Summer of Sloane (19 page)

If this guy’s screwing with me, he’s got the best damn poker face I’ve ever seen.

I take in all his tats, then glance at the one that’s peeking out from under the sleeve of Finn’s T-shirt. I already know how big that one is, and I have no intention of getting one that size.

“You’re right, no tattoos here. But I’m not interested in the least in getting a fairy—nor one the size of my head—so if you can’t help, I’ll gladly take my business elsewhere.”

I hold out my hand for my money, but he and Finn only bust out laughing.

“Fiery little one, aren’t you? I like her.” He looks at Finn, then puts an arm around my shoulder. “Why don’t you come on over here and pick out what you want, unless you already have something in mind?”

He brings me over to a wall that’s full of pictures of tats he’s done in the past. A table stands in front of me, with several photo albums of hundreds more, but instead of flipping any of them open, I pull a slip of paper from my back pocket.

“This is what I want,” I say, holding it out. “And I’d like it to go down my back, along the side of my rib cage. But not big.” Both Chris and Finn look over my shoulder and down at the piece of paper in my hand. The font is a beautiful script based on the handwriting of Paul Cézanne, a famous nineteenth-century artist. And it’s only two words in Latin:

Memento Vivere
.

“‘Remember to live,’” Finn whispers.

The fact he knows what it means makes me smile, and I can see from his expression that he also knows this is the most perfect tattoo I could possibly get.

“Well, damn, I was really looking forward to a giant dragon racing from your shoulder down your back, but I guess this will work,” Chris jokes. He leads us back to an almost empty room that only has a massage table, a rolling stool, and one plastic chair in a corner. There’s also a small metal table with various instruments strewn about that have suddenly caused the hair on my arms to stand upright. “You’ll need to take off your shirt and bra and lie down on your stomach. I’ll give you a few minutes while I go wash my hands.”

As soon as he walks out the door, I start to freak out, because not only am I about to be stabbed with a needle, but I have to do it all with no shirt on. Clearly, I didn’t think this through. But I realize I’d rather hurry up and get undressed and down on the table before Chris comes back in to find me still standing there with a dumb look on my face.

Finn turns around before I can say anything and pretends to focus on the wall. On one hand, I want him to leave for a second, but on the other, I’m afraid if he does, I’ll wuss out and crawl through the window. Because right now, that escape route is looking rather promising.

So instead, I yank my tank top up over my head and unhook my bra, tucking it into the folds of my shirt.

“I have a feeling if I leave you alone, you may find a way to scramble out that window over there.” He nods in the direction of my plotted escape route without looking at me, then holds out a hand. “Here, I’ll hang on to your stuff.”

I almost kick myself for being so transparent, but I hand him my clothes, then quickly lie down on the table. He pulls the empty chair up next to me and takes one of my hands in his.

“Not gonna lie, Sloane, this can hurt like a bitch—especially the spot you’ve picked.”

“Hey, you told me before it wasn’t that bad!”

“I did?
Oops
.”

“Yeah, oops. Thanks.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “Just remember, if you feel the need to break something, maybe give your hand a rest…and my nose is off-limits, too.”

“Ha-ha. It’s a giant needle, Finn.
Giant
. I can’t be held accountable for what happens in the next half hour.”

Chris walks in a moment later, sits down on the rolling stool opposite Finn, and fiddles with some of the equipment. He explains the entire process, of which I hear very little, because the machine that’s now emitting a low hum next to me has captured my full attention. He touches a latexed glove to my skin, and I jump almost clear off the table, which in turn makes both Chris and Finn jump, too.

“Okay, so that’s not gonna work, sweetheart,” Chris says.

“Sorry,” I mumble as I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on building my pool.

“I’m just gonna draw out the design on your skin, no needles yet, I promise.” I feel his hands again, and this time, I manage not to squirm. He works on the outline for a few minutes, then holds a mirror up for me to see his work.

It’s perfect.

“So I’m going to press the instrument I’ll be using against your back, but without the needle yet. I only want you to get a feel for the vibration, okay?”

I nod my okay, then turn my head to look at Finn instead. The intensity of his eyes is reassuring, and I feel like I can do almost anything.

“You’ve got this, I know you do.”

I can tell by the way his forehead scrunches up that he’s anxious for me. I’m anxious for myself. In fact, there’s a solid chance I may wet myself right here. And as soon as Chris touches me, I jump again.

Damn, damn, and damn.

“Sloane, you can’t do that,” Finn says with a smirk. “I’m pretty sure this is something you don’t want him messing up, and with you jumping like that, ‘Remember to live’ is not what it will end up saying.”

I have the strong urge to flip him off, and by the way he laughs, he knows it, too.

I take a few deep breaths and let myself adjust to the feel of the vibration against my back. As soon as Chris removes it, that movement alone makes me flinch again, but it’s not nearly as bad as the first two times.

“Sorry!” I blurt out, before either one of them can scold me. I take a few more deep breaths and close my eyes. “Okay, I’m ready.” When nothing happens, I pry open one eye. “Seriously, I swear.”

I feel something cold against my skin, as Chris cleans it with a disinfectant and then applies petroleum jelly. Finn squeezes my hand as Chris touches the needle to my back. My eyes shoot open and a string of curse words spill from my mouth, but I don’t move an inch.

“Oh, you have
got
to be kidding me! Who willingly does this to themselves?”

I’ve got both of them laughing as I bite back the pain.

“Obviously, you do,” Finn replies. “And, well, me, and Chris here, and countless others. Welcome to the club.” He squeezes my hand again and looks me in the eye. “Just try to focus on me and not what he’s doing, okay? Look at me, Sloane.”

