrying on behind me over the growing music as I approached the beach house.

“I’m going to get drunk and stand in the center of the room and tell everyone that your cock is two inches long! And then afterwards, I’m going to—”

He grabbed me from behind and pulled me down on the grass and sand.

“My cock is not two inches long,” he laughed, sitting on top of me.

No, it definitely wasn’t, that was for sure…

I smirked up at him.

He grabbed my hands with both of his and pinned them above my head. The prickly sensation of grass tickled the backs of my arms. Then he leaned in and kissed me. When he pulled away his eyes searched my face. “Will you marry me and my two-inch cock?”

I smiled. It wasn’t exactly romantic, but for some reason it felt right. “Sure, why not?” I replied.

He took me in for another kiss and we stayed like that, him sitting on top of me on the sand until Grace interrupted us—which was probably a good thing, because we were heading right in the sex-in-public direction.

“Ho-ly shit! You’ve got to see this!” she said waving her hands out in front of her frantically, a crazed smile lighting up her face.

We followed Grace back inside the beach house. A crowd had gathered in a circle inside the large living room. Elias tugged on my fingers; I followed in close behind him, and we pushed our way to the front of the crowd to see Tate and Caleb exchanging blows.

I heard a crunch as Tate’s fist made contact with Caleb’s face. Caleb stumbled backward into a guy on the other side of the circle, but he bounced back just as quickly and returned the blow. Tate dodged it and came around behind Caleb, grabbing him around the waist with his thick muscled arms, and he squeezed Caleb so hard I thought he was going to bust a vein in Caleb’s head.

Caleb managed to raise his arms above him and grapple Tate’s head. Tate lost his grip, and Caleb whirled around and grabbed the back of Tate’s neck, forcing his body over forward. Caleb’s knee came up, and I heard another stomach-twisting crunch. I yelped. The music and the sound of bystanders chanting was loud, but apparently not loud enough that it covered the sound of Tate’s face being pummeled into Caleb’s knee.

Elias pulled me back when Tate and Caleb started getting closer to us. They were moving around in a circle, both of them bent forward in battle-ready stances with their clenched fists out at their sides, each waiting for an opportunity.

I didn’t notice until I managed to tear my eyes away from the fight for a split second, but Tate’s girlfriend, Jen, was standing at my right side. I looked over at her questioningly.

“They do this all the time!” she shouted over the noise, then turned back to the fight. “Come on, baby! You got this!”

I was so confused. But I think Elias was enjoying it. Any moment now I half-expected him to whip out some cash and pass it to the nearest sideline bookie.

Tate buried one hard right jab into Caleb’s ribs, then a left, then one dead center in Caleb’s gut. Caleb doubled over, and a second later Tate hooked him underneath the jaw with an uppercut.

Caleb fell backward on his ass and tried to shake off the blow, but it was clear he had lost.

Tate raised both arms in the air as if he were in a boxing ring, and the room erupted in cheers. Jen stepped out and kissed him. Molested him. With those two, there never seemed to be boundaries.

Then Tate reached down and gave Caleb his hand, helping him to his feet. They hugged and joked around, and then it was all over. Everyone went back to partying. Caleb moved past us without even looking at us and looped his arms through Grace’s and Johanna’s. They disappeared into the kitchen. Tate, with Jen at his side, walked toward us.

I looked at Tate like he was crazy.

“Hey, it was Caleb’s idea,” he said.

“Is he drunk?” I asked.

Tate laughed. “Probably. But he’d challenge me sober.”

He patted Elias on the back while Jen handed Tate the extra beer bottle she had been holding.

“We’re heading to a secret spot on the beach next,” he said, looking at us. He took a swig before he finished and made a subtle face, as if it tasted sour. “Headin’ out in the morning. We’ll probably stay there for a few days. Are you two still good to go with us?”

Elias and I exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, we are,” I said.

“I’m game,” Elias added.

Tate grinned and pointed at us both, the beer bottle hanging from the same hand. “You two are gonna have to tell me what’s up with you sometime.” His grin got bigger.

I glanced at Jen, and she smiled at me. Did she know something I didn’t? Instant paranoia. But I was relieved when she said, “Yeah, seriously. Tate and Caleb have a bet going on. A few more days and they’ll both be trying to pry it out of you just to see who won.” She pushed up on her toes and kissed Tate on the side of the mouth.

