And it can’t, can it?
Our lives were so totally different. I travelled the world making music – hell, after the Songwriter Awards, I’d be heading back out on tour, and God knew when I’d have the chance to fly back home. And Jessy? Jessy had friends here, a community, a job she would have to go back to eventually.
It wasn’t like I could ask her to give all that up just to follow me around the world like a groupie. While I was gone, she was going to move on with her life. I would be relegated to nothing more than a fun story told at future birthday dinners.
So that left me a choice.
As our impending end date loomed, I committed to making the most of the little time I had left with Jessy. Whatever the future held, she’d never forget me.
‘Let’s make sure to get a bunch of photos with some of these guys, keep Derek happy,’ I said, swinging a hand over her shoulders and trying not to think about just how close we’d been only minutes ago – how close I wanted to be again. ‘And then let’s escape.’
‘YOU KNOW,’ JESSY SAID as we slipped out of the back door, nodding our thanks to the security who’d seen to the mass of photographers out front. ‘The night doesn’t have to end here. We could go … there.’
‘There?’ I repeated vaguely, looking in the direction she was pointing. ‘Oh.’
It was a tattoo parlour, one of those bougie ones that offered local anaesthetic while you waited and you usually had to have an original design already prepared.
I wasn’t really a tattoo kind of guy. Not for any particular reason – but I had never felt compelled by anything enough to have it immortalized on my body.
One glance at Jessy, though, and I was all for it.
What better way to make sure I had a part of her forever?
‘Want to go in?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
Her smile broadened. ‘You read my mind.’
‘Yeah, right. Come on then.’ I took her hand and led us across the street.
The tattoo parlour’s interior was everything I had expected from the outside. It felt more like a beauty boutique, all clean marble and spot lighting. There was some incense burning somewhere that was a little too sweet for my liking, but the woman at the desk smiled warmly as her gaze flickered over us.
‘Good evening,’ she said brightly. ‘Please, have a look around.’
The designs were impressively laid out in lightboxes all over the walls. Honestly, if there wasn’t a medical-looking chair and the word ