Yes, yes, it was. With that decision made, I went to change into a pair of shorts. These ones were also from a pair of jeans that had met a pair of scissors, and they were short enough for the pockets to hang out the bottoms of them. Apparently all the moving had toned up some areas that I hadn’t noticed too, because my legs looked good in them. And by good I meant that I hadn’t looked in the mirror and screamed. Some days, that was just what happened.
Walking back out to him, I watched as he swallowed and blinked, not saying a word.
“I changed into shorts like you asked. Are we going out?”
That snapped him out of his stupor, and for some reason struck him as funny because he burst out laughing leaving me watching him in a mixture of confusion, admiration, and shock.
“Sorry,” he snorted. “It’s just, that’s the most Jersey I’ve heard you sound. ‘Showats’.”
Now it was my turn to blink at him. Was the man deaf? I was born and raised in Bloomfield, we didn’t exactly sound like Scarlet O’Hara. Then again, I’d give anything to see his face relax as he laughed like he just had all over again, so maybe I’d throw in some of the words that I knew sounded Jersey-Jersey.
Rolling my eyes, I grinned and walked past him to the door. “Are we going out?”
“Yeah, baby,” he said through the smile of his own that he was shooting back at me. “We’re going out.”
DB“A tattoo shop?” Tabby asked, staring up at the outside of the place owned by Ellis and a friend of mine, Mace. “You having something done?”
Now that I’d heard it, all I could hear was her Jersey accent whenever she spoke. It was like she’d relaxed enough around me to let her real side out, and I’m not gonna lie – I fucking loved that.
I’d mulled over doing this, but Ellis had said he had shit on tomorrow and I wanted to take her on a proper date at the weekend, so it had to be tonight. I’d searched online for a rose called Olivia and when I’d found it, I’d emailed it to him along with things I remembered Tabby mentioning in passing about her mom. Tonight, I wanted to give her something else to remember her by, but also to celebrate her niece with, so I’d arranged for her to get the rose she’d wanted on her thigh along with a poppy which was Olivia’s birth flower. There were a couple other things being added, but those were the two biggest parts of the tattoo.
“That it is. It’s owned by a friend of mine called Mace, and Ellis bought into it last year so he co-owns it,” I told her as I guided her through the door with a hand on the base of her spine. Her t-shirt didn’t meet the waistband of her shorts, and with the size of my hand it meant that the tips of my fingers were resting on her right butt cheek with my palm on the bare skin. It was awesome!
“Are you getting something done?” She sounded so confused by it all that I had a moment’s doubt over what I’d arranged for her. What if she didn’t want to have a tattoo done? What if she had something else in mind? Well, she could always say no and get what she wanted done, so it wasn’t that big an issue. This appointment was for her.
“Hey, guys,” Ellis greeted, walking toward us from the back of the building. “How’s it going?” The last bit was aimed at me and accompanied by a shit-eating grin.
Yeah, laugh it up, asshole! You have this and worse ahead of you with her sister.
“Going good. You set up and ready?” No time like the present.
Nodding, he turned his attention to Tabby. “Ok, here’s the deal. Your man here organized a surprise for you, a tattoo you’d said you wanted to get done. I’m gonna show you the design I came up with from reading through all the shit he listed, and if you don’t want it then you don’t get it. No pressure at all, it’s your body. Got it?”
She looked up at me and then back at him and nodded, not saying a word. Ellis reached into the drawer and pulled out a sketch of how he envisioned the tattoo, and then the larger drawings of the individual pieces that would make it all up. I didn’t take my eyes off her once and saw the moment she realized what the rose was;.
“My mom…” she rasped, her finger gently touching the paper.
Pressing into her back and trapping her between my body and the desk, I leaned over her and explained it all.
“This rose is from a photo of a breed of roses called Olivia that I found online. Ellis knows you want it in red, so he’s ready for that. The poppy is your niece’s birth flower so that you have both of your Olivia’s together. The smaller pocket watch is because you said you wished you could turn back time and find Jose before your mom passed away so she could meet her. In between these flowers and the clock will be sprinklings of Lily of the Valley flowers which are Jose’s birth flowers, and sweet peas which are yours.” I stopped, feeling her trembling against me and gave her a second to take it all in. It seemed like an overwhelming amount of stuff to get tattooed, but for Ellis who could do this shit in his sleep it wouldn’t be too bad. “What do you think?”