Page 78 of A Vine Mess
“What do they all mean?” I whispered.
She was quiet for long enough that I thought she’d fallen asleep. Instead, she shifted out of my hold and sat up, tucking her legs under her, her torso and sexy thighs naked and on display.
Pointing to one of those thighs and the fine-line bouquet of five flowers there, she said, “My and my sisters’ birth flowers.” Right below that was four words inked in an old typewriter style. “A quote from one of my favorite fantasy book series.”
Then she grabbed my hand and positioned it at her other knee, below the female bust, arm raised as she watered the flowers blooming from her head, covering the bulk of her face save her nose and lips. “I think this one is obvious,” she said with a grin, sliding my hand upward toward her hip and that floral piece I’d just been tracing. “And again, obvious.”
“You do have a lot of floral tattoos,” I gently ribbed her.
“You don’t call me ‘Wildflower’ for nothing.” She paused to ponder it for a moment, though, dragging my palm across her stomach to the other hip, where another collection of sunflowers,daisies, and what looked like strawberry blossoms stretched the length of her torso.
“We all need something to worship, right? For me, that’s flowers. I seek my religion in the garden, or building arrangements for special occasions. My body is just a shrine to the thing that brings me joy and gives me purpose.”
Our hands moved again, my fingertips dragging across the vines and blooms curving under her boob, mirroring the other side and meeting in the center, topped by a bee.
“That’s beautiful,” I murmured as she continued to map her flesh with our hands. I tiptoed my fingers up her arms as she told me about the other flowers decorating her skin. I hadn’t realized how many she had until I had her naked like this and finally took the time to study them all.
“And what about those words on your back?” I asked when she was done showing me the vines twining around her fingers.
Ella reached across her body and tapped the words on her left. “It says ‘I love you as big as the sky,’ or as close as we could get in Greek, in my dad’s handwriting.”
“Do you have one for your mom too?”
I couldn’t imagine, knowing how close all six of the Delatou women were, that Ella would get a tattoo for her dad and not her mom as well.
She shifted and extended her right leg, turning it to the side so I could see the heart on the side of her heel. I leaned closer for a better look.
“Are those…fingerprints?”
“Her thumbs,” Ella confirmed.
I sat back and whistled low, shaking my head. “I was right.You’re way more sentimental than me.”
Ella reached out and tapped the mermaid on my right deltoid. “I don’t know. I’m sure the story behind this one is close to your heart.”
Growling in warning, I lunged, tackling her so she was flat on her back, then peppered her face and neck with kisses.
“A lot of them are the result of being eighteen and on my own for the first time during my freshman year of college. A silent act of rebellion against my father that I could cover up for the holidays. Not that it mattered, anyway. They’re a part of me, and despite the absolute meltdown he had when he first saw them, there was no erasing them. And believe me, he tried.”
“Hewhat?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at her expression. We’d both heard the horror stories that removal is more painful than getting them in the first place.
“Scheduled the removal consultation behind my back,” I confirmed, “then tried to bribe me into going. By then, Gramps had already given me access to my trust, so I didn’t need his money—not that I would’ve taken it anyway.”
I shook my head, tossing away the memories. I didn’t want to think about my dad or those days. Not now, not ever.
Instead, I told her how I had a habit of walking into my favorite studio in Portland, flipping through the books of flash tattoos, and picking one at random to get done that day. Or I’d just let the tattoo artist do whatever he wanted—within reason, of course.
“There are only three that are truly meaningful,” I said at last, looking down at her from where my head rested on my palm, thelength of my body stretched out at her side. I didn’t need to map my tattoos with her—she’d already spent enough time doing so herself, with her eyes, hands, and mouth. And they were mostly stupid little things that needed no explanation.
“Which ones?”
I sank back to sitting, hauling her up with me.
First, I pointed to the letters across my knuckles.
“This was the first tattoo I got in Michigan,” I said. “I left Oregon in a hurry, brokenhearted, and needed a reminder that I’d get through it. Now…I think it’s just a good mantra in general.”