“A bet?” I asked.

Tate laughed. But it was Jen who elaborated. She pointed at Tate and said, “Yeah, he thinks you two robbed a bank or something. Caleb thinks you killed someone.”

I felt myself gasp sharply, but I don’t think anyone heard. Elias’s hand slid down and linked with mine. He tried to play it off, or was trying to divert their attention away from me with my deer-in-the-headlights face. He laughed out loud and shook his head in disbelief just to distract them.

Tate laughed along with Elias and patted him on the back one more time. Then he and Jen left us and went to mingle.

Before we crashed, with Jen’s go-ahead, Elias and I made use of an upstairs bathroom, where we soaked for a long time in a hot bath. The music had died down an hour ago and everybody had either found a place to sleep or left. The low humming of the central air-conditioning unit could be faintly heard from the bottom floor as we sat together in the tub next to the window overlooking the beach. I lay with my back and head lying against his naked chest. One of his arms rested along the side of the cast-iron claw-foot tub. Elias had dimmed the lights in the bathroom earlier, which left the room in a low copper-colored glow that spilled onto the white marble floor near the elongated sink. The moonlight cast a grayish-blue hue on the tub through the window.

Elias continued to massage my scalp with his fingertips long after he had rinsed the shampoo from my hair. I nearly fell asleep against his chest, lulled by his touch, but when I shut my eyes, I saw Jana’s face staring back at me.

“Elias,” I said in a low, distant voice as I stared toward the window. “Even if nothing ever happens to me, even if I get off with a slap on the wrist, I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for what happened to her.”

Water trickled from Elias’s arm into the tub as he reached underneath the water for my arm and pulled it against my breasts. He laid his head against the side of mine and I could feel the warmth of his breath from his nose as he exhaled softly against my cheek.

“I know, baby,” he said quietly. “I can’t tell you not to let it get to you and I can’t say that you shouldn’t feel guilty because it was an accident, even though that’s what I feel, but I’ll be here for you. Always.”

“I know you will…”

He traced the bone along my forearm with the tip of his finger, up to my shoulder and then along my collarbone. I closed my eyes and let the shiver running along my spine subside.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You know you can,” he said softly with his cheek pressed against my wet hair.

I reached up and touched his face, trailing my fingers along the well-defined curvature of his jawline, the tiny stubbles of his unshaven face gently prickling my sensitive skin. I continued to look out at the ocean, lost in the memory of Jana on the ridge with me that night, before she died.

“If she had been pregnant with your baby,” I began, “what would you have done?”

I felt his chest rise and fall heavily against my back.

“Well, I would’ve been there for the kid,” he said. “I would’ve helped her raise it, but you would always be in my life. With me. Just like you are now.”

His hand covered mine over my chest and he slid his fingers in between mine, locking them together.

I didn’t say anything in response. He knew it was what I had needed to hear.

I breathed in softly, and Jana’s face finally vanished from my mind. I saw only what was really in front of me then: the dark sky peppered by hundreds of tiny white dots and the waning moon hanging high above the horizon. Although I loved the night sky in any season and in any place, it never felt quite the same as when I saw it at home, above Mr. Parson’s pasture.

“If you could go back in time, any time, and stay there, would you?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said with reluctance, as if he needed more time to think about it. “I mean, if I could go back and change anything in my life, I guess I would. But as far as staying somewhere, I’m not sure.”

“What would you change?”

“The night on the ridge, of course,” he said and laid his left arm over my belly underneath the water.

“But let’s just say you had to choose a time in your life to go back to and live, stay there forever, what time would you choose?”

He was quiet for a long moment and then he said, “I’d choose our childhood. The day we first met up until—”

“—until we lost our innocence?” I interrupted.

I felt his chin move against the side of my face as he nodded once. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d choose our childhood.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“But I like being with you now, too,” he added. “Despite the circumstances, I think that if I had to choose between our childhood and our adult lives together, I’d probably choose the way we are now.”

I swallowed uneasily and then brought his hand from underneath the water and pressed my lips to his wet knuckles.

“What would you choose?” he asked, though I wished he hadn’t.

