“Well, no,” I pause, trying to remember the exact verbiage. “He said, ‘Don’t go falling in love. You can’t trust anyone outside of family with this’…son of a bitch.” I shake my head.
“After we ran from the cops, and you came and talked to him about your life, he asked me if anything was going on between us.”
“We hated each other.”
“That’s what I told him.” Shaking my head. “He told me it’s a lot easier to hate someone you can’t love.”
“What?” I whisper as I stop completely, looking at her.
Her hand comes out, touching over my heart, over where theinvisible ink lies. “I hate, I love.” Her voice never rises above a whisper. “The ink was for them. The words are mine.”
Shaking my head, I’m not even sure what to say. Feeling so stupid. All the betrayal I felt towards him. Was completely unwarranted.
Her hand still on my chest, she looks up at me, and I can’t stop myself as I lean in, pressing my lips to hers. Instantly easing at the taste of her again.
“I do have to get up early tomorrow morning, though.” She gasps, pulling away and trying to hide her smirk as she looks up at me. “I’m taking the bar.”
“Sketch!”shaking my head. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”
“I’ve been studying forever. I needed to relax tonight, not think about it, which was the only reason I agreed to go out with him in the first place.”
“Well, let me get you home.” I laugh, holding out my hand.
She looks at it suspiciously.
“Just until I walk you to your building.” It’s a whisper.
Shaking her head, she laughs before tangling her fingers with mine.
We’re almost back to her building when I can’t help but laugh, shaking my head. “Now, really thinking about the tattoo, isn’t that creepy?”
“What?” she laughs.
“I mean. Your dad gave it to me to get, but didn’t tell me what itwas. I was 18, I think. You were 14... Little creepy, Ash.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “I mean, it was kind of win-win-win for him.”
“How so?”
“Either no one but you and him knows about it because he doesn’t die. We never get together, so I never find out about it. Or…”
“We get together, and it’s his way of telling us he’s okay with it.”
“It’s more than that.” She whispers.
“What?”
“It’s their way of telling us.”
“How do you know that?”
“Please, do you think Ash Anderson knew what that meant? And he always just kind of knew things. People assumed he was oblivious to a lot of shit, but he paid attention more than people realized.” she laughs out as we walk up to the door to the building.
“Back home.” I tell her, not wanting to leave her, not wanting to go back to where we were before I hijacked her date.
“Thank you.”
“I told you I would.”
