Song Chaser (Chasers) (27 page)

She smiles and shakes her head, “I’m not saying it’s anything like what’s going on with Mariah, obviously, but being out here reminded me of it. She got poisoned by some asshole in our neighborhood who was tired of the dogs running around without
being on a leash. We’re a small town so we were used to it, but he moved there from a big city and didn’t agree with it, I guess.” She shrugs, her blonde hair falling forward. “She died the night we put up Christmas decorations when I was thirteen. I remember holding her and crying so hard the Christmas lights blurred together into one multi-colored blob.”

I pull her in under my arm and she leans her head on my chest before continuing, “Anyway, I told my dad we had to bury her. Mom was already gone and when Cuddles died I felt like it was my mom dying along with her. I wanted to bury them at the same time, go through the pain all at once, so to speak.”

“I wrote a eulogy and everything,” she laughs a little. “’Today we gather to celebrate the life of Cuddles Brooks, the best dog that ever lived.’ I’m not even kidding. I made my dad, brother, and Mee Ma stand around the big shoe box we laid her to rest in while I read out a page and a half of memories. I even buried her with her favorite toy and one of my Barbies that she always liked to chew on.”

“That might be the most adorable thing you’ve ever told me,” I smile and she pulls her head from my shoulder, turning to face me.

“You know what my Mee Ma told me that night when I was crying into my pillow, convinced that life wasn’t fair and asking why God was being so mean?”

I shake my head.

“She told me I should do something to celebrate Cuddles instead of mourning her. I remember her saying that Cuddles would have wanted me to remember her, but she would have wanted me to live life to the fullest, too. The next day, Mee Ma took me into the city and we found a person who did Henna tattoos. We both got matching paw prints with angel wings and had her write Cuddles’ name underneath them. The tattoo artist was so annoyed because apparently you’re not supposed to get tattoos like that with Henna, you’re supposed to get beautiful, flowery, elegant Henna tattoos but she still agreed to do them for us.” She smiles, shaking her head. “Yeah, it was gone in a week, but I walked around school showing anyone I could while I had it and I told them the happiest stories about my dog. And after it faded, I felt like I had kind of honored her and I moved on with a sense of peace.”

I stare into her fierce eyes, the blue even more apparent in the gray light of the setting sun against the bare trees. “That’s really sweet, Frecks.”

She blushes a little and looks down at our feet, “I know you probably think it’s stupid, but I thought maybe we could try doing the same thing with Mariah. Honoring her, I mean.”

I tilt my head, “How?”

“Well,” she brings her eyes up to meet mine again. “Want to lay claim to another one of my firsts?”

*     *     *

We’re greeted with the soft sound of buzzing when we enter the tattoo shop. Kellee seems a little more nervous now that we’re actually here, her confident demeanor rapidly retreating.

“We don’t have to do this,” I grab her hand and pull her to look at me.

“I want to.” She smiles and leads me over to a row of poster-sized photos hanging on the far wall. Each one of them is filled with tattoo designs. It’s kind of overwhelming, all the different colors and shapes. Some of them probably held so much meaning when they were drafted up, and some of them were probably just drunken dares. Truth be told, I’m not sure I could tell the difference.

“You know, this is going to be a first for me too,” I say, thumbing through the designs and peering over at Kellee.

Her lips turn up softly, “Oh shit, you mean I’m taking another one of your firsts? Well I’ll be damned.”

I let myself laugh, but it’s a strange sound that kind of forces itself from my throat. I don’t know if I’m ready to laugh just yet. “Don’t get cocky, Frecks.”

She throws her hands up, thumbs pointed backward, “Me? Never.”

I lift my brow and give her a yeah-right-you-little-shit smile just as a large woman covered in tats and wearing a dark outfit just a little too small for her
steps up beside Kellee. “You looking for something in particular?” She asks, skipping a simple, “Hello. Welcome to our shop.”

