I stood up and held my hand out to pull her up, but she batted it away.
“Answer me!” she ground out.
“I heard you scream, I… thought you were in trouble… I…” I looked around once more, and it quickly became apparent I’d been very,verywrong. “You screamed.”
“I stubbed my toe!”
“Why are you on the floor then?” I shot back accusingly, though we both knew I was on the losing end of this argument.
“It fucking hurt!”
I took a deep breath, and then remembered… “The guy, who was the guy I heard? I heard a man’s voice.”
“The bell hop brought my bags up.” She pointed to the offending bags like they were evidence in a court case.
Double shit.
As I took another step back, more came into clarity; her hair, slicked back and wet from the shower; the tiny towel she had barely wrapped around herself which was grazing her thigh in a way that could definitely be described as indecent. In fact, half an inch higher and I’d be getting a very direct look at the home I used to bury my face in every chance I got.
It took less than a second for the images I was conjuring to reach my dick.
The rest of the second reminded me I was only in a flimsy pair of cotton pajamas pants that were becoming tighter.
“Turn around!” Marnie’s terse command pulled me back to the present. “I need to stand up.”
I did so without argument. Though she’d forgotten there was a mirror behind me, I tried to do the gentlemanly thing and look away, but only after I caught the tiniest swell of her boob as she tucked her towel back into place.
I waited, silently. When I finally built up the courage to peek again, I could see her staring at my back, eyes wide.
No, not staring. Studying.
My tattoos.
I turned slowly, her gaze following me. My chest hit her eye line, and her eyes had widened so much I could see the full, round shape of her iris, the brilliant green I knew so well; exactly like the pair on either of my triceps.
But that wasn’t what had her hand shooting up to cover her mouth, or the sharp gasp she let out. Her hand dropped, but her mouth was still wide open.
I’m not sure she’d blinked.
“You’ve always been with me, Marn,” I whispered.
She reached out to brush across my chest, then clenched her fist and brought it back down to her side like she thought better of it.
“I got it the day after I was drafted.” Her eyes shot up, now shining with tears which made the green even brighter, because the alternate way to say that was the day after I broke both our hearts. The day after I left my heart with her.
And that’s exactly what it was. On my left pectoral, above the heart beating for her right now…
Thud. Thud. Thud.
An intricate drawing of a brilliant star sliced in two, one half lying on the ground, and inside the other half was a beating heart. Hers. Mine. Our tiny initials intertwined in the middle.
The exact replica of initials we’d carved into the palm tree I used to climb up to her room.
My eyes followed the path she was taking; absorbing the artwork in front of her until her head dropped down to my waist, to the start of the longest tattoo I had – both figuratively and literally. It had taken nearly three years to complete.
To the casual observer; namely every girl I’d slept with, most of my teammates, and anyone else who’d cared to ask, it was a shadow, a cloud, a swirling smudge of light and dark tinged in blue. To Marnie, however…
“The Milky Way,” she rasped. “Jupiter…”
