Crashing Souls (31 page)

“What can I help you guys with?”

I looked up at Dexter and he smiled, telling me to go on.

“We want to get tattoos.” I grinned. “Well, obviously.” I gestured around the room.

“We do piercings too. But we only have one artist on,” the woman said with a small frown as the buzzing paused.

“I’m almost done, Frannie,” said a deep male voice from the back. “Get everything ready for them.”

Frannie clapped her hands and I turned to Dexter. Before I could ask, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

“I’m sure. Remember?” I nodded and started looking at the tattoo designs. I didn’t want something that meant nothing, and as I looked at these pictures, I realized that’s exactly what they were. Pictures that meant nothing.

“I think I know what I want. I love you, but I don’t want your name. It’s cheesy. I already know you’re mine and you know I’m yours. But I think we should get something that reminds us of each other. Almost like a secret. No one else will know what they mean.” I looked back at Dexter, who was looking at me with the same adoration I’d been used to in high school. I stuck my tongue out and settled down with Frannie to look at fonts. Once I picked one, I whispered what I wanted in her ear and she clapped her hands again. I was beginning to love her overzealous personality. We went over the size and placement of it, and she ran to the back to start the design.

“So, no names? But something that reminds me of you. Any place in particular?” He sat beside me and flipped through the font book.

“
Wherever you want.” I sat back content. Until I started second guessing. “Unless you don’t want one about me. You can get whatever—”

He grabbed my hand, silencing me with a look.

“Don’t do that. I love this idea—us having something that means something and no one will know it. And I love that tonight it feels like we were never apart.”

Frannie came back, breaking me from my Dexter Andrews-induced hypnosis.

“Yours is ready to go. What about you, handsome?” She went through the book with him as I walked through the parlor. I was looking at the piles of tattoo magazines when heavy boots made their way toward me. Accompanied by a busty blonde stood a god of a man. A very tattooed man. He was slim and his hair was slicked in the way that reminded me of leather jackets and combs in the back pockets of Levi jeans. The woman turned toward him, giving him a peck and bouncing out of the door, a bandage over one arm. He watched her go, looking rather pleased. It was only once she’d gone that he looked at me.

Not busty, although my C cups were nice enough in my opinion. Not blonde, but I never wanted to be. Blue hair had been fun enough.

“You next?” he asked me, walking toward Dexter, who’d been left alone after he told Frannie what he wanted.

“That’s me,” I said, trying not to sound nervous.

“Nervous?” The man looked up from the counter he’d walked behind. Apparently I wasn’t good at pretending I wasn’t a chicken.

“Trying not to be,” I replied as he walked back toward the back of the parlor. He waved me over and I followed him. He’d grabbed the design Frannie made, and when he asked me where I wanted it, I pulled my hair up, securing it, and pointed to the back of my neck. He ran his fingers over the skin.

“
Don’t be nervous,” he said as he examined my neck. From where I stood, I could see Dexter’s shadow. He hopped off the chair, following Frannie back toward us.

“Here’s his.” I averted my eyes, knowing I wouldn’t want to see it until it was on him. “Did you want him in here with you?” she asked me.

“As long as he doesn’t see what’s being done.” I lifted a brow, trying to seem daring when really I was near pissing my pants.

“He can sit facing her,” the tattoo artist said and pointed behind me, ordering me to sit on what looked like a hospital bed. A black leather one. I sat with my back toward the artist and facing Dexter, who’d pulled up a chair. I shivered as the man sprayed something on my skin and wiped it. He told me to drop my chin, and I felt him place something on the back of my neck. Like paper. He pulled it away from my skin and stepped off. He came back with two mirrors, one he held up and one he handed me. I made sure Dexter wasn’t looking, and I checked it out.

Small and precise. What I wanted. I told him it was perfect and I tipped my chin again, reaching for Dexter’s hands. The buzz of the tattoo machine didn’t scare me as much as it should have. I knew the mechanics and that it’d basically be stabbing me over and over. But when he began, and the sting was only an annoyance, I looked down at Dexter’s hands. Some things were worth everything. The weight of his hands in mine, thrumming with his pulse, was worth it all.

