Page 24 of Give You Up

Clearing my throat, I shift in my seat and jerk my head at the ink on her arms. In my head, I am telling my dick to calm the fuck down.

“When’d you get all of it done?”

“The snake and the butterfly when I was eighteen. Everything else happened afterward.”

An angel’s wing drapes down her right arm. The other wing is tatted on Syn’s left arm. Interwoven with the wing on the right are the snake and butterfly. On the left are musical notes. Classy. Dramatic. Beautiful. Intriguing.

All of the above stokes my curiosity and my interest in who Syn is. What in her life shaped her into this beautiful and interesting person? I certainly had nothing to do with her change.

That realization doesn’t piss me off. Like Syn not liking the number of women I’ve slept with, I’m learning to accept that the past can’t be changed. What I can do something about is the here and now.

“Was the snake and the butterfly your first tat?”

She shakes her head and lifts her shirt. Below the edge of her lace-trimmed bra, inked on smooth pale skin are: 17-18-19.

“Can I ask the meaning behind the numbers?”

Syn is all about expression and meanings. When we started getting serious our junior year of high school, Syn admitted her long hair was her armor but the color was the bane of her existence.

With her snow-white locks, she could be spotted from across the room. It was how I quickly found her in a crowd. She was like a beacon in the night, with her pale hair and skin. Her confession that she used her long hair as “armor” didn’t surprise me. Syn was shy. Didn’t like attention.

When something or someone made her uncomfortable, Syn would gather her long hair in her hands and use the thick strands to hide her face from the world.

What does it say when she loses her armor, replacing her long hair with a cut that shows off her beautiful face? And the bold ink on her skin? They draw any man’s eyes to how secure she is. I mean, come on, a man has to be blind not to notice her colorful sleeves.

“If I do, can we not go into the details?”

“Why ask? Not going into the details is your usual MO.”

It’s what drew me to Syn. What made life with her interesting. She’ll keep important parts, like the topic of her father, out of our conversations, but will surprise me from left field with something extremely personal.

What about sex doesn’t she like? What mother-effer made sex bad for her? I’d like to fuck him up.

A man should make a woman feel good. Make her come so hard she forgets her name. If this guy hurt Syn . . . She wears down her bottom lip, and thoughts of pummeling a guy into a bloody mess leaves my brain. There’s sadness in Pixie Dust’s beautiful eyes.

“Seventeen is for when I lost myself and someone I cared about. Eighteen is for when I went a little crazy. Nineteen is when I found meaning in my life again.”

There’s grief and hope in her words, and if I were a betting man, I’d say who she was at seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen have to do with losing her mom to cancer and giving birth to the kid with her at Bayside. I’m on the edge of demanding she tell me if the boy is her kid, Grady’s boy, but I hold my tongue.

Prying into Syn’s life is a guarantee she won’t say a damn word. That’s the thing I’ve learned through our years as friends, then she as my girl. Be patient enough and Syn will blurt out what’s on her mind. No prying needed. No questions asked. But rush headfirst into her personal affairs and she will put a lock on it and destroy the key.

I return the conversation to what makes her happy, those damn Sterling guys.

“Earlier you said if you were a Sterling dude, what would your name be. Are there no Sterling girls?”

“Besides the wives who married the Sterling brothers, no. Dare said there are a total of five brothers. Each brother has at least one boy. Some have two, like Red and Midnight. Max number is three boys. You do the math.”

I cram my knuckles between my eyes. “Ow. Brain. Hurt.”

She smiles, and craving an unobstructed view, I drop my hand from my face. Syn Winters is beautiful with her flawless creamy skin and snow-white hair.

I rise from my seat. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

“Taron Vaughn, if you plan on dining and dashing and sticking me with the bill, I plan on hunting your ass down and making you pay triple the bill and a five hundred percent tip.”

Chuckling, I make my way to the men’s restroom. I am liking this new Syn. The old Syn was fine, no doubt about it, with her quiet charm and on-the-down-low humor. Syn 2.0? Syn 2.0 is sassy and snarky and downright fucking delectable and delightful, and I want a taste.

Inside the men’s room, I take a piss, then wash my hands real good until they smell clean and look polished. For this part, I need to get the smell of burgers and greasy fries off my skin.

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