Page 104 of Lyric & the Heartbeats

“Or we could ask Nohen how he got so good at video games,” Henry suggested.

Anything to turn the spotlight on someone else before his lips got looser.

“Or we could ask Henry what his tattoos mean,” Nohen retorted with a brow arched in challenge. Or annoyance. He suddenly couldn’t tell the difference.

Before his exhaustion-ridden brain could come up with anything better, he pulled the sleeve back on his right arm, revealing the permanent ink shaded canvas of his flesh.

“Nothing fancy. New tattoo for every tour. Well, some of them. The others are just from visiting different states,” he explained casually.

Lyric leaned forward in the rocking chair to stare, and the ice in her drink clinked against the walls of the glass.

When had she finished it?

Her voice softened as she asked him about the simple ones, intrigued by the ink.

“You probably get tired of this question, but…” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Do they hurt?”

Henry shrugged. “The first one hurt the worst, but I think it’s because I was anticipating it so much. After that? I mean, it’s still a needle penetrating your skin three thousand times a second.”

“Whoa, really?” Nohen asked, finally seeming interested in the conversation past the fact that it got the spotlight off himself.

“Yeah.”

Lyric’s nails dragged across her upper arm as she scratched. She had no way of knowing, but the place where she rubbed her arm was where Henry’s largest tattoo ended. It was one of the few he hadn’t done himself. “That’s a lot of needle pricks.”

“They all blend together after a while.”

“Oh, so it’s just like one giant needle, huh? So much better,” she teased with an eye roll.

The subject changed, the night went on, and Henry’s buzz faded as Lyric’s and Nohen’s progressed.

“I think I want a tattoo.” She rolled her head on the back of the chair to face Henry. “Ooo, can I get a tattoo for every tour too? I mean, after today, I’ll be lucky if they let me out of the studio after another two years, but…”

“They’ll let you tour again,” he assured her. “The venues are sold out. You’re making them money.”

A frown pulled her features down. “I know you’re right, but you don’t have to make it sound so… business-y.” Her lower lip extended in a cute little pout.

“Sorry,” he said, brushing his palm along his jeans to wipe away the urge to lean forward and thumb the plump flesh.

“So can I?” Her voice invaded his thoughts, and he pushed the inappropriate images from his mind.

“Can you what?”

“Get a tattoo? Oh my god,” she said suddenly, sitting up straight like she’d been electrocuted with her genius idea. “We should get one while we’re stuck here. It’d be a perfect way to memorialize the shit show of today.”

Henry imagined the tiny tattoo parlor they’d passed while dropping the rental car off. The convenience store in the plaza, located next to the shop with the busted open sign. The ‘p’ and the ‘e’ had been burnt out.

Which left ‘o’ and ‘n.’

His lips rearranged those letters into the only answer he could come up with. “No.”

Lyric’s lips parted in indignation. “What do you mean no?”

“I mean no. That’s a terrible idea.”

He tried to picture Lyric walking across the cracked and pot-holed asphalt of the parking lot into the dimly lit tattoo parlor, the ‘no’ sign flickering at her like a warning.

“It is not!” she replied, her words drenched in defiance.