He lets out a loud sigh and laces his fingers behind his neck. His face tilts toward the sky for a long moment before dropping back to mine.
“I appreciate that you want to defend me, and I even understand and can agree with it to a certain extent, but I don’t want this to be an ongoing, messy ordeal. I want it to be over. I don’t want to see him again, I don’t want to talk to him again, and I don’t want to get revenge. I just want to be done. Can you please respect that and stay? Please, for me?”
Max lets out another loud sigh. His jaw clenches and he shakes his head subtly a few times before closing his eyes and looking to the ground. “He deserves to have the shit beaten out of him.”
“Let’s leave it to karma.”
“I’d feel much better taking care of it myself.”
The left side of my mouth pulls up in a smirk. “I know.” I wrap my arms around his body and feel his muscles relax just the tiniest bit as I pull myself to his chest.
“If he comes back here though—”
“I won’t interfere,” I agree again.
Max’s grip flexes before it loosens and we turn back to my house with our arms still securely wrapped around each other’s waists. The others stand in the driveway watching us.
“If he comes, call me. I want to help beat the shit out of him,” Kyle says before kissing Kendall on the cheek and heading over to do the same to Abby. “I have to get back before Mindi starts burning my clothes in the driveway.”
“No more douchebags,” he adds, hooking his elbow around the side of my neck and pulling me to him in a rough hug that breaks my arm from Max’s. “I love you too.” He plants a kiss on the top of my head before releasing me and walking to his truck.
“Love you too,” I call, following the others back inside.
The end of summer approaches rapidly. Max and I hold on to the final threads and spend the next week nearly inseparable. We attend a going away party for Jess, who is ecstatic to learn we’re hanging out so much. It goes far better than the other two parties we’d attended together.
“What are you thinking so hard about over there?” I brush my hands together and lift the piece of driftwood I’d carried over and begin tracing lines that barely leave a trace in the dry sand we’re sitting in.
I glance back to Max whose eyes have gone from slightly squinted, his head tilted to the side, to being rounder and brighter.
“Get out of my head Bosse.”
A quiet laugh gets lost in a gust of wind as his attention moves to where Jameson is hauling Kendall into the surf. “I can’t fully read your mind yet.” Max’s eyes return to mine, bright with curiosity. “I’m learning, but you have the upper hand on me with this one. I’m just starting to recognize when you’re being sarcastic.” I’m definitely underplaying this, over the summer I’ve learned a lot about Max, but recently I’ve learned even more as we’ve uncovered facts and tidbits about one another. Some as simple as favorite colors to more complex things, like dreams and aspirations. There’s a certain level of comfort we share now. Quiet pauses don’t seem awkward with the need to force conversation. He doesn’t bat an eye when I wear one of my old camp T-shirts, and he quickly learns that ice cream really does make almost everything better.
“You know me better than most people.” His hands drop to the sand behind him and he moves closer to me, so our thighs brush and then wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me toward him so my head leans against the front of his chest. “It scares the hell out of me, but I’m starting to like it more than I fear it.”
When Max and Jameson leave for a fishing trip that they’ve had planned, I want to feel excited for them. I know they’ve been looking forward to it, but the selfish part of me wants him to stay.
Thankfully their first day gone is a Sister Sunday and we pile into Mindi’s minivan. I try to listen to the multiple conversations surrounding me, hearing names and giggles floating through the air, but I can’t fight the distraction of Max as I wonder what he’s doing.
“Ace, where are you?” I glance around and notice Jenny and Savannah both stare at me from the bench in front of me.
“On the ocean with Max,” Kendall teases quietly with a grin. “She’s got it bad.”
There’s a chorus of oohs from my sisters that makes my face blush as they assault me with questions and comments, and even a few suggestions about Max’s hotness and the Miller boys in general.
I glance out the window in confusion when the van pulls to a stop. Usually we go to the same Mexican restaurant every Sister Sunday before we head to a movie, or a pedicure, or some other girly activity, but we’re sitting outside of a building covered in spray paint that I honestly can’t recall ever having seen before.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking over to Savannah. She has a coy smile spread across her lips that tells me I don’t want to hear the answer.
I look to each of them, waiting for some sort of explanation, as I follow them up to the building, looking anxious and excited for whatever it is we’re about to do.
I watch as Mindi approaches the storefront. She’s more of a germaphobe than I am, so I’m expecting her to cringe and turn around and yell “joke,” or something that makes more sense than what she does, which is swings the dark-tinted door open and strolls inside, like this is somewhere she goes on a usual basis.
Kendall looks over her shoulder, eyeing me with a grin before following Mindi inside. My eyebrows knit together as my gaze roams around the exterior of the rundown building, searching for a store sign or some sort of clue as to our whereabouts.
“Come on,” Savannah says, gently shoving me in the direction of the door Jenny holds open with a guilty smile.
“Why do you guys all know what’s going on and I don’t?” I ask, walking through the door as I shoot Jenny a scowl. She’s the most likely to fold.
As soon as I cross the threshold, I don’t need a hint or explanation of our current whereabouts. It’s evident by the randomly placed, mismatched pictures in every shape and size that cover the walls. The décor and occupied chair in the corner tell me exactly where we are: a tattoo parlor.
“I’ll watch, but you guys know how I feel,” I say, shaking my head.
“We’re getting it together.” Savannah states.
“We?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “You guys decided for me what I’m going to get tattooed on my body?”
Jenny looks at me shyly, but Kendall grabs my wrist and faces me, her light blue eyes boring into mine. “You need to get over it, because it’s happening. You can choose where if you want.”
“Hey, wow, you weren’t kidding.” I look up to see a skinny man heavily covered in tattoos approaching us. My eyes skitter across his body, taking in the crazy amount of ink he sports and the several piercings that cover his ears, before looking to his face and watching him smile appreciatively at Mindi.
“Are you even supposed to get a tattoo while you’re pregnant?” I interrupt.
“Savannah and I will get ours once the babies are born,” Mindi explains without looking to me. “Ace, this is Scout. Ironic, I know. Scout this is Ace, Jenny, Savannah, and Kendall.” He nods to each of us with a grin that says he’s happy to see that we’re his next customers.
Scout leads us to a chair and eyes us. “So who’s going first?” he asks, griping the back of the chair.
“I am.” Jenny says, perching on the chair. He grabs some papers and a pattern from the counter beside him, and I realize that they’ve been planning this. They’re serious.