Page 80 of Rebel Summer

Biology Class

Day 28

“Are you doing anything this weekend?” I asked Dax as the class sat waiting for the exciting documentary on genetics to load.

“That depends. Are you asking me out?”

I reared back. “No.”

“Oh. Then I’m not doing anything.”

I pushed his laughing body away from mine.

“If I licked my finger and rubbed it against your tattoo, would it smudge?” Cat asked me as she and Jane sat in a corner booth the next day at the cafe. She watched me, her blonde ponytail swishing back and forth, as she waited for her opportunity to pounce.

I scoffed. “Of course not.” I motioned toward her food. “Your pancakes are hot. You’d better stuff your face and stop asking questions.”

She threw a sugar packet at me. “I gave blood with you once in high school, and there is no way you would willingly hand your arm over to a guy with a needle.”

“Fess up,” Jane said, leaning forward, the colors on her blue dress making her bright eyes pop. “We’ll get it out of you eventually.”

I blew out a sigh and glanced in every direction before leaning closer to my old friends.

“Okay, fine. It’s fake.”

“Obviously,” Cat said, grabbing my arm and pulling me down into their booth. “The breakfast rush is over. You can sit for a minute, right?”

I glanced around and caught Jean’s eye, motioning to the table and silently pleading with her to tell me I had to get back to work. But my horrible manager only smiled and gave me a thumbs up.

Resigned to my fate, I fortified myself with a bite of Cat’s white-chocolate-macadamia-nut pancakes and told them about the tattoo, downplaying everything—for their sake and mine. Dax was a flirt and a tease. I had known that about him already, but nothing mattered when he was such a closed book, which was another thought I had while staring at my ceiling late into the night. I did think of him as a friend, but I really didn’t know him any better now than I had back in high school. And that thought was actually quite depressing.

“Dax showed up to volleyball yesterday. He has NEVER played with us before. And the other night—apparently the night of the tattoo—his shop was closed up early. Lights off.” Cat folded her arms triumphantly. “You like him. And by all accounts, he likes you right back. He likes the crap out of you.”

“I’m sorry, are we back in high school?” I deflected, distracting them from my heated cheeks. “Do we have Spanish class after lunch? Do you need my notes?”

Jane laughed, but Cat brushed my comments aside, proving that my childhood friend knew me well. “What are you going to do about this?”

I pressed on a smile. “I’m only here for three more weeks. I’m going to do my hours and go back to Tennessee. I can’t stay. So I can’t like him. The end.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Jane said softly, her brown hair curled at the edges.

Thankfully, we were spared an answer when a group of tourists walked into the cafe, and Jean was nowhere in sight.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. A few of the regulars commented on my tattoo. I had spent twenty minutes after my shower this morning scrubbing the remains off with coconut oil and pressing a new one on in its place. It would be a thousand times worse if people found out it was a stick on, but ultimately, I was surprised at how much my tattoo didn’t affect anyone. Some made me lift my sleeve to show them the whole thing, some glanced away from it quickly, and some seemed curious only because it was something new about me. With the exception of Larry, who said I’d been hanging out with the mechanic for too long, nobody really seemed to care.

I felt the shift in the air the second Dax walked in. I knew it was him before I turned around to look. He sat in his usual booth along the front side of the restaurant and chatted easily with Jean as she walked by. By now, everyone at the cafe knew that Dax was my customer, no matter where he chose to sit. I usually made him wait a few minutes, but it seemed like each day those minutes got less and less. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I met him at his table with the coffee pot in my hands.

“It almost seems like you can’t get enough of me,” I said, filling his mug.

“The mediocre coffee here is spectacular.”

A heated flush rose up the side of my neck. There was nothing special in the words, but his brown eyes were locked onto mine and his tone was warm and playful. Suddenly I felt as light as air.

“Ivy.”

I turned when an intrusive voice came from behind me.

My dad stood a few steps from the door, looking like he'd come straight from a meeting. He wore gray trousers and a tie, with a white shirt rolled up at his forearms. He didn’t give Dax a glance, only focused his steely gaze on me.

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