“I…”

He squeezed his arms around my body and said, “I know what you would choose. Don’t feel bad about it. But baby, when this is all over, when we’re free to live our lives and enjoy our time together, you won’t feel the same way.”

“Maybe not,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure.

Chapter Eighteen Bray

One night of partying went by at Tate’s secret spot on the beach, but we didn’t sleep there that night. Elias got so shitfaced after drinking way too much whiskey that I thought he had alcohol poisoning. Since I was the most sober one among our group of seven, Tate tossed me the keys to his Jeep, and I drove us to a hotel in St. Petersburg. But not until after I got us lost and drove farther out of our way than I had to. It wasn’t easy navigating a giant Jeep Sahara through a state I had never driven through before, with a load of drunks and one very sick fiancé puking his guts up on Tate’s floorboard. Tate was too drunk to care. I held my breath the whole way, hoping like hell we didn’t get pulled over by the cops.

I felt so awful for Elias. I pulled over twice to let him get some air. And by the time I got him into the bathtub and ran down the hallway with a dripping ice bucket in one hand, he had finally calmed down on the vomiting. I cleaned him up and helped him into the bed.

I had taken it upon myself to get a room separate from everyone else. Tate said he didn’t care when I asked him as we stood at the hotel’s front desk. I put the rooms on his credit card. The front desk clerk almost didn’t rent us the rooms because we looked like a bunch of beach hoodlums and we stank like whiskey. But I think she took pity on Elias.

It seemed like all of us slept for twelve hours straight. Except when check-out time came around—Tate woke up long enough to find me in the room next door, get his credit card back, and go downstairs to pay for another day.

By early evening, we were all awake and out on the beach, soaking up what was left of the sun. Elias was feeling much better. He said he doubted it was the alcohol that made him sick; it was probably the burritos we’d eaten an hour before he started drinking.

“I’m telling you,” Elias said, “That felt like food poisoning. It wasn’t the alcohol. I’ve drank way more than I drank last night, and I never puked like that before.”

I grinned at him. “Are you just saying that to make yourself feel better about drinking tonight?”

“No,” he said. “But if I do drink tonight, I think I’ll lay off the hard stuff.”

“Good idea,” I said, and laid my head on his arm as we walked alongside each other down the beach.

Jen had a suitcase full of clothes with her in the Jeep, and she lent me a bikini. Elias didn’t care to swim, but Tate offered him his extra pair of trunks if he changed his mind. This was beginning to bother Elias. A lot. Tate paying for everything, paying for us, for me. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t something he could control. He couldn’t access his bank account. What money we did have was probably snorted up Anthony’s and Cristina’s noses by now. One last time Elias was going to call his father and give his dad access to his account somehow, so his dad could wire us some money, but I stopped him. It was too much of a risk.

But either Tate was loaded or he just didn’t care about maxing out his credit cards. I couldn’t know. But he didn’t have any qualms about paying for everyone most of the time. Caleb paid for beer and food, but usually it was Tate footing the bill, except when we stayed at friend’s houses and such. That was pretty much a freebie all around.

Before the night started to fall, Tate talked everyone into heading back to that secret spot on the beach, which was well over an hour from the hotel.

We had already checked out of our room, and I had to pee, so before we got on the road I found a public restroom in a nearby restaurant. The stalls were full when I made it inside. I waited next to a sink, trying to avoid having to hold myself or do the pee-pee dance, until finally one toilet flushed and out of the stall stepped a girl with a blonde braid draped over her shoulder.

I smiled, and she smiled in return. Really, I just wanted her to walk away from the stall faster so I could jump in there and pee before it was too late.

Afterward, we hung around the beach for a while longer. I saw that same girl from the restroom sitting several feet away from us next to a tall, brown-haired shirtless guy with a huge tattoo down his side. When the girl stood up once, I saw that she had one, too. I was instantly intrigued. I had always liked tattoos, the way they looked on other people, but I never got around to getting one of my own. The tats these two had looked like masterpieces even from this far away.

“Damn,” I heard Johanna say. “Do you see that guy over there?” I was more curious about Johanna saying anything at all, much less openly gawking at some random guy on the beach while Caleb was standing just feet away from us talking to Tate.

