Something Like Normal(50)

Harper laughs. “Because I haven’t shown it to you yet.”

“Can I see it later?”

“I’m not going to talk about this right now.” Her face goes pink, so her tattoo must be in a really good spot. “Forget about it.”

Behind me, Charlie’s mom chuckles as she draws the ink lines on my back. Just forget about it? Not when my imagination is taking me to many interesting body parts. “Is it a turtle?” I ask.

“Good guess,” Harper says. “But no.”

“Chinese symbol?”

She scrunches her nose. “Ew.”

“Does it have something to do with Charley Harper?”

“Possibly,” she says, but she fights a smile that tells me it does.

“Nice choice,” Ellen tells her over my shoulder. “I love tattoos that have some originality behind them. Don’t get me wrong, my bread and butter comes from tramp stamps and tribal bands, but there is nothing better than doing a custom piece or a design that took some reflection.”

“What is it?” I ask Harper. I googled Charley Harper once. His style was a little cartoonish and he specialized in nature. Especially birds.

“You’ll find out when you find out.”

When Ellen finishes, she swabs the blood and ink off my skin, then hands me a mirror so I can see the reflection. As far as tattoos go, it’s a good one. “Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”

She tapes a bandage over it and after I pull my shirt back on, she gives me a hug. “Thank you for offering up your skin just to humor me,” she says. “You might find a tattoo a much easier way than guilt to carry Charlie with you.”





Chapter 16

It’s still early when we return to the hotel. There’s a message on my phone from Kevlar, inviting us to a motel out at the beach where most of the Marines from Kilo are staying. There’s talk of kiteboarding and darts at some English pub. It’s a guaranteed good time, and I’m ready for that.

“We can go, if you want,” Harper says.

Except now—I don’t know. I guess I’d rather spend time with her than hang out with a group of guys I’ll see again in a couple of weeks. I know what kind of shit I’ll get from Kevlar about this, but I don’t care. I reach for her waist, drawing her in until her hips rest against mine. “I want to see your tattoo.”

Her hand curls around the back of my neck and pulls my face down. She feathers kisses on my forehead, my cheeks, along my jawline, the spot just below my ear—her lips so fleeting my brain can barely register them before they’ve moved on. Shivers race up and down my spine like electricity. I could power the city. The state. The whole fucking world.

Harper sighs and touches her forehead to mine. “Travis?”

“Yeah?”

“I, um…” Her voice is a whisper. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Okay.” I want her so much right now it hurts, but I don’t want to be an asshole. So I swallow my frustration and kiss her forehead. “It’s okay.”

“I guess I’m a little… scared.”

“Of what?”

“Everything,” she says. “That it will be awkward and weird. Or I’ll do it wrong. But mostly—well, mostly that I can’t compare to Paige. She’s beautiful and…” Harper glances down at her chest. “She has big boobs and—”

“There is no comparison,” I interrupt. “Everything about you is better.”

“You didn’t think so in middle school.”

“I was fourteen,” I say. “I was thinking with the wrong head back then. As opposed to, you know, now. When I only think with the wrong head sometimes.”

She laughs. A good sign.

“And, okay, to be completely honest?” I say. “I’m kinda nervous myself.”

Her eyes go wide. “Really?”

Sex with Harper is going to be complicated. She’s a happily-ever-after girl and I can’t make that kind of promise when I’m only nineteen and owe the Marine Corps three more years of active duty. Anything could happen. She could dump me for some smart guy in her biology class at college and that Dear John letter wouldn’t be nearly so easy to shake off. Or I could step on an IED on my next deployment and she—see, I’m thinking way too much about this.

But here’s the thing: the strings are already attached.

“Yeah, well, it’s my first time with you and I want to get it right.” It sounds like a line. Like I’m trying to get in her pants. Which I am, but not the way it seems. Harper’s skepticism registers in the hitch of her brows and it makes me laugh. “Okay, that sounded lame, but”—I drop my voice low because I have to admit something that kind of scares me—“I don’t want to mess this up.”

She gives me that tiny bit-lip smile that always knocks me out, and I know I’ve said the right thing.

“But”—I shoot her a grin—“if you want to wait, I’ll live. Of course, my balls will probably shrivel up and fall off, but don’t feel bad about that or anything.”

Harper gives me a little punch in the gut, then circles her arms around my neck. Her lower lip grazes mine and, just before she kisses me, she tells me to shut up.