“Shut the fuck up.” I get out of the car and walk into the tattoo shop, Micah following in my wake.
I go through the normal spiel with the lady at the front counter, filling out the form and providing identification, then sit and wait to be called back. She twirls her pink hair and pops her bubblegum loudly.
Ten minutes later, I sit in a chair with my shirt off. The artist prints the tattoo and Micah is staring at me with a gleam in his eyes.
“Speak your mind,” I tell him.
“You’re really going to do this?” Micah asks.
“Isn’t it rather obvious I’m doing this?”
“You can still back out.”
“Backing out is not an option.” I shake my head at him.
“But this is different than the other one, bro. And it doesn’t get more permanent.”
I cock my brow at him. “Actually, other permanent things have also crossed my mind.”
Just as Micah is about to give me a ration of shit, the tattoo artist walks back in. He verifies I want the tattoo on my left pec and presses the layout to my skin. A couple minutes later, the tattoo gun is piercing my skin and a new form of euphoria filters through my bloodstream. This is different from the last tattoo. More. Everlasting. And I wouldn’t change it for anything.
“So, who’s Cora?” the artist asks.
“Girlfriend,” I say. Micah makes a face that indicates otherwise. “Although, I’m hoping she’ll be more one day.” At this, Micah shakes his head.
“Don’t we all, man. My old lady and I have been together for years. Can’t imagine life without her. Just haven’t bucked up the courage to ask her yet. You?”
“Soon.”
“Really?” Micah asks in disbelief. “You have got to be shitting me.”
I drill holes in his head with my death stare. “Yeah. Why would you think otherwise? She’s it for me, bro. Always has been. Just because you turned into a manwhore…”
“Let’s not talk about me right now. We’ll be here all day. Maybe we should be talking about the fact that you plan to marry Cora. Have you asked her?”
The artist laughs at our banter. “Not yet. But I’m not waiting. When the time comes, it’s happening.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Micah says.
“Why? Because I love her? Because I refuse to fuck this shit up again? Nothing will keep me from her now or in the future.”
Before Micah chimes in with something snarky, the artist speaks up. “You two whine like a pair of bitches.” He laughs, then goes back to the tattoo.
I tip my head back and close my eyes, shutting Micah out and dropping our conversation. He is such a pain in my ass sometimes. When the tattoo is done, I check it in a mirror and pay the artist.
When we get back in the car, Micah speaks up for the first time in an hour. “What’s the French line?”
I tell him the line I memorized a lifetime ago. “Tu es les étoiles de ma lune. It translates to you are the stars to my moon.”
“You really are lost,” he says before laughing and cranking the music.
“In the best way. One more stop to make, okay?”
He nods. “Yeah, sure. Where to now?” I don’t answer him as we pull onto the street and head south. He shakes his head and shrugs. “Whatever, bro. It’s your day.”
Damn right it is.
We arrive at Cora’s house just before six. In her driveway is her Subaru, a motorcycle and a Beetle. I park behind her car and glance over to the window by the back patio. Through a crack in the curtains, I spot people running around like rapid fire. I squint and shift my head to the side to get a better view, but don’t see anything else.