I shrugged it off, accepting that Caleb, Johanna, and Grace’s relationship was weird enough to me as it was. I didn’t care to delve deeper into it. If Johanna wasn’t worried about what Caleb might think, then I wasn’t worried for her.

“Which guy?” I asked, pretending not to have noticed.

I didn’t want Elias to think I had zoned in on him like Johanna had. I mean sure, the guy was smokin’ hot, but he had nothing on my man. No one did.

Tate and Caleb walked back up then.

“Hey,” Tate said from behind, “we’re going to head out soon.”

“Why don’t we invite some more people this time?” Johanna suggested. She stood up and dusted sand from her bikini.

Tate looked at Caleb, who shrugged. “Yeah, sure, that’s a good idea, actually,” Tate agreed.

Elias and I stood up. All of us started scanning the beach and since it still technically wasn’t summer, there weren’t many people to choose from. A middle-aged couple sat to our right, the woman wearing a purple one-piece with large flowers printed all over it and a huge floppy hat on her head. An old man jogged past, very tanned and in better physical shape than most forty-year-olds I had seen, and glistening with sweat and suntan lotion. A young married couple with two children sat close to the water in beach chairs. It was safe to say that the cute blonde in the red bikini and her tattooed boyfriend were the only candidates.

“I saw that girl in the restroom down at the restaurant earlier,” I said, nodding in her direction. “Why don’t we invite them?”

I noticed Tate eyeing her a little too obviously. Jen slapped him on the arm, and he pretended to be wounded. Thankfully, Jen forgave him quickly, because I really wasn’t in the mood to hear them arguing, and I doubted anyone who came along with us to party would be, either.

We went over to the couple.

“From around here?” Tate asked.

I sat down on the sand next to the girl and brought Elias down with me. I hoped they wouldn’t take offense to us invading their space like that.

They didn’t seem to mind. “No, we’re from Galveston,” the guy answered.

“And Raleigh,” the girl added.

“We’re from Indiana,” I said, smiling at her.

Tate wrapped Jen in his arms from behind, probably his way of making her feel better about his straying eyes from before. “I’m Tate, this is Jen,” he said, then introduced everyone else. “Johanna. Grace. And that’s my brother, Caleb.”

“I’m Bray,” I said. “This is my fiancé, Elias.”

We had long ago given up using false names.

The girl sat up and brushed the sand away from her hands. “Cool to meet you,” she said. “I’m Camryn and this is my fiancé, Andrew.” She had a pretty smile and an air of kindness to her. Andrew had bright green eyes and two distinct dimples that set evenly in his cheeks when he smiled.

Elias reached out to shake their hands.

Tate said, “We’re heading to a private spot on a beach about thirty minutes from here.” I knew that was a serious bit of misinformation, but if he told them it was a longer drive than that they probably wouldn’t have come. “It’s a great secluded party spot. You’re both welcome to come along.”

Camryn turned to Andrew. They seemed to be having some kind of inner conversation.

Andrew then said to Tate, “Sure. We can follow you out.”

“Kick ass,” Tate said.

The two of them grabbed their belongings and followed us off the beach and to the parking lot.

“They seem pretty cool,” Elias said. I was sitting on his lap in the backseat, my head hitting the roof every time the Jeep would drive over even the slightest bump. “Did you see those tats they had?”

“Yeah, that was some sick ink,” Tate said from the driver’s seat. He glanced over at Jen in the passenger’s seat. “Makes me want to get another one.”

Jen rolled her eyes and went back to painting her toenails, her feet propped on the dashboard. I wondered how she could paint in the moving Jeep without getting turquoise nail polish all over her feet.

It was dark by the time we got there.

“You probably shouldn’t have told them it was only a thirty-minute drive,” Grace said beside me. She was sitting halfway on Caleb’s lap and her hip kept bumping into mine, making the ride that much more uncomfortable.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Tate said.

We turned onto a partially paved road and the last couple of minutes of the drive were the worst as the Jeep shook and jolted over the broken road littered with potholes and debris. My head felt like a battering ram. The headlights bounced through the darkness until finally the road opened up into a wide space of sand and rocks.

Camryn and Andrew pulled up next to us in their black vintage car and shut off the engine.

“Hopefully they won’t be too pissed,” Tate added and hopped out of the Jeep.

