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After Fabio washes and feeds me, we drive to the tattoo parlor. He gets my name inked over his Queen of Hearts, and then it’s my turn in the chair for a new rib cage tat: a poison vial inside a heart, with Venom written on the bottle.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Kat
It’s morning by the time we walk out of the tattoo parlor hand in hand, both of us buzzing with our new ink high.
“What are you doing?” I ask when he stops at a toy vending machine.
Fabio shoves his hand in his pocket, retrieving two quarters and inserting them, turning the handle. A plastic egg drops, and he grabs it from the slot. Opening it, he tosses the container in the trash. “Improvising since I don’t have a ring for you yet.” He falls to his knee on the sidewalk, holding out the plastic ring. “Me and you—all in. For life.”
“Get up off this filthy sidewalk!”
“Marry me, Katerina,” he says, holding out the plastic ring. “Put me out of my fucking misery.”
Scrunching my face, I inform him, “That was an extremely fucked up proposal.”
“I’m not a man of pretty words, but if that’s what you want, I’ll give them to you. Sei il grande amore della mia vita. Giorno e notte sogno solo te. Voglio passare tutta la mia vita con te. Senza di te non posso più vivere. Sposami,” he says with passion.
“Fabio,” I sigh. “I don’t know what any of that means.”
“What it means?” he barks incredulously. “What it means is I’m so fucking in love with you I can’t see straight; I’m so obsessed with you it drives me mad; I’m so turned on by you I’m in a constant state of blue balls. Me, the most calculating man in the room, becomes a brain-dead, love-sick puppy when you fucking walk through the door!” He’s shouting now. “Either marry me, or end my suffering and put a bullet in my head!”
Shocked into silence, I finally say, “I want the purple one.”
“What?”
I nod to the toy vending machine. “The ring with the purple stone.”
He stands and pats his pocket. Cursing, he tosses the ring in the trash before he grabs a newspaper from the stand next to the vending machine.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He answers by holding the newspaper over the glass with his left hand, and throwing his right arm back, his fist smashes the glass.
I cover a gasp as glass rains down on the sidewalk.
He drops the newspaper and shoves his hand inside the vending machine, pulling out egg after egg until he finds the purple ring. Reaching in his pocket, he pulls out a wad of hundreds and shoves the cash in the broken vending machine before he rips open the container, returning to kneel before me.
“You’re in love with me,” I say.
He barks out an incredulous laugh. “If you want to put it mildly. Yes, I’m in love with you.”
“Why didn’t you just say so,” I tease him, dabbing my eyes. “Me and you—all in. For life.”
“Is that a yes?” he asks, holding his breathe.
“Yes, you psycho! Now get up!”
He rises to his feet, placing the plastic ring on my finger. I hop into his arms, wrapping my legs around him and slamming my lips to his. He walks us to his SUV like that, me wrapped around him, peppering his lips and gorgeous dimples with kisses. Yes, the man’s psychotic, but maybe I am too, and that makes us the perfect pair.
“Get in. We’re going to the courthouse to get married right now,” he says against my lips, opening the door and placing me in the passenger seat.
“Wait, we need a backdated marriage license,” I tell him as he closes my door and hustles around the SUV, sliding behind the wheel. “I have a friend who can hook us up.” Having officiated two weddings, I know the drill. He hustles around the vehicle, sliding behind the wheel as we take off.
I call my friend at the registrar’s office. “Hey, I need a marriage license dated three days ago.”
