“I’m sure they’d love to try,” he teased.
“I appreciate that you think everyone wants me, but no. Just one guy hit on me, and he was only trying to sell me souvenirs. I got a few looks, but no one tried to convince me to elope or anything.”
“Their loss,” he replied, tugging her closer into his side.
Despite her intention to save the details for later, Willow regaled him with stories of her trip as they made their way out to his car.
Once inside, she continued right where she’d left off, and it took until Willow began to notice they were in her old neighborhood for her to snap out of her ramble.
“Hey, wait.” She frowned. “What are you doing? I don’t want to go see my parents yet, I wanna spend tonight with you.”
He smiled slightly. “We are. That’s not where I’m going.”
A little more warily, Willow watched out the window. “Where are we going?”
His smile turned tauntingly mysterious. “You’ll see in just a minute.”
The flight had been long, so it was dark outside. Willow watched, recognizing the roads, but unsure where he was heading.
After a few minutes he pulled into a parking lot she would never forget, but she didn’t exactly have fond memories of.
Her confusion grew, heavily accompanied by anxiety. “What’s this?”
At first he seemed surprised, taking that to mean she didn’t remember. “This is—”
“No, I know… where we are, but why?”
In lieu of a response, Ethan pushed open his door and climbed out.
Still with no idea why, Willow opened the passenger side door and came out as well. Ethan remained on his side of the car, so she walked around to join him.
&n
bsp; Her gaze drifted around the parking lot, illuminated by the bright lights of the basketball court. She remembered the last time she had gotten out of his car there, dressed to tease, though she hadn’t overtly thought of it that way then. Recalled wondering why he was even there with her, when they both knew regardless of what happened between them, he should’ve stayed home.
The first time she’d actually thought he was going to kiss her.
The first time she’d wanted him to.
Swallowing, pushing the memory away, she met his gaze in the present. “So… you had the overwhelming urge to shoot hoops?”
Shaking his head, he withdrew something small from his pocket—a square of paper, it looked like. Holding it between his fingers, he offered it to her.
“I got you a little something.”
Still unsure what he was up to, she retrieved the small square between his fingers. It was a plain white square of paper with a thin plastic sheet over it. A temporary tattoo. In the center was a small, simple rendering of the Eiffel tower.
It was cute, but it confused her even more.
“Thank you?” she said, though it came out as more of a question.
He smiled almost bashfully and ducked his head. “You said once you wanted to get a tattoo after you finally saw the Eiffel tower for yourself. Now you have.”
“I have,” she verified, but still almost skeptically.
“You don’t remember?”
“No, I rememb….” She stopped, mid-word, her face freezing as she looked down at the tattoo. The temporary tattoo.