“We’re honoring a friend. She just passed away,” Kellee says, looking up at the woman. She really is crazy tall, only an inch or two shorter than me. I notice now that one of her sleeves is centered around a tattoo of a butterfly. It looks strange next to the rest of the art and I wonder if it was a drunk tattoo that eventually got lost in the surrounding
ink.

“I’m sorry,” she says sort of flatly, but her eyes are soft and I wonder if it’s maybe just the way she talks. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I want to get a little princess crown,” Kellee pulls the sleeve of her black cardigan up and points to the center of her left wrist. “Right here. And I want
fearless
written under it in script.”

I cock my brow at her, my curiosity piqued. “Okay, I get the princess crown – but why fearless?”

She smiles, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “When you left us alone at the hospital, Mariah told me not to be nervous about our date that night. She said princesses are fearless,” she shrugs. “It kind of stuck with me, I guess.”

“That sounds just like her,” I say, returning her smile. The tattoo artist, who I’ve learned is named Patrice from one of her coworkers yelling from across the shop, turns to me next. She’s trying to smile, but it looks a little awkward on her face.

“And you?”

Shit. I haven’t really thought about what I would get. I stare back at the designs, but nothing really makes me think of Mariah. I don’t want something that anyone else has. She deserves something all her own.

“Can you draw something if I just give you an idea?” I ask, turning back to Patrice.

“All those designs over there,” she points to a far frame. “
Are mine. I can draw up pretty much anything.”

I look over to the frame and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The designs are all hard hitting, edgy, and there’s a shading quality in them that make them jump off the skin.

“What animals stand for strength?”

Her mouth twists a little, “Well, there’s a bull. And sometimes a horse. Rhinos, too.”

“Hm…” I cross my arms and try to think. None of those animals strike me as something Mariah would like except for maybe a horse, but it would need to have pink hair and a unicorn horn.

“Tigers are a spirit animal,” Kellee says. “And they stand for willpower, personal strength, and courage.” I stare at her with my head cocked a little and she shrugs, a smile breaking on her face. “What? I took a religious studies class freshman year.”

I love when she blushes. Her lips always tremble slightly and her eyes grow wide. Right now it kind of makes me want to forego the tattoos and make her blush in an entirely different setting.

“Perfect,” I turn to Patrice. “I want a tiger. And fire. But not just some shitty flames or something. Like, a badass tiger making fire its bitch.”

Kellee laughs and a smile cracks on Patrice’s face, too. “I think I can manage that. Where do you want it?”

I pat my upper left arm, “Here.”

Patrice nods and goes into the back to start sketching up our tats. As she works, Kellee and I wander around the shop, pointing out the designs that catch our eyes. We come across the different piercing photos and I point to one of a bright pink nipple, “Want to make tonight even more interesting?” I waggle my eyebrows and Kellee smacks my arm.

“I am
not
getting a piercing, Tanner.”

“Not even to honor Mariah?” I ask, pushing my luck.

She scoffs, “I highly doubt a nipple piercing is something Mariah would want to be honored with.”

I shrug, “You never know, maybe Mariah was a crazy biker chick under all that pink glitter.”

Kellee rolls her eyes and I push her up against the wall, pressing my hips to hers and locking my arms on either side of her head. “You’re kind of hot when you pretend to be annoyed by me.”

Her breath hitches in her throat a little and she swallows hard, “Who says I’m pretending?”

I kiss her neck and smile as goose bumps break across her skin. “We’ll see how annoyed you are later when I get you alone.”

She bites her lip and I pull her mouth to mine just as Patrice walks up, clearing her throat. “I have your designs ready.”

We walk to the back and Patrice shows us Kellee’s first. The crown is small, the outline scripty to match the font. “I can put little touches of a color in here if you want, too.”

Kellee nods, “I think a soft pink might look nice.”

