“Okay,” I said, grasping for a link between Andy and a movie about…was that the one with sexy vampires? “And…you like that movie?”
“It’s a good story. I’m partial to the books, but I usually am, and I was hooked when they came out.”
Erin liked those books too. I was home before my last year of undergrad, and she conned me into standing in line with her for a short eternity to get the newest release. Some quick calculations confirmed my suspicions: I went with Erin because she was twelve at the time, and needed a ride to the bookstore, and Andy was approximately the same age as Erin. My baby sister. The one who was nine years younger.
Talk about pervy cradle robber. Surely, someone would be happy to tie my ass to a weighted lobster trap and send me to a burial at sea for thinking about young Miss Asani the wrong way.
“How old are you?”
Andy frowned and swatted my hand away from her ankle. “They aren’t kids’ books. They’re great stories about the triumph of good over evil—”
“No,” I interrupted, stilling her gesticulating hand. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” she breathed, and a hysterical giggle slipped past my lips.
“My sister’s twenty-four,” I said, my hand tangling in her hair and sweeping it off her shoulder.
“Is that a problem?”
I shrugged. “You don’t look twenty-four. You look…exotic. Mysterious. Brilliant.”
“Age is what you make it, Patrick.” She offered a blueberry, and I sucked her fingers into my mouth to eat it. I wasn’t ready to give up the pervy. “I’ll be twenty-five in May if that helps, but seriously, why bother worrying about that when it isn’t about to change?”
She was right. Not uncommon. “And this one?” I tapped the triangle.
“You have to ask? Really, Patrick? Oh honey, you don’t get out enough,” she laughed. “It’s the Sign of the Deathly Hallows.”
I glanced between Andy and her ankle while I itched to Google yet another one of her references. It wasn’t enough that her primary mode of communication was eyebrow arching; she needed to add some riddles and obscure references, too. More breadcrumbs.
Fucking fantastic.
“You’re going to have to unpack that one for me, kitten.”
“Have you been living in a cave?” When I shrugged, she shook her head and pointed to the tattoo. “It’s also fromHarry Potter. This is the Elder Wand, that’s the Resurrection Stone, and this is the Cloak of Invisibility. When combined, they form the Deathly Hallows. If one person gets them all, that person is the Master of Death.”
“Does that have something to do with those kids who try to kill each other for sport?”
“That’sThe Hunger Games!” she exploded, her hands waving furiously. “You honestly don’t know anything aboutHarry Potter?”
I shook my head, and Andy looked up at the ceiling. Over the past few weeks, I determined being with Andy meant getting a few boxes checked off. It was unclear whether she kept a list of these requirements, or even thought about them as requirements, but they were the things most salient to her, and I wanted to be on the right side of them. I knew she was obsessed with food and sustainably preserved architecture, preferred natural solutions to everything but happily allowed vodka to solve a fair amount of problems, too, and she used dry humor with such frequency it was difficult to parse her real opinions from the ironic. Apparently, a mild fixation onHarry Potterwas part of the deal, too.
“Is that because you’ve been busy getting the firm off the ground, or because you object to the idea ofHarry Potter?”
“No objections toHarry, and busy is something of an understatement. If he earned two permanent positions on your body, I want to know a lot more about this guy. I should be so lucky. That’s why I keep biting you.”
“Three.” I frowned, and Andy pointed to her flank, drawing up her camisole to point at the Farsi inscription. “Three,” she repeated. “And please don’t stop biting me.”
“Yeah, this kid’s gotten enough of your skin,” I said, pulling Andy down to the mattress. “Where’s my spot?”
Andy’s hand brushed over her chest. “How about ‘Patrick’ here?”
Fuck me running, that dry humor was going to be the death of me. I snorted, and trailed kisses over her chest. “That might be a bit much, and I’m really not into possessive assholery. But you know I can’t say no to you.”
“Mmm,” she purred, and as the sound invaded my brain, I stopped dissecting her suggestion of inking my name into her skin as serious or satirical. “Okay. What about a little shamrock, right here?”
Andy pointed to her inner wrist, alongside her pulse. The sarcastic glint was missing from her eyes, and replacing her lopsided smirk was that tiny smile. Nodding slowly, I stared at her wrist, imagining the tiny flower against her olive skin.
Shamrock tattoos. Slow sex. Socks. It came down like an avalanche, and I shifted Andy so her back rested against my chest. One look and she’d see the panic in my eyes. I was supposed to be in control while she was the one who backed away. Those roles worked for us, and I wasn’t ready to give her the impression that anything was changing.
