Page 65 of Exposed Ink

I glance at Shane, unsure if he’s okay with that, but without looking at me, he slides into the booth across from my parents and pulls me down next to him.

“Where’s Taylor?” Mom asks after the waitress takes our drink order.

“At a cheer competition,” I tell her. “Look how pretty she looks!”

I pull out my phone and click on the picture she sent me this morning, then turn it around to show my mom.

“Aww, I love it,” Mom says.

“She sent you that?” Shane asks, glancing at the picture. “What the heck? She hasn’t even texted me this morning,” he grumbles. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“I’m sure she’s going to text you,” I tell him.

Just as he pulls his phone out, it dings with an incoming text.

I look over and see a text from her, letting him know she’ll be cheering all day and to wish her luck and she’ll FaceTime him later.

“See?” I say with a laugh. “She just likes me more.”

I stick out my tongue playfully, and he mock glares.

“You have such a sweet girl,” Mom tells Shane. “She reminds me a lot of Kinsley when she was younger.”

“Thank you,” he tells her. “I definitely got lucky.”

“It’s not luck,” Dad says. “It’s good parenting. Give yourself some credit.”

Shane nods. “Yeah, but she makes it easy. I was worried that she would rebel, especially since her mom isn’t around much, but she’s a damn good kid.”

“Well, I think all kids rebel at some point or another,” Mom says.

“I didn’t,” I note.

“Really?” Dad says. “I can recall a few times you rebelled.”

“Do tell,” Shane says with a glint in his eye.

“Remember when you were sixteen and you snuck into the tattoo shop and tattooed your boyfriend?” Dad says with a smirk.

“Oh my God, am I ever going to live that down?” I groan. “In my defense, he was a football player and a senior, and I was young and dumb and trying to impress him.”

“His parents nearly flipped a gasket when he came home with a tattoo of the school’s mascot,” Mom says with a laugh.

“Thankfully, he was eighteen, and Kinsley made him sign a waiver,” Dad adds with a chuckle.

“Oh yeah!” Mom laughs. “What about the time she drew all over Natalia and the other models right before a fashion show?”

Dad laughs. “Her aunt Celeste was so pissed that her models hadFree the Tataswritten on them with lifelike breasts underneath, but it was too late to try to cover it up, so they all had to walk the runway with it.”

“Hey!” I exclaim. “That was for a good cause.”

Mom laughs. “Remember the time she body-painted?—”

“Okay, enough about me,” I say, leaning over and covering my mom’s mouth. “Where the heck is the waitress? I’m starved.”

I glance around, and Shane laughs.

“I like learning about you,” he says, tucking me into his side and kissing my cheek.

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