Without hesitation, the rest of us got out quickly. I stretched my legs and rubbed my calves and the lower part of my back with my fingertips. Elias came around behind me and massaged the back of my neck. I let out a soft moan. “I don’t know how much more piling up in that Jeep I can handle.” In response, he kissed my bare shoulder.

Tate lifted the ice chest from the back of the Jeep and dropped it in the sand.

“We’ve got plenty of beer,” he said, raising the lid and reaching inside. He tossed a bottle of Corona to Andrew.

Elias and I stepped up beside Camryn. Tate popped the cap on another bottle of Corona and offered it to her.

“Thanks,” she said and took it.

“If you’ve got any blankets, might want to bring one,” Tate said. Jen joined him then, prancing over in her skimpy white bikini. I think she may have felt a little threatened by Camryn, but not so much that she treated her badly. “And I’ve got a kick-ass system in this baby,” Tate added, patting the back of the Jeep. “So I’ve also got the music covered.”

Andrew popped the trunk on his car and grabbed a blanket.

“Where are my shorts?” Camryn asked, rummaging around in their backseat.

“Right here,” Andrew said. He tossed them over the car toward her, and she caught them.

“I don’t plan on swimming in that abyss at night,” I heard her say as she slipped the shorts on over her red bikini bottoms.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one!” I said. I was always afraid of swimming in the ocean at night.

She smiled at me over the roof of their car and then shut the door. “Have you been out here before?”

Tate and everyone else were walking toward the beach carrying all of our stuff. As usual, Tate left the doors open on the Jeep. The speakers blasted rock music; Tate and Caleb’s mutual playlist, which consisted mostly of some singer named Dax and several different bands he had been in. Last night it was Pantera. The night before, old-school Snoop Dogg. All of our musical tastes had no boundaries, really.

“We were out here last night,” I answered, “but Elias got drunk way too early and started puking up his insides, so I drove us back to our hotel.”

Elias shook his head at me, disappointed. I think I embarrassed him.

Camryn and Andrew followed us down to the beach, where Tate was already setting up camp. Tate tossed a match onto a pile of tree branches and ignited the lighter fluid he had squirted all over the pile. Fire curled up and over the top of the branches and illuminated the darkness. Elias and I sat down with two beach towels next to Camryn and Andrew. Tate and the others were on a giant blanket.

I noticed Johanna was seriously checking Andrew out. I was put off by it, but I never said anything. It was rude the way she kept eyeing Andrew with his fiancée sitting right there. I had never really had much reason to dislike her until I witnessed this. She sat next to Caleb, the guy she had been screwing for no telling how long, making sure her pose was natural but at the same time sensual, as if she hoped Andrew would notice her barely tanned skin underneath her hot pink bikini, which barely held her boobs in place. At one point, I saw her twist her long, blonde hair and drape it over her shoulder on one side, as if to mimic the way that Camryn wore hers. I thought I had issues. No, Johanna had me beat in the issues department. And I may have been promiscuous, but I had standards. Johanna didn’t know the concept.

“Those are some wicked fuckin’ tattoos,” Tate pointed out.

Camryn pulled away from Andrew’s chest to give us all a better look. She raised her arm above her head and exposed her side, as well.

“Yeah, no doubt,” I said, totally fascinated by the ink and wanting some of my own more and more. I crawled across the sand toward them to get a better look. “I’ve been curious about yours.”

“Turn around here, babe, and show them how it fits,” Andrew said and lifted Camryn around on his lap. He lay down on the sand and brought her body down on top of his.

They lined up their tattoos to form a seamless picture, and my eyes grew wide with fascination and envy. I didn’t even know the story behind it yet, but my heart ached just seeing the two of them lying together like that, like two pieces forming one whole person right in front of my eyes. Momentarily, I thought of me and Elias. I pictured the two of us in their place. Andrew’s half of the tattoo was of a woman wearing a long, graceful see-through white gown that was pressed against the sensual curves of her body by the wind. Tendrils of flowing fabric blew behind her as she reached out her arms to the male figure inked on Camryn’s ribs. I gaped down at the detail, mesmerized by the beautiful complexity of every perfect line. The tattoos were enormous, stretching from the tops of their ribs down almost to their hips.