Baby Cakes - A Vegas, Baby Novella

Chapter 1

Ariel

My younger sister, Belle, was an adorable mess of nerves as we drove to the tattoo parlor her husband went to for his ink. Her leg was jittery, and her fingers kept tapping on her thigh. I probably should’ve been more sympathetic since I was the one who’d come up with the idea of her getting a tattoo in the first place, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to razz her a little. “It’s a good thing I’m the one who’s driving. If you were behind the wheel, we’d end up crashing before we made it even halfway there.”

Belle jerked her head in my direction and glared at me. “Don’t you dare! This is all your fault,” she grumbled. “I wouldn’t be so nervous if you weren’t forcing me to get a stupid tattoo in the first place.”

“Hey! No fair,” I protested. “I’m not forcing you into anything. You agreed to this fair and square.”

“Only because you double dog dared me!”

My lips curved up in a wicked grin. “Okay, I’ll admit that you’ve got me there, but you still could’ve said no.”

“As if,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and switching her glare so it was aimed out the windshield as I turned onto the street where the tattoo parlor was located. “You and I both know that I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t follow through on a double dog dare.”

I thought back to how relentless our older sister, Aurora, had been the time I’d tried to dodge one when I was a freshman in high school. She’d double dog dared me to talk to a boy who was way out of my league. He was a starting player for the varsity basketball team, three years ahead of me, and had a tattoo on his shoulder that all the girls couldn’t stop talking about because nobody else in the school had one.

Aurora caught me looking at him for about five seconds and decided I liked him but was too scared to go up to him. That’s where the double dog dare came into the picture. She’d thought I was just being shy and that she was doing me a favor by forcing me to talk to him. It hadn’t mattered how much I’d tried to convince her that I didn’t like the guy—which was kind of understandable since I was blushing and stammering through my argument—she refused to budge.

We spent three days going back and forth over the whole thing—with her slipping in verbal jabs whenever she could and me getting all tongue-tied out of frustration each time—until I finally caved and walked up to the guy in the cafeteria. Lucky for me, she hadn’t specified what I had to say to him. So, I asked him if I could have the extra salt packet on his lunch tray and trotted back over to our table.

Aurora hadn’t been happy about how I’d fulfilled the terms of the double dog dare, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it since I’d technically done as she’d asked. And so the double dog dare rules had been set back then…be careful how you word your dare and don’t try to get out of one. It also taught me to be quicker with my comebacks, so I didn’t find myself in another awkward situation just because I didn’t speak up quickly enough.

“You’ve got me there,” I conceded as I pulled into a parking spot. I waited until I’d tugged her out of the car and into the tattoo parlor before adding, “But we both also know that once it’s done, you’ll be glad that I gave you the extra nudge you needed or else you’d never go through with this.”

“Wrong.” Belle made a buzzing noise like I was a contestant in a trivia show who’d just given an incorrect answer. “I know no such thing, and you only think you do.”

“Welcome to Ink Addiction. I’m Wendy. How can I help you today?” The girl manning the front desk looked up at us in the middle of her greeting. Her smile was quickly wiped from her face when she saw my sister’s scowl. Her gaze darted between the two of us before she asked, “Um…do you have an appointment?”

Since Ink Addiction was a high-end parlor where you had to book your appointment months in advance—unless you were married to a rock star apparently—it was a fair question. She was probably hoping the answer was no so she could tell the crazy ladies who looked like they’d never stepped foot in a tattoo parlor to leave.

“Yup.” I grinned at her and nudged Belle forward. “My sister does.”

Belle trudged over to the counter and sighed. “Yeah, I called last week, and the guy who does my husband’s ink said he’d fit me in today at noon.”