My phone chimes again and I drop it to the bed while Max traces his tongue along my ear. It chimes again, and again, and then once more before I groan in frustration and pick it up.
Jesse: She says u don’t have a choice
Jesse: She says u r the MOH, so u have 2 come
Jesse: R U there?
Jesse: She thinks UR freaking out
“What!” I shriek. Jerking upright, I nearly slam my forehead against Max’s.
“What’s wrong?” He bolts up and looks at me with concern.
I turn my phone so he can read the screen. His eyebrows shoot up a second before a giant smile covers his face. I pull my phone back and don’t bother responding to Jesse. Instead, I scroll to Abby and hit send. Sitting fully erect in bed, I proceed to squeal as soon as she picks up. Then we squeal together for a few moments as Max laughs and flips the TV on as Abby begins telling me in minute detail about the proposal.
“What’s going through your mind?”
I turn to look up at Max and see his eyes focused on me. His arm tightens around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him.
“I’m just surprised. I don’t know. It just seems so weird for one of our friends to be getting married. I mean they’ve only been dating since like August, and Abby’s only twenty.”
Max shrugs. “I thought we discussed that love doesn’t have age limits.”
I grin and let out a shallow breath. “I know, I just, I don’t know.”
“You just want what’s best for her because she’s one of your best friends,” Max supplies. “It’s alright to feel nervous for them, and it’s even okay to voice your concerns if you feel like that’s necessary. But sometimes people are ready at twenty. They know that they love the person and aren’t interested in spending another day without declaring to the world that they love that person.”
“Yeah, but who says you have to do that by getting married?”
“Pretty much all of society. Why do you think there’s such a fight for marriage equality?”
“But she’s twenty!”
“And she feels ready, and that’s what’s important.”
“I don’t know, I think that rushing into marriage is partly why our divorce rate is so high in the U.S. I mean if people would just slow down, maybe it wouldn’t be so high.”
“You’re right, it is high, and I agree that marriage isn’t something people should rush into, but those two haven’t spent a single day apart from each other since August. I know that isn’t years, but I think they have a pretty good idea as to what they’re getting themselves into.”
“I hope so. I think it’s kind of crazy because I can’t even commit to a freaking major and they’re getting married, but you’re right, they do seem to love each other a lot.” I let out another breath and nestle closer to Max. I wrap my arm around his bare waist and press my cheek to his warm chest, breathing in my favorite scent as I fall asleep.
The wedding is perfect. It screams of Abby with small feminine details, and yet is fast and a bit loud, just like her. I’d initially feared that she was planning to elope, and in some ways I suppose they do because it’s only twenty-five of her family members that come, as opposed to the four hundred or so people she assures me would have come had they planned a wedding with more notice. Max and I join Jesse’s brother, his only relative, on Jesse’s side of the small chapel.
“Let’s do something crazy!” Max says with a large grin as we make our way through The Bellagio, looking at all the different sights. I still have Kendall’s ID, but I hadn’t realized how thorough they are when you cash out your chips, and my desire to not be arrested is marginally larger than my desire to gamble … by a lot.
“What kind of crazy?” I ask, stepping aside as a large group of guys walks by, holding large drinks with twisty straws. All of them are bare chested and in swim shorts and hats, making no effort to hide the fact that they’re checking me out even though I’m holding Max’s hand.
“I’m about to tattoo ‘his’ to your forehead,” Max jokes, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me against his chest.
“That’s perfect!” I cry. “Ready for a permanent dose of crazy?” I ask, looking at our entwined hands. Max raises his eyebrows and then gives me a single nod, and I lead him down the street, through the crowds of people until I reach the destination we’d passed when we arrived.
“This might hurt like hell,” the older man covered in tattoos warns.
I shrug and splay my fingers as I lay my hand on the arm of the chair. Max had insisted he go first so I had more time to think about it, but I refused and eventually he gave up and let me go first.
The tattoo is relatively quick and thankfully has no shading, because this makes my side tattoo feel like a joke. When the gun turns off, I look down at my ring finger where it now reads ‘His’ on the side facing my pinky in Max’s handwriting.
“I love it!” I sigh, keeping my eyes glued to the small ink that represents such a large piece of me. So much truth is in that single word. I’ve become his.
“She’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. You may need to make this claim a bit more obvious,” the tattoo artist says while getting out clean supplies for Max’s tattoo.
“I’m twenty,” I interject.
“Yeah, what are you folks doing in Vegas?”
“My best friend got married.”
“Oh yeah, how old’s she?” I look up from my tattoo and study his bright blue eyes that assure me I won’t win this argument. I stand up so Max can take my seat, hoping he’ll just drop it.
Max reaches out with his right hand and grips my left, staring at my new tattoo as his thumb travels over the back of my hand.
I keep my eyes focused on Max’s skin, watching as ink injects the small space of olive-toned skin to now reflect the prominent, but small word ‘Hers’ written in my handwriting on his left ring finger, against his pinky, just like mine.
“I love you, Ace,” Max says quietly. I look up from his fingers to see him watching me intently and my smile stretches even wider.
“That’s good, because you now permanently have a piece of me.”
“I already told you, I want every last one.” He pulls me between his legs and presses his lips to mine, making my knees weaken. I lean into him and fist his shirt in my hands in an attempt to get closer to him.
Hoots and whistles echo around us. I ignore the reminder that we’re in public as I kiss Max a moment longer. As we separate, we share a long look as the impact of what we’ve just done seems to resonate within us.
“Don’t worry about it. Consider it my gift to you guys on the day you told the world you belonged together,” the man says, waving us away as Max pulls out his wallet.
Max slides a bill toward the man. “Consider this our thank you card,” he says with a smile.
“What do you want to do tonight?” I ask Max as the scenery fills with bright lights and scantily-clad women that make no issues about checking Max out.
He lifts my left hand that now has a small bandage secured around my ring finger and brings it to his lips and kisses it. “Go to our hotel room and make you mine.” His eyes are intense and seductive as we mill through the crowded streets.
“I already am yours.”
He smiles digging his fingers into his side. “Show me.”
When we return from Vegas time seems to speed up and slip away, like it has a habit of doing as we get back into the routine of classes. Abby moves out of our apartment and in with Jesse, which makes the apartment feel empty and hollow, so I spend even more time at Max’s.