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Jacob,

Lieutenant Dan? Lol

I don’t have any pets, but my brother and his cat have moved in with me, so I sort of have a cat I guess? His name is Cooter. He’s really cute. My brother found him behind a dumpster by a gas station, which I’m told is where the best cats come from. Benny was a college student at the time and he lived in a house with his best friends, Brad and Justin, and they thought the name was hilarious. Now seven years later I have to make psps psps noises in my kitchen and call, “here, Cooter Cooter!” when I need to feed him.

Anyway, I’ve barely seen him in the week that he’s been here. He’s sort of freaked out being in the new place and he hides. I only know he’s alive because he does this 3:00 a.m. zoomy thing where he tears through my house and somehow gets involved with the blinds?

I cracked up.

She was funny. I could see why Zander and Gibson—well, everyone—liked her. I went back to reading.

Okay, so this is going to be super random, but stick with me. I follow this travel blogger, Vanessa Price, and she’s always got these wild stories. Once, before she was married and her husband went everywhere with her, she got locked in a tower in Ireland by this earl who thought it would be funny. She was sooo pissed. I guess towers are really drafty? Lots of bugs, not as romantic as they sound. He gave her this Shetland pony as an apology gift and she was like “thanks for the tiny horse, dick, I want my five hours back.”

I barked out a laugh.

I was just thinking, what if I sucked at apologies and instead of giving you drunk extrovert protection, I’d just given you a small horse. Don’t you feel lucky?

She drew a wide-eyed smiley face and a stick horse and signed it with the letter B.

I read this one twice before I left to start my shift. On my lunch break I grabbed a spinach wrap and some paper and wrote her back.

Chapter 11

Briana

Right before I left for the day, I found an envelope in my locker.

I broke into a grin the second I saw it. It was a little long, and I got a flutter of anticipation when I saw all the pages.

This was fun. I was actually having fun, for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long. I took the letter home and crossed my legs under me on the bed and unfolded the papers.

Dearest Briana,

While we’re on the topic of insufficient apologies, a story for you if I may.

I have three sisters, Jewel, Jill, and Jane. And yes, my parents named all of us with J names. My brother is Jeremiah, my mom is Joy. Please do not hold any of this against me.

Jewel is a tattoo artist. She owns a parlor in St. Paul. She’s very gifted.

A few years ago I lost a bet with her. If I lost, I had to let her give me a tattoo of her choosing.

I don’t have any tattoos. I’ve always been too afraid to commit to something so permanent. But Jewel is amazing at what she does, so I thought she’d give me something profoundly beautiful, an everlasting imprint that I’d cherish. Something I never knew I needed to carry with me through life.

She gave me a tiny lawn mower on my chest next to a small patch of shaved chest hair.

I cackled.

I laughed so hard I think I scared the cat in the other room.

It was sort of surprising how funny Jacob was. He seemed so uptight. But then I realized that it was probably the anxiety that made him come off that way. I felt like there was a lesson here about not judging books by their cover or something…

I read on.

The tattoo has since been lasered off, which cost me eight hundred dollars and was quite painful. She refused to apologize. Something about stupid games and stupid prizes?

If Jewel had lost, she had to shave her head. She shaved her head anyway. She’s always wanted to, apparently, so my losing was a foregone conclusion. I should have known after a lifetime of experience that I am not capable of outsmarting the women in my family—which I suppose was the lesson.

I think I would have enjoyed the tiny horse.