Time passed quickly enough and the buzzing stopped altogether. He wiped at my skin, and I picked my head up to look at Dexter. His mouth moved, speaking silently, telling me I was amazing.

The tattoo artist handed me the mirror, and this time, Dexter looked too:

Unending love.

The
words were tidy and in a simple font that reminded me of a typewriter. Dexter said it aloud to himself and I smiled. He likely didn’t know where I’d gotten the idea. To be honest, it had jumped in my mind almost of its own volition. The old poem should have been written by the Angel of Death, with us in mind. It was either that or Rabindranath Tagore knew, as I’d learned, of soul mates and the like.

Dexter didn’t ask. The tattoo was bandaged, and I was given monotone instructions on how to care for it. Then it was Dexter’s turn. When he took off his shirt, I began to experience that giddy feeling of realizing he was mine. He turned away as the design was pressed against his skin and when he laid flat on the leather, his eyes looked at mine. Without words, we were saying so much to each other. He grabbed my hand loosely, and when the machine touched his skin, he didn’t flinch the way I was sure I had. Not much of a reaction from him. Finally, after torturing myself with my lack of patience, he sat up and turned to me. His left pectoral was an angry pink, and I read the words he’d chosen:

She only seems free…

I didn’t stop my frown.

“Huh?” I tipped my head to the side, inspecting the tattoo to make sure I was reading it right. “But…what does it mean?”

The tattoo artist stepped in between us, bandaging Dex. I moved, desperate to be in his line of vision. I had to know.

“Soon,” he said as he kissed my forehead and moved past me, putting on his shirt and heading to the counter to pay.

I was still frowning when we stepped out into the night. It’d started snowing and Dexter cursed, bringing me closer. We made it all the way to my apartment, shaking off our coats and hanging them to dry before I asked.

“
Does that mean I’m a prisoner?” I knew I’d always been and I knew that Dexter was astute, but that wasn’t what I had in mind when I suggested tattoos. Something to remind me of how withdrawn I’d become? Certainly not.

“No. I used to think that about you in a sad way. That you seemed so free and exuberant, except beneath it you were weighed down by your fears. I used to also think that you were a free spirit who would float away if I didn’t keep you with me, where you so desperately wanted to be. So, that’s what it means. It means, even though you think you want to fly away, you don’t. You don’t want to die, Noa. And though you’ve come close, I hold onto you too tightly. Right next to my heart.”

Chapter
33

D
exter turned away, heading toward the kitchen like he hadn’t taken what I thought was an insult and flipped it into the loveliest thing I’d ever heard. He was onto me. He knew I was battling something. At times, I was on the losing end. Still, he loved me. I stalked after him. He was leaning against my counter when I found him making a pot of coffee. Always fucking coffee with the Andrews clan.

“Don’t you want to know what mine means?” I walked over, trying to remain aloof when I was actually freaking out. Words like those sounded like forever. And though I’d said I’d be around as long as I was alive, a small part of me was still counting the hours, savoring each second, until Dexter left me again. I held back, I refused to let myself be in the moment. But in that moment, it was all I wanted to do: play forever with Dexter Andrews.

He poured himself a cup and walked into the living room.

“If you want to tell me,” he answered as he sank onto the couch, fiddling with my remote before settling on a channel.

“You don’t care?” I was trying to challenge him. There was a flaw. There was something that was going to take him away from me.
Yeah, you.
I ignored my inner thoughts and placed one hand on my hip. He set down his mug and stared at me with practiced patience. He knew I was about to hound him about something neither of us could control: my constant anxiety and his constant perfection.

“
All I care is that it reminds you of me. Even when you aren’t thinking of me, it’ll always be there. In your heart and in your skin. That’s what’s important to me.”

“First of all,” I began, snatching the remote from his hands and straddling him, “I’m always thinking of you. So far, life has been impossible to go through without you on my mind, since the moment you bumped into me when I was seventeen. Secondly, I want you to want to know about my choice. I don’t want to be the only one who asked.” I didn’t want to pout, but it was happening regardless.

