“Why? You wore sandals,” Alex answers without missing a beat.
I look at them, my heart full and so very happy. “Thank you both. For being here.”
“You need to stop thanking us,” Chloe says. “Really. We love you. Of course we’d be here.”
I’m not just talking about the party. I mean beinghere, in my life. But that feels like too deep a conversation for this blissful littlemoment. “Well, thank you for crashing here tonight, at least. I know staying over wasn’t part of the initial plan.”
“We had to. We both drank too much. Plus, it annoys Nancy, and that alone is worth it.” Alex stretches her hands high over her head and yawns. Her buttoned-up shirt rides up just a little, and I look away, careful not to linger on the sliver of skin momentarily on display.
I haven’t forgotten that a peek at her stomach is what shifted our relationship all those years ago. I really don’t need that happening again. Not when it’s taken me this long to get over the possibility of us.
“Have any more spare clothes I can change into, or did Chloe snag all the comfy stuff?”
Chloe shrugs, unbothered. “You snooze, you lose, buddy.”
Alex glares. “I had to pee, so sue me.”
“I should have something,” I chime in. “Just rummage in my suitcase.”
Alex gives Chloe’s leg a slap and slides off the bed to go look for something she can change into. When she reaches my overflowing luggage, she eyes it curiously. “How long have you been here at Hotel Prescott?”
“Three days and counting. I overpack when I’m stressed.”
“Clearly,” Alex says through a laugh. She manages to find a pair of shorts and a blue Penn T-shirt and begins to undress. I roll over on my back to give her some sense of privacy, holding back a verbal reminder that the bathroom isright there. Changing in front of each other never used to be a big deal. It shouldn’t be one now. We’re all friends here. Nothing we’ve never seen before.
Except that’s part of the problem, I remind myself. I’ve seen everything of Alex. Seen, felt, tasted… I quickly try to think of something else,anythingelse.
“Um, what is that?” Chloe asks.
“What is what?” I lift my head and look at Chloe, only to see she’s staring at Alex.
But Chloe flies off the bed like she was shot out of a canon. “You got atattoo?” She maneuvers Alex so that she can investigate, leaving me confused and curious. “When did you get that done?”
Alex shrugs like it isn’t a big deal, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess it really isn’t. She’s been talking about getting one since we were fifteen. Whatissurprising is that she didn’t tell us that shefinally went through with it. “A friend did it for me about a month ago. I was going to show you when I got home, once I had it touched up. Consider yourselves shown.”
Chloe nudges her and winks. “A friend or afriend?”
The last girl Alex dated was an artist. I don’t miss the blush that reddens her cheeks. She pushes Chloe away. “Just a friend.”
Chloe grabs her shoulders and spins her so I can get my first look at what all the fuss is about. My initial thought is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s two peonies, one fully bloomed, the other just starting to open, with leaves woven underneath, starting at her shoulder and trailing halfway down her bicep. I scoot closer, drawn to the detail and artistry.
There’s something about the colors that seem familiar.
“The shading is interesting, don’t you think, Jules?” Chloe says, as if reading my mind. She stands behind Alex, grinning like a damn Cheshire cat. “Blue into green. Almost like vibrant sea grass in a deep blue ocean.”
Alex freezes, her shoulders pulled tight. Where blue meets green shaded beautifully inside my favorite flower. I stare at Alex. She seems nervous. Hesitant. I tilt my head in a silent question: “Is that what you were going for? A color scheme that matched my eyes?”
She answers by pulling on the shirt.
Chloe glances between us and fakes a yawn. “Anyway, I’m exhausted. Think I’m going to crash. See you both in the morning,” she says casually, as if she didn’t just recall a memory that holds weight.
Once we’re alone, Alex stares at the bed and chews the inside of her cheek. Finally, after it becomes clear that she’s not going to say anything, I lean against the headboard and pat the spot beside me.
She crawls across the bed and carefully sits.
“So.” I nudge her shin with my foot. “A tattoo, huh?”
She deflates a little and smiles. “The first of many, I’m afraid.”
