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SIXTY-SEVEN
LETTIE
It feltlike Tuck and I were making up for lost time. We spent the next few weeks practically attached to each other, and if it weren’t for the cold weather and the fact that we were twelve years older, it would have been easy to forget that it wasn’t still that summer.
We were lying in my bed on a particularly cold evening with nothing on except the sheet, and I was beginning to think we would never get anything done ever again now that we had discovered that both of us were feeling the attraction. I couldn’t take my hands off him, and the way he kept kissing me and touching me made me believe he didn’t want to peel himself from me either.
I lay with my head on his bare chest, tracing the ink scattered around his body.
“You have a lot of tattoos,” I said, my hand moving along the eagle on his ribcage.
“Yeah. When I left, I sort of closed myself off. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere or with anyone. With you and Aveline behind me, I felt like I sort of lost myself. The first tattoo I got was right before I was deployed, and it felt kind of cathartic so I started getting more. I wanted to commemorate all the things that made me, me. All of the life-changing people and places.”
I leaned up and lay on my stomach, pointing to each tattoo. “The eagle for the Army?”
He nodded.
I moved my finger to the gazebo and smiled. “Aveline?”
He nodded again.
I moved to the strip of flowers along his shoulder. “And this one?”
“Violets,” he said quietly, adding quickly, “for my mother.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “Of course.” I moved on to the date along his forearm.
June 2, 2005.
“And this?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He brushed a piece of my hair from my face. He lifted up his other arm and the tattoo that mirrored the date.Now and Forever.
“Me?” My eyes filled and I gasped, attempting to keep my composure.
“The day we met.”
We were quiet for just a moment and I was still gazing into his gray eyes. “So, I was a life-changing person then?”
He kissed my forehead before finding my lips and pressing his tongue against mine. When he pulled away, he kept his hands tangled in my hair.
“You have always beentheperson, Little One.”
I rested my head against his chest again, tracing my fingers over the date on his arm. Our date.
I looked up at him, smiling, until I heard someone pounding on my front door. I jumped up and grabbed the sheet, exposing Tuck, and turned around, facing the hall.
“Who could that be? It’s so late!”
Tuck’s hands were over his crotch, and I threw the sheet back on him. I pulled on a pair of pajama pants and the matching shirt.
Tuck tilted his head and pulled his lips into a line, holding back a laugh as he eyed my pajamas. “Are those beavers? Snuggling a piece of wood?”
I scoffed, “Yes, but stop worrying about my pajamas and get dressed.”
The pounding happened again, and when I opened the door, a frantic Millie was standing on the porch.
“Lettie! Oh, Lettie. It’s Little Debbie. I think she’s in labor. I don’t know what to do!” Millie’s eyes moved from mine to behind me where Tuck had appeared. Her mouth upturned in a wide grin. “You can tell me about this”—she pointed between Tuck and me—“after. But right now, we have to hurry!”
