Page 62 of From Air

“We. Got. Tattoos.”

Fitz eases to sitting. “Yep.” He winces. “We did. It was your idea.”

“Dude!You had a say. We were not sober enough to get them. What irresponsible idiot gave us tattoos? Alcohol is a blood thinner. Guess what you shouldn’t do before getting a tattoo?” My voice escalates with each word.

He chuckles, standing and arching his back in a long stretch. “Drink alcohol?”

“This won’t end well. If we found someone that irresponsible, I can only imagine how irresponsible he probably is with keeping things sanitary and sterile.” My stomach twists as I consider all the dangerous possibilities.

“We weren’t that drunk. We were just enjoying life.” He tips his chin and lifts his arm to inspect his tattoo.

“We have to be ready by the time Melissa gets here. Get dressed.”

I’m never drinking a drop of alcohol again. When Fitz closes the bathroom door, I make the bed, throw on my dress, and apply makeup in the full-length mirror while my curling iron heats up.

Even though I can’t see the back of my neck, I know what it says—more proof that I wasn’t drunk enough to forget.

Mine says “He’s mine,” and his says “She’s mine.”

“One word, Fitz. You couldn’t pitch in a little money for that extra word?” I ask when he stands in the doorway wearing the hell out of a black suit and crisp white shirt with a silver-and-blue geometric tie. I almost forget that I’m hell bent on blaming him for today’s events.

“Pitch in?” He grunts a laugh. “I bet you make more money than I do. So the question is, why were you so cheap with something so permanent?”

“I was testing your level of generosity.”

His lips twist, and he nods several times while inspecting my gold ruched dress with a cowl-neck and generous split up my thigh. “Let me guess. I failed?”

“Times infinity.” I scowl at his reflection, even though it’s hard because that suit does things to me. Things that get me into trouble.

“What’s the big deal anyway?”

I twist the curling iron. “He’s my personimplies friendship.He’s mineimplies ownership. Something that’s forever.”

“It is what it is.”

I unplug the curling iron and turn toward him, inhaling a massive breath and holding it for a few seconds. “It is what it is? How do we explain it?”

“Who’s going to know?”

“What? Melissa will know. And Will and Maren will know. Basically, the three people we don’t want to know willknow.”

“It’s on the back of your neck, covered by your hair. And mine’s on my torso, covered by my arm. Besides, you can always get ‘he’ changed to something else.”

I think of words that end inh-e. I’ve got nothing. “What words end inh-e?” I brush past him to slip on my heels in the kitchen.

Fitz follows me while staring at his phone. “Well, there’savalanche,heartache,toothache,unsheathe,mustache,guilloche—”

“Mustache? Mustache’s mine? That’s ridiculous. And what the hell isguilloche?”

“It’s, uh ...” He squints at his phone’s screen. “A decoration formed by two intersecting lines.”

“I’m an idiot. No.” I shake my head a half-dozen times. “You make me into an idiot.”

His head juts back. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. If I make you into an idiot, then what do we say about the woman who suggested we get tattoos from a sketchy tattoo artist in the first place?Youare the bad influence. And it’s me who does idiotic things under your bad influence.”

I wave him off. “Nonsense. I’ll look intoguilloche. And what will you change ‘she’ to?”

He chuckles. “I’m afraid my choices are fewer than yours. I’ll probably go withgaloshes.”

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