Carly kinda does.
Carly’s kinda awesome.
Chapter Eight
Vince
“I have an idea, but you’re going to think it’s crazy.”
I reluctantly open one eye and squint up at the cheerful blonde disturbance, dressed and ready for the day as she takes a seat on the edge of her bed. We stayed up way too late watching crap TV last night, so I just crashed at her place. It was her idea, I was too tired to argue, and now here we are.
Her blonde hair is pulled up in a high pony tail and she’s wearing tight jeans that make her ass look incredible with an off-white, super soft sweater. She’s always wearing sweaters that make you want to touch her.
“If the idea is I sleep some more, I’m on board,” I tell her, rolling over with my back to her so I can pull a pillow on top of my head and block out the light.
“Nope, that’s not my idea.” Since I rolled over and put a bunch of space there, Carly climbs over and straddles my back. Her bedroom is hot as hell so I peeled my shirt off before I went to bed. Now she runs her hands over the tattoos she’s never seen before, her train of thought redirected. “Ooh, I like these.”
“Yeah?” I murmur.
“Mmhmm, they’re sexy. Do they mean something, or do you just like them?”
I sigh heavily, since she’s not going to let me sleep. “They mean things.”
Running the tip of her index finger across my left shoulder blade, she reads, “This one says ‘worth it.’ What’s that mean?”
“You won’t like it,” I warn her.
“Tell me anyway.”
Sighing again, I explain, “When Mateo kills me, I may not see it coming. I wanted to get the last word in, so I put a last ‘fuck you’ on my body. It means, basically, I’m not sorry for all the shit I did to make him want to kill me, that it was all worth it if it made him that angry.”
Carly snorts. “Of course it does. You’re so crazy. I’m going to predict someday it will mean something different for you. Someday this same tattoo will mean all the shit you went through with them was worth it, because now you have Bandit, a house with friends to come to your cook-outs, and probably a really cool girlfriend who makes bomb-ass spaghetti sauce.”
I grin, burying my face in the pillow.
Carly moves along, trailing her soft hand across my other shoulder blade. “What about this one?”
That one is two playing cards, a bloody king of hearts with a blood-spattered Ace of hearts on top of it. “More symbolic bullshit,” I tell her. “Aces beat kings.”
“Gotcha. Your bar name, Wild Aces, that have a little bit to do with this?”
“Maybe.”
Now her hand moves to the center of my back and she rubs the black M with twisted, thorny vines wrapped around the letter. “And this one?”
“The curse of being born a Morelli,” I tell her, simply.
Now she runs her hands down my back, then leans down and flattens herself against me. The soft fabric of her sweater feels nice against my bare back, and even though we don’t kiss, she brushes her lips against each one of my tattoos, like she’s healing them.
“They’re not terribly cheerful, but I like them anyway,” she informs me, once she’s done kissing them all better.
I reach behind me and grab her around the waist, tugging her onto the bed beside me and pulling her close. She looks surprised, but pleasantly, and she snuggles into it.
“I have one, too. Wanna see?”
I quirk an eyebrow. “You have a tattoo? Look at you being a little badass.”
She waves me off. “It’s not a badass tattoo. I just got it during a hard time—same as it sounds like you did—to remind me what I was doing it all for.”
I don’t know why I’m surprised when she unzips her pants, bridges her hips on the bed, and tugs her jeans down. I should have known this damn temptress would have her tattoo in some place I shouldn’t be looking.
Sure enough, there on her hip bone is a cute little quarter moon. Or it might be a C, for Carly. If it’s a C, it looks like a quarter moon with little lines around the closed part of the C to make it look like it’s shining.
“Is it supposed to be a moon?”
Carly nods her head, looking down at it. “It’s for Laurel. When she was little, her favorite book was Good Night Moon. We shared a bedroom and I would read it to her every night, even when she got too old for it. Moons were kind of always our thing after that. We got matching quarter moon necklaces when we were younger; I wear mine almost all the time.” As if to prove her claim, she peels down the high neck of her sweater and flashes me a simple gold moon necklace. “If I ever get to have a baby, I want to decorate the nursery in moons and stars and read him or her Good Night Moon. It’s a nice tradition and it makes me happy.”