Patrice holds up mine next, and both Kellee and I breathe out a “wow” at the same time. The tiger is exactly what I asked for – fucking badass. Its eyes are fierce, the lines in its fur almost 3D and I get excited thinking about how it will look on my skin. The fire is at its feet and it’s jumping out of the page, paws outstretched. It looks strong as shit and I couldn’t have picked a better tattoo for Mariah if I wanted to.

“That’s fucking raw,” I say, sounding a little more juvenile than I intend but I really don’t know what else to say.

Kellee nods and Patrice smiles an awkward smile again. “Well, let’s get you two on the table, shall we? We can do the crown first. That one won’t take long.”

She’s right. Kellee’s tattoo takes all of twenty minutes and then it’s my turn. Patrice lathers petroleum jelly on Kellee’s wrist and wraps it in a black shiny bandage before prepping the gun for me. Kellee didn’t even flinch when she was getting her tattoo, not that I expected her to but I just wasn’t sure what to expect.

Shit
. I hope I don’t fucking cry or something.

“Your sleeve is going to get in the way. You should probably take your shirt off,” Patrice says, still busy in her little corner of needles and ink.

I turn back to Kellee and she smiles deviously, “Yeah, babe. Better take your shirt off.”

Little shit.

I smile and unbutton the black collared shirt I’ve had on since the funeral, tossing it at Kellee. She catches it and her smile falters a little as her eyes run the length of my torso. It feels a little hot in here and I’m not sure if it’s the way Kellee is staring at me or the way hearing her call me
babe
made me feel.

Patrice finally transfers the sketch onto my upper arm
and after I check it in the mirror, the gun buzzes to life. I’m not going to lie, it stings like hell and I ball my hand into a fist on several occasions to fight the pain, but Kellee talks to both me and Patrice casually throughout the few hours and pulls my focus away from the needle in my skin. A few hours later, Patrice wipes the final excess blood and ink away and holds up a hand mirror.

Damn.

“Holy shit,” I say. Kellee’s eyes well up a little and I look up at Patrice, “It’s fucking amazing.” And it is. The tiger looks even more edgy and the flames jump off my skin in bright yellows and oranges, mixed together with a deep red. The eyes of the tiger are even fiercer with the bright, icy blue ink filling them and I can’t help but think of Kellee’s eyes a little when I look at them.

Patrice smiles, but this time it’s not an awkward smile but one that suits her. I wonder if she connects to every tattoo she does, if a little piece of her stays with each person she presses a needle to.

I pay for both our tattoos and leave a generous tip for Patrice, joking that we’ll be back for nipple piercings soon. Kellee rolls her eyes again and purses her lips, but a smile threatens the corners of her mouth. When we leave the shop, the first of the snow flurries have started falling, blanketing the streets in a calm quiet.

I pull Kellee into my arms and press my lips to hers, kissing her deeply. I kiss her to tell her thank you, to let her know how much the ink on our bodies means to us, to tell her that she’s fucking amazing and maybe to tell her something else that I’m not sure I’m ready to say. She kisses me back just as fiercely, almost as if she knows what lies beneath the kiss. Hell, maybe we both know, but right now words would fuck everything up, so we let our bodies talk, instead.

“Come home with me, Frecks,” I say, watching as the snow sticks in her blonde hair. Her eyes are icy, almost glowing as our breath clouds around us.

She nods, kissing me again. “Okay.”

*     *     *

After Kellee falls asleep, I hold her in my arms and run my fingers through her hair, listening to the sound of her breath as it escapes the tiny part in her lips. She looks so peaceful, and so damn beautiful. My brain won’t let me sleep, no matter how exhausted I am, so I let it run wild. There’s no sense in trying to get it to shut up when I know it won’t.

I glance over at my dresser at the box that was at my door when we got home. It’s from Paisley, and now that Kellee is sleeping I can't help but be curious about what’s in it. Slowly, I pull myself from underneath Kellee and slip out of bed. She rolls over onto her stomach and takes a deep breath, moaning a little.