Page 54 of The Trouble with Love and Ink
Which is why what Beck said next felt especially intimate. “You look beautiful tonight.”
Hearing a compliment like that from someone as gorgeous as Beck made my tongue feel swollen and clumsy in my mouth. I tried to thank him, but the server came by to take our order.
“That is a sweet arm sleeve you have, brother,” Koontz said to the server.
He'd been writing furiously on his notepad but stopped to roll his arm so we could get a better look. Twin snakes wrapped upward, the ink making precise scales along the way.
“Thanks. My cousin does them at his shop down the street.”
“No shit?” Koontz slapped Doug’s chest. “We could get those geometric wolves we’ve been wanting.” He looked back at the server. “What’s the place called?”
The server gave him the name and location, then went back to taking our orders.
When he was gone, Victoria leaned in and said loudly, “You guys have fun. Hopefully, you don’t get an infection.”
“Because we are in a different country, they can’t have sanitary tattoo shops?” Beck mused. “Come on, Vic. You’re a little too educated for that mindset.”
She shot him the middle finger. “Okay, well, remember, if you get a tattoo now,” she continued, looking at Doug, “you can forget about swimming, laying out in the sun, and hot tubs.”
This earned a groan from Koontz and Doug. Then the table fell into voting on whether or not the wolves would look douchey on them anyway, and I took the opportunity to have another private chat with my fake boyfriend.
“So, you ever going to add to the collection?” I asked, nodding towards the ink on Beck’s arm.
“Only adding something to the negative space,” he said, indicating the naked band under the flower stems. “Can’t give you more of a reason to call me a tattoo guy, now can I?”
“Well, give it time. They say tattoos are like chips. You can’t have only one.”
The server came back in record time with the table’s drink orders, setting a beer down in front of Beck and a sunset-colored cocktail in front of me.
“What did you order again?” Beck asked, smiling at my ridiculous drink.
“The Pura Vida.” I’d heard the term, pure life, in the full day I’d been here. Trying the cocktail seemed part of the Costa Rican experience. “The menu described it as basically a rum punch.”
One sip of the fruity, refreshing drink told me to take it slow, I could barely taste the alcohol.
I nodded toward Beck’s arm, steering our conversation back to his tattoo. “It still looks fresh. You haven’t had it for long, have you?”
“I got it a couple of days before I started at The Arlow Group.”
Right before I met him. Wow, that seemed like a lifetime ago, him pulling me out of the water. How he’d looked so disgusted at where I’d gotten his sleeve wet . . .
My eyes snapped back to his arm, his tattoo, the same spot I’d clung to that day. “Oh my God! When you pulled me out of the water, the tattoo was still healing, wasn’t it?”
He took a lazy sip of his beer and leaned back in his seat. “I told you it wasn’t about the shirt.”
“Why did you hold out that arm for me to grab?” I asked, appalled that I could have messed up something so permanent.
“I was too worried about you drowning to think about my tattoo. At that point, I didn’t know about your aggressive floating skills.”
“Did I hurt you?” I asked, ignoring his attempt at humor.
“Not badly. It kind of felt like you’d grabbed onto a sunburn. But you have to understand, my tattoo artist made me swear to keep out of the pool for three weeks. I thought my arm was going to fall off after getting Woodlands swamp water on it. At the very least, I expected my tattoo to be an inky mess.”
“So that’s why you were a dick,” my voice matched that of someone having an epiphany because that’s what this moment freaking was.
“It’s no excuse,” Beck said, eyes serious. “I’m sorry I was rude to you.”
My mouth fell ajar. I was working to conjure a response when I felt eyes on me. Across the table, Reagan focused on us. She couldn’t hear our conversation, not with the roar of the table. But she was watching.
