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She smiles up at me. “I Googled you.”
The outline is, indeed, of the island. But the full picture is made of a shamrock, a daisy, and wings.
“Wings?” she asks, tracing her fingertip over them.
“I got it after I left Cara and came to the US.”
“Ah. Your wings,” she says. “Flying away from home but taking your history with you.” She looks up at me. “Escaping?”
I nod. “At the time.”
“What about now?”
“I don’t have wings anymore. But at least I have a private plane.”
She smiles a small smile as she nods. She knows I’m trying to make light of it, but she senses the seriousness of it all.
Her gaze drops to the tattoo again. “I like that your tattoos all mean something. Mine is just a stupid attempt to fit in. I knew even at the time that it wouldn’t work.”
“You have a tattoo?” I turn back to her. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that.
“I do.”
“What is it?”
“A honeybee.”
I study her eyes. “And that doesn’t mean anything?”
She lifts a shoulder. “It’s tiny. And I was with these girls…they were getting butterflies and flowers and one got the word believe on her wrist.” She rolls her eyes. “I was sitting in the tattoo parlor, knowing it was so stupid for any of us to be there. The tattoos meant nothing really and we were all putting something permanent on our bodies. But I was…” She stops and takes a breath. “I was trying to fit in. I was usually fine with not fitting, but every once in a while I’d have a weak moment and do something that I thought would make me more like them, more normal. Like the time I had sex.”
I feel my eyes widen, but I don’t say anything.
“So I drank two wine coolers and said yes to the tattoo,” she goes on. “But when we got there, I just couldn’t do any random flower or butterfly and if I was going to do words, I would have done a quote or something meaningful, you know? So I just picked a honeybee.”
I want her even more in that moment. “God, I hope you are well over wanting to be normal,” I tell her. “Because you’re just not, Abigail. I’ve met hundreds of normal people in my life, and I don’t remember a single one of them. But you? I danced with you once and couldn’t forget you. You will never be normal. And that’s such a great thing. For me. For my country. For the world.”
She is staring at me and for a moment I think she might cry.
So I say, “We need bees for plants and flowers to survive. It makes sense to me that you would pick a bee even subconsciously. Maybe some people don’t think they’re as pretty as butterflies, but they are vital.”
“Honeybees pollinate around eighty percent of all flowering plants, including one hundred and thirty types of fruits and vegetables,” she says.
Of course, she knows that.
I lean in with a grin. “So you did get a meaningful tattoo.”
She nods. “I did.”
“Where is the tattoo?” My gaze sweeps over her legs. I’ve seen her arms and wrists and hands. I’ve seen her bare legs and ankles and feet in photos that I’ve studied like I’m going to be tested on the composition of the entire picture. No honeybee tattoo.
When I meet her eyes again, she gives me a sly little smile that shoots straight to my cock.
“I guess you’ll have to try to find it.”
Oh. Fuck. Yes.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice low and gruff. I reach behind her and pull the tie on her dress loose. “There’s not going to be an inch of you I won’t know very soon.”
