“Be gentle with her.” Again, she pats my shoulder. “And thus endeth the lecture.”
She works in silence for a while, until Harper and Jenny come downstairs. Harper stands behind me for a moment or two, watching, then sits on a second stool, pulling it up in front of me until her knees are touching mine. “I like it.”
“Good.”
“Harper, I’d be delighted if you’d let me give you a tattoo,” Charlie’s mom says. “Whatever you want.”
“I appreciate the offer,” she says. “But one is enough for me.”
Wait. What? Harper has a tattoo?
“You have a tattoo?” I ask.
“Yep.”
I’ve seen her in a pair of shorts and a bikini top, so there aren’t many places she could have hidden ink—which kind of turns me on. As much, you know, as I can be when I’m being repeatedly jabbed with needles. “Why haven’t I seen it?”
Harper laughs. “Because I haven’t shown it to you yet.”
“Can I see it later?”
“I’m not going to talk about this right now.” Her face goes pink, so her tattoo must be in a really good spot. “Forget about it.”
Behind me, Charlie’s mom chuckles as she draws the ink lines on my back. Just forget about it? Not when my imagination is taking me to many interesting body parts. “Is it a turtle?” I ask.
“Good guess,” Harper says. “But no.”
“Chinese symbol?”
She scrunches her nose. “Ew.”
“Does it have something to do with Charley Harper?”
“Possibly,” she says, but she fights a smile that tells me it does.
“Nice choice,” Ellen tells her over my shoulder. “I love tattoos that have some originality behind them. Don’t get me wrong, my bread and butter comes from tramp stamps and tribal bands, but there is nothing better than doing a custom piece or a design that took some reflection.”
“What is it?” I ask Harper. I googled Charley Harper once. His style was a little cartoonish and he specialized in nature. Especially birds.
“You’ll find out when you find out.”
When Ellen finishes, she swabs the blood and ink off my skin, then hands me a mirror so I can see the reflection. As far as tattoos go, it’s a good one. “Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”
She tapes a bandage over it and after I pull my shirt back on, she gives me a hug. “Thank you for offering up your skin just to humor me,” she says. “You might find a tattoo a much easier way than guilt to carry Charlie with you.”
Chapter 16
It’s still early when we return to the hotel. There’s a message on my phone from Kevlar, inviting us to a motel out at the beach where most of the Marines from Kilo are staying. There’s talk of kiteboarding and darts at some English pub. It’s a guaranteed good time, and I’m ready for that.
“We can go, if you want,” Harper says.
Except now—I don’t know. I guess I’d rather spend time with her than hang out with a group of guys I’ll see again in a couple of weeks. I know what kind of shit I’ll get from Kevlar about this, but I don’t care. I reach for her waist, drawing her in until her hips rest against mine. “I want to see your tattoo.”
Her hand curls around the back of my neck and pulls my face down. She feathers kisses on my forehead, my cheeks, along my jawline, the spot just below my ear—her lips so fleeting my brain can barely register them before they’ve moved on. Shivers race up and down my spine like electricity. I could power the city. The state. The whole fucking world.
Harper sighs and touches her forehead to mine. “Travis?”
“Yeah?”
“I, um…” Her voice is a whisper. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Okay.” I want her so much right now it hurts, but I don’t want to be an asshole. So I swallow my frustration and kiss her forehead. “It’s okay.”
“I guess I’m a little… scared.”
“Of what?”
“Everything,” she says. “That it will be awkward and weird. Or I’ll do it wrong. But mostly—well, mostly that I can’t compare to Paige. She’s beautiful and…” Harper glances down at her chest. “She has big boobs and—”
“There is no comparison,” I interrupt. “Everything about you is better.”
“You didn’t think so in middle school.”
“I was fourteen,” I say. “I was thinking with the wrong head back then. As opposed to, you know, now. When I only think with the wrong head sometimes.”
She laughs. A good sign.
“And, okay, to be completely honest?” I say. “I’m kinda nervous myself.”
Her eyes go wide. “Really?”
Sex with Harper is going to be complicated. She’s a happily-ever-after girl and I can’t make that kind of promise when I’m only nineteen and owe the Marine Corps three more years of active duty. Anything could happen. She could dump me for some smart guy in her biology class at college and that Dear John letter wouldn’t be nearly so easy to shake off. Or I could step on an IED on my next deployment and she—see, I’m thinking way too much about this.
But here’s the thing: the strings are already attached.
“Yeah, well, it’s my first time with you and I want to get it right.” It sounds like a line. Like I’m trying to get in her pants. Which I am, but not the way it seems. Harper’s skepticism registers in the hitch of her brows and it makes me laugh. “Okay, that sounded lame, but”—I drop my voice low because I have to admit something that kind of scares me—“I don’t want to mess this up.”
She gives me that tiny bit-lip smile that always knocks me out, and I know I’ve said the right thing.
“But”—I shoot her a grin—“if you want to wait, I’ll live. Of course, my balls will probably shrivel up and fall off, but don’t feel bad about that or anything.”
Harper gives me a little punch in the gut, then circles her arms around my neck. Her lower lip grazes mine and, just before she kisses me, she tells me to shut up.
The wooden floorboards of the porch creak in the quiet darkness as I carry Harper’s bag to the front door. We stand there a moment in the dim yellow glow of the porch light, a couple of idiots grinning at each other because things are different now. For one thing, I don’t have the specter of my hookup with Paige lurking over my shoulder. For another, the memorial service is behind me.
Also, I’ve seen Harper’s tattoo.
But it’s not only that. On the drive home we played Slug Bug, punching each other every time we saw a VW Beetle. Tried Guinness-flavored ice cream. And stopped to eat at this pirate adventure dinner theater place in Orlando, where we watched a Broadway-style swashbuckler show about a princess taken hostage by pirates. It was goofy to a degree that should have been embarrassing, but it wasn’t. It was fun.
Normal.
I don’t know if my life will ever be completely normal again, but something like normal is a good start.
“Thanks for coming with me,” I say. “And, you know, just being there.”
“What can I say?” She gives me a smart-ass little grin as she shrugs. “I kinda like you.”
“Kinda?” I wrap my arms around her, my lips next to her ear. “I call shenanigans.”
She turns her face toward me so I can kiss her, and we’re making out when the door opens. Her dad is on the other side of the screen. He runs his hand through his bed-head hair and squints sleepily at the light. “You’re home.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does this public display of affection with my daughter on my front porch mean I’m stuck with you now?” he asks, opening the screen door for Harper.
I’m not sure if I should laugh, so I hold back. “I’m afraid so.”
He chuckles and shakes my hand. “Thanks for bringing her home in one piece. Now go home and don’t come back until the sun has been up for at least several hours.”
When I get to my own house, my mom is curled up in the corner of the family room couch, watching her favorite old black-and-white movie.
I sit down beside her and she offers me her bowl of popcorn. I take a handful and clear my throat. “I, um—think I forgot to thank you for everything you sent me while I was in Afghanistan.”
“I turned it into a game, trying to find the best and most useful things,” she says. “I had so much fun.”
I shovel in the popcorn and talk with my mouth full. “Next time, send more porn.”