Love, Chloe(33)

“You’re gonna lick the salt off real fast before drinking the tequila down in one shot. Don’t stop. Drink it all down. Then, grab a lime and suck.”

Holy hell, hearing the demanding tone of the words lick and suck come out of his mouth…it was almost too much.

“Ready? We’ll do it together. On the count of three. One…Two…Three.”

Following his lead, I licked my hand and slammed the liquid down, the tequila burning my throat.

I’d forgotten to grab a lime. Justin took one and placed it in my mouth. “Quick. Suck on this. It will diffuse the taste.” I sucked the juice out, savoring the acidic flavor. My lips were touching his fingers as he held it. He was watching intently as I sucked on it. I wished I could have swallowed his fingers whole.

When he took the lime away, I licked my lips. “God, that was strong. What do we do now? Another one?”

“Easy, drunkass. We should wait a bit. You’re a lightweight.”

We spaced out our shots, each one packing a bigger punch than the last. When I lost my balance a little, Justin said, “Alright. That’s it. I’m cutting you off.”

I watched as he did two more shots. After several minutes, his eyes were starting to look glazed over. We were both pretty drunk.

The room swayed as I made my way over to the couch and closed my eyes. I felt a heavy weight as Justin plopped down on the cushion next to me. He lay his head back and closed his eyes, too. He’d taken off his hat, and his hair was disheveled. The recessed lighting in the living room was shining atop his head, bringing out the natural blond streaks. After staring at him for a while, the need to run my fingers through that silky hair became unbearable. I reached my hand over and started to rake my fingers slowly through it. I knew it was wrong, but I’d somehow convinced myself that it was an innocent gesture between friends. Like we used to do. Deep down, I knew I was kidding myself. The alcohol had clouded my inhibitions and given me the courage to do something I’d been wanting to for so long.

He let out a long, shaky breath but kept his eyes closed as my fingers continued to massage through his hair. At first, he looked like he was in ecstasy, so I didn’t stop. After about a minute, though, his breathing became heavier, and he started to fidget.

He shocked me when he suddenly opened his eyes and turned to me. “What the f*ck are you doing, Amelia?”

I retracted my hand. My heart started to pound as I attempted to come up with an excuse. “I’m sorry. I…I got carried away.”

“I see. Blame it on the alcohol?” he scoffed.

He got up and walked to the other side of the room and pulled on his hair in frustration as he paced. Then, he did the most bizarre thing. He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups in speedy succession.

Trying to fight the tears of humiliation that were stinging my eyes, I watched as he kept with the exercises for several minutes. He was panting and exhausted by the time he collapsed onto his back. He finally sat up, bowing his head toward the floor as he looked deep in thought. Sweat was pouring off his back.

Deciding that I’d already done enough damage for one night, I got up and started to go upstairs.

His voice stopped me. “Don’t go.”

Turning around at the foot of the stairs, I said, “I think I really need to just go to sleep.”

“Come here,” he said quietly.

When I returned to my seat on the couch, his voice was more demanding. “I said come…here.” He pointed to the floor next to him. As Justin sat with his arms wrapped around his shins, I planted myself on the ground beside him, still too ashamed to look him in the eyes.

He turned his back toward me. “You asked me what this tattoo on my back meant. Look at the numbers in three sets of four under the barcode.”

They just seemed like random numerals in no particular order. Three sets of four. What did they mean?

The first set finally came to me: 1221. “That’s December twenty-first, your birthday.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

The next set was 0323. “What’s that one?”

“March 23rd, 2001,” he said.

“What’s the significance of that date?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“That was the day we met.”

“How on Earth did you remember the exact date?”

“I just never forgot.”

I looked at the next set of digits: 0726.

Now, that was a date I could never forget.

“July twenty-sixth was the date I left Providence in 2006.” I stared off for a bit before saying, “The barcode represents your birth and the beginning and end of our relationship.”

“Yeah. Defining moments of my life.”

“When did you get this tattoo?”

“The night I got it, I was in Boston finishing my first and last semester at Berklee College of Music. I knew I wasn’t going to be returning, because I couldn’t afford it. I was depressed and sad and missing you like hell that night. But I’d refused to speak to you when you tried to contact me the year before, and I wasn’t going to budge. I was young and stubborn. I wanted to make you pay for running away. The only way I knew how to achieve that was to do to you what you did to me—disappear. I found a tattoo place near school and had this inked on me. It represented letting you go once and for all.”