“Why did you choose those words, Blue?” He kissed my collarbone, a place I was beginning to think he rather liked, and whispered, “I’m dying to know.”

I struggled off his lap and grabbed a book from the pile beside the couch. I’d known it would be there because I drowned in the beauty of it many nights. Pining and poetry tend to go hand in hand. After turning to the right page, I handed him the book and walked to my bed, peeling off my clothes on the way there.

Tomorrow I would paint. Miranda hadn’t contacted me yet, but I knew I had a project to get a grip on. Which reminded me….

“Those paintings,” I said as I glanced at him, “what’s the story?”

He shushed me and pointed to the book in front of him. I stood where I was, looking at him. He murmured the words to himself, and when his lips lifted slightly, I melted. I was a handful, a crazy woman. But if I was crazy, what did that make him for staying with me? For loving me? After all of this time?

Out of his fucking mind.

He shut the book and stared at me. Time had never been on our side. But now that it was, we were content to just look at one another. I blinked, remembering my question.

“
The paintings,” I whispered.

“It’s a long story.” His gaze never wavered, but I could feel his energy shifting.

“Tell me,” I insisted. I stepped lightly over my discarded clothes and sat beside him, not caring that I was only in my underwear.

He sighed and sat back, interlocking his fingers and placing them on top of his head. His eyes were on the ceiling, and I thought I’d have to remind him that I was sitting beside him.

“You left so suddenly that you forgot your paintings at the high school. I took those home because…it was too hard to leave them there. I’d already left you once. I couldn’t leave the things you’d left behind. And once I had those, I had to have what was at Tim’s place. At first he wouldn’t even see me. I understood. He blamed me for what happened to you, said that if I ever found you again, it would kill you. And I believed him. I thought I wasn’t good for you. I pushed you when I knew you weren’t ready. I kept thinking that I would be patient enough, but I ended up pushing you and then pushing you away. Sure, I was a kid. But I made you think I could handle it and when it got too hard, I left. Even the night your mom showed up. It was my fault, what you did. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I turned away from you.”

I said the words I knew I was supposed to say. I knew he couldn’t shoulder all of that blame. A guy should be able to turn away from his girlfriend without her getting wasted and almost dying. That I knew to be true. Sure, he’d said he would be there. But I was the mayor of crazy town. Had he known that going in, things might’ve been better. He might’ve gone on to live his life and marry Rachel. Pain lanced through me at the thought, but it was true. I wasn’t good for
him
. We weren’t good for each other.

“
Don’t think that, Dexter Andrews. I knew what I was doing,” I grabbed his cheeks and he nudged my hands away, leaning forward, his shoulders hunched.

“Stop it, Noa. I’ve had time to think about this. Years. I know you’re fighting it still, the need for self-preservation. You withdraw, and I can see your mind working. Sometimes I wonder if you’re counting the seconds until I’m gone again or how many steps to the nearest exit.” He faced me, his eyes shining. “I did this to us. You were right. And I don’t know what to do. Tell me what you need me to do,” he pleaded, his hands finding my waist and gripping me tightly. I shushed him, placing his head on my lap and stroking his hair. He was a mind reader.

“After your mom came back to live with Tim permanently, he paid Aunt Tracey a visit, leaving all of your things there. I guess she moved into your room and wanted it all gone. And when my aunt asked why he’d brought it to her, he said that I was the only person he could think of who loved you enough to want it all.” He twisted and I watched his profile frown. “I didn’t know Tim well, but I felt like that was his way of giving me the green light. I’ll never know but…it sure does feel that way.”

My hands stopped their fluid motion and I leaned back, overwhelmed. Tim had never told me about Dexter. He hadn’t told me Dexter looked for me, though I had my suspicions, never told me Dexter came for my paintings nor that he’d given them to him. I’d forgotten about them anyway. But I knew, in Tim’s twisted way, he was protecting me. Even still, fate worked in its own way, as I was sure Tim understood. While he’d never said anything good about Dexter, he also never said anything bad about him. Thank you, I mouthed to myself, knowing that, if life was as beautiful and good as I sometimes thought, Tim would hear me.