Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(60)
I chuckled, letting my head fall back against the chair again. “Your username,” I said. “Octostigma. What the hell does it mean?”
Her smile bloomed. “In ancient Greek, stigma is the word for tattoo.”
“No shit?”
She nodded. “Kind of fitting, considering the overall view of tattoos over the centuries.” She dipped the tip of her needle into a cap filled with black ink, which she’d explained to me was a way of reloading the ink, before she started again.
“And the octo part?”
“I just think octopus are cool as shit.”
I smiled. “Explains why you draw so many of them.”
“Well, they expel ink, so obviously that attracted me to them,” she explained. “Dreams of being a tattoo artist and all. But they’re also super fucking intelligent. And two thirds of their neurons are in their fucking arms — and they are arms by the way, not tentacles.”
I held my hand up in mock surrender. “I’ll never make the mistake again.”
Her eyes twinkled a bit as she smiled and continued working, and I had to admit, listening to her talk was helping me not to focus so much on the pain.
“They have three hearts, which I thought was pretty rad. But I think the connection I really made was with the fact that with three organs pumping blood into them, and eight arms that essentially all have a mind of their own — they must feel pulled in so many different directions, you know? Like they’re made up of too much to be confined into one little being.”
She paused, wiping my skin, her eyes floating up to mine.
“I could relate to that, feeling like eight people at once, especially at that time in my life.”
“And so, you were Octostigma.”
She smiled in confirmation, sitting back in her chair and cracking her neck. “Want to take a little break?”
“Nah, I’m good. Keep on with the torture.”
Mary rolled her eyes, but then dipped the needle again before resuming her position over me.
I let my gaze drag over every centimeter of her face, noting how she had a line between her brows from concentrating. Everything else was smooth, though, and serene.
Again, I searched and searched, waiting for some sort of recognition to hit me, for my stupid brain to piece the girl tattooing me now with the one who bared her soul to me when I was a dumb teenager. I waited for it to hit me, for me to suddenly see that young girl’s face, how her hair was styled, what notebook she held, the drawing, any of it.
But I couldn’t place her.
I couldn’t remember anything specific about that day, about that moment that had seemed so insignificant to me, but had meant everything to Mary.
Well, that was a lie.
I remembered that day, but not for the same reason. My life shifted later that evening, when I logged on and Mary immediately blocked me, when I called her and she didn’t answer, when all of my texts went unanswered.
I never noticed how my friends reacted to the girl who showed me her notebook because I was too busy obsessing over the girl who wiped me out her life for seemingly no reason.
The reality of it all made me want a time machine so badly I’d kill for one.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Mary said, bringing me back to the present.
“Like I’d devour you if you said the word?”
The gun paused over my skin, and she went white before her eyes shot to mine. “What?”
“That’s what you said to me,” I reminded her. “When you were drunk off your ass during the preseason game.”
“No,” she said, pulling away and covering her mouth with one hand. Her eyes doubled in size. “No, please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Nope,” I said with a victorious smile. “To be fair, your assessment was spot on.” I let my eyes trail a blaze over her skin, from where her own sternum tattoo met the swells of her breasts down to where her hips made a delicious heart shape from her waist.
When I slid my gaze back up, her face was flushed, but she dipped the needle in ink and took position again. The pain had ebbed a bit, almost like my body had adjusted to the invasion.
“Well, that embarrassing tidbit aside, I meant the way you were looking at me just now.” She peeked up at me only a second before her eyes were back on where she was working. “Like I remind you of everything you regret.”
I swallowed down the urge to tell her that was partly true.
“So, back to the devouring look, then?” I asked, arching a brow.
She smiled and shook her head, focusing on the tattoo and not saying another word.
It took five hours total for Mary to leave her mark, and when she finished, she wiped away the excess ink and blood with a proud smile on her lips. She looked a little tired, but in the way only an artist could be after completing another masterpiece, like she left a little bit of her soul in me.
I loved the thought of that, that no matter what happened next, she’d always exist in me in some way.
“Okay,” she said, sitting back and admiring the piece. “Ready to see it?”
Carefully, I swung myself off the table, following her to the full-length mirror attached to the wall near her station. She blocked my view of myself, turning around to face me and biting her lip as her eyes scanned where she’d just inked me.