Page 209 of Hot Mess
“Daniella and I hung out,” I told her. “You know that. We drank a fuck of a lot. I actually passed out at one point, I don’t even know how long, before Pepper woke me up and we kept partying. I know I kissed your sister, we made out a bit, but we were never alone. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“It was Pepper’s idea to go get tattooed,” I went on. “He’d met some tattoo artist at one of the hotel bars we ended up at, and we paid the guy to open his shop for us in the middle of the night. Daniella came with us, and while we were there, I dropped a comment about how we should get married. Pepper’s told me so, but I honestly don’t remember saying it, and who the fuck knows why I would say it. I didn’t even know her. I didn’t exactly get down on one knee for her, so I hope that’s not what you thought.”
“I, uh, didn’t know what to think,” Danica said. “Honestly, she doesn’t seem to remember the specifics, either. Did you really get a tattoo of her name, though? She said she wasn’t sure.”
“I did,” I admitted. Fucking hated that I had to admit that to her. “But Pepper and I chose each other’s tattoos, so I didn’t even know what was between my legs until I saw it the next day.”
“Uh…” Danica blinked at me, like she wasn’t sure she heard that right. “Between your legs…?”
“It’s way up between my legs,” I said. “Like under my balls.”
She shut her mouth. She seemed to be tamping down her reaction to that.
Laughter?
Pity?
“I swear I didn’t know what I was getting,” I told her. “I mean, if I ever did know while it was being inked on, I forgot.”
Now she just looked bewildered. “What kind of tattoo artist puts a tattoo on someone who’s that drunk?” she said.
Which was adorable and so…her.
Did she actually think everyone in the world was as nice as she was or something?
“One we paid a hell of a lot of money,” I said bluntly. “It was Pepper’s idea to put the tattoo between my legs, too. So Daniella would only see it once we got naked together—that was his theory. Seemed brilliant at the time. Didn’t work out so well. After the tattoo was finished, I could barely sit or move, it was so sore between my legs, and she was long gone anyway. She’d left at some point while I was getting inked.”
Danica sighed. “Jesus…”
“So, Pepper and me went back to the hotel and I pretty much just lay down. He thought it was pretty fucking funny I could barely walk around. We did more shots and I passed out, woke up in the morning to find out Daniella was gone. The bachelorette party had checked out. She’d given me her number, but I later found out it was a fake. Some auto repair shop in New Jersey.”
“Fuck,” Danica said. “Sometimes I hate my sister, like you can’t believe.”
“You don’t hate your sister. And you definitely don’t need to hate her because of me.”
“You got a tattoo for her, and she bailed on you, Ashley.”
“Yeah. Other than that part, the breakup party was pretty good, though.” I smirked at her, hoping to make her smile, and I was rewarded with a little eye roll. “I always kinda regretted that tattoo,” I confessed. “I mean, it’s fucking ridiculous. I swore Pepper to silence, that he never tell anyone the story behind why I got it or who it was for. Pepper’s not exactly known for keeping his mouth shut, but in this case, I had leverage, so he kept it shut.”
“What leverage?”
“He knew that I knew that he’d cheated on his fiancée, who was back home in L.A., with one of the circus freak chicks.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Not cool. You’re sworn to secrecy on that, by the way. If you ever meet Pepper or his soon-to-be-ex-wife, not a word.”
“Okay…” she said, hesitantly. “Secrecy. For you. Though I don’t love lying to another member of the international girl squad over this.”
And I fucking loved that about her. But… “You’re not lying. You’re just keeping your mouth shut about something that’s not your business.”
“Right.”
“If it helps you to know, Pepper’s got a rainbow tattoo on his right shoulder that saysMama’s Boy.”
Danica’s jaw dropped. “Why would you do that to each other?”