I hold his gaze, studying each one of his features, making my way up from his chin to his lips, then his nose, then his eyes—oh, his eyes—and then his eyebrows, and finally find myself staring at his hair. And then I do the same thing all in reverse. And while the pain of a million sharp knives being jammed into my skin is still there, I find that this is helping me to breathe. And I wonder if I’ve found a new focus technique, aside from building my pool.

It takes about thirty minutes in total, and I’m so happy with the finished design, I have to wipe away tears of both pain and joy.

And even though it hurt like a son of a bitch and I can’t say I’d ever do it again, it was a different type of pain than what both Mick and Tyler did to me.

And
exactly
what I needed to move on.

Now that my cast is off, I’ve been given the choice to stay at the activities counter at the Echelon or move over to the pool. Honestly, while I love being around the water, I’ve had so much fun hanging out with Maile for a few hours a week, I decide to stay there for the rest of the summer.

“Plans today?” Maile asks as we print out our report for that morning.

“I’m headed up to grab Finn. Not sure what we’re doing, though.” After Finn kept stopping by to say hello, I ended up telling her the two of us have been hanging out lately. Not that it wasn’t obvious by the way I reacted every time he came over. “You?”

“Stace and I are helping her cousin move…again. I know you’re totally jealous.”

After jokingly reassuring her that couldn’t be further from the truth, I say good-bye and head up to Finn’s. As I make my way over to the elevators, my phone beeps with an incoming text. It’s been quiet lately, and I have to admit, it’s been kind of nice.

It beeps again as I step into the elevator, and I see that the messages are from my dad. I spoke to him the other day and was surprised how calm I was after hearing everything I had from my mom. But I love my dad, and even though I’m disappointed in him, I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

I shoot him a text back, letting him know how awesome it’s been to not have that dang cast anymore, but I leave out the small detail that I got myself a tattoo.

Closing out from his message, I half expect to see one waiting from Tyler. When there isn’t one, I barely feel anything. Maybe these things really do get better with time.

But there is a new text from Mick, and I read it before I can stop myself:

I scroll back through the few messages of hers I haven’t deleted, because I have no idea what she’s talking about. Sure enough I find one from the morning Tyler showed up, while I was up at the waterfall with Finn. Thinking back, I even remember seeing something from her, but of course I’d ignored it.

“Whatever, Mick. How about a text telling me you’re in love with my ex-boyfriend, huh?” I whisper to myself as the elevator opens. Finn is standing there waiting for me.

“Is he still bothering you?” He nods at my phone.

“Nope. He actually listened. I haven’t heard a thing from him since he left that day.”

“Good. Can’t say I’m disappointed to hear that,” he says as he walks into his bathroom.

I’m sitting on the edge of Finn’s bed, staring at all the pictures of him surfing, when he comes out from the bathroom tugging a shirt down over his head. He slides it over his chest, then starts to pull it farther down over his stomach, but stops.

“Want me to take it back off and start over?” he jokes.

“Sure, if you want.”

He smirks and sits down next to me. “So what do you feel like doing today? We could sit down by the pool. Get lunch and bring it to the beach.” He snaps his fingers with a thought. “Ever been Jet Skiing?”

“Actually, I’d love to spend the day out on the water, but I had something else in mind.” I know the last time we talked about this it quickly became a closed-off conversation. I stare up at the wall of pictures and tilt my head in their direction. “Would you mind teaching me how to surf?”

He eyes the pictures, and I can see him start to shut down.

“Finn, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been out, but I also know you wouldn’t look like that in those pictures without being really, really good. Just one lesson. If it ends up being too much, we can stop, okay?” I lean into him. “Besides, the last time I tried to surf, I gave Shep a mild concussion with my board.” I cringe at the memory. “He swore he’d never go back out in the water with me again. So now I have no one good to teach me.” I pretend to pout and hope it works. “Besides, you have no idea how embarrassing it is to be part Hawaiian and not know how to surf. I think that actually goes against my heritage.”

Instead of grabbing the one above his bed, he takes a deep breath, gets up, and retrieves a surfboard from his closet. I follow him into the living room and watch as he sets his board on the couch, then disappears into Luce’s room. A moment later, he’s standing in front of me with another board under one arm, and something navy, yellow, and white under the other.

“You’ll need to wear a rash guard.” He hands it to me, and I see that it’s a long-sleeved spandex T-shirt. “I think that one should fit. I’ll be right back.”

He comes out a minute later wearing a royal blue long-sleeved shirt of his own, the color doing crazy things with the blue of his eyes. It’s taut across his chest—so snug, in fact, I can see the outline of every single one of his muscles. He tightens the drawstring on the waistband of his shorts, and I notice he’s no longer wearing his flip-flops.

“You gonna just stand there? I thought you wanted to learn how to surf.”

“Hell yeah! I’m just surprised you’re saying yes, is all.”

I yank my T-shirt off and pull the rash guard on over my bikini. It’s tight, but from what I’ve seen of female surfers, this is how it’s supposed to fit. I look up to find Finn staring.

“I can start over if you want,” I joke.

Laughing, he picks up his board and heads for the elevator.

It takes some serious effort to not hit anything—including Finn—with the long board I now carry, but we make our way down to the beach. After setting our boards in the sand, Finn walks me through all the basics of surfing. He has me lie flat on the board, gripping both sides, then shows me how to master the “pop-up” to get up on my feet. We do this several times, and I have the sneaking suspicion that while this seems way too easy, it’s going to be a whole different ball game once I’m actually out on the water.

We head out toward the surf, and Finn shows me how to get a running start, then jump onto my board, lying flat on my stomach. We paddle out, floating alongside each other, and I realize exactly what I’ve asked Finn to do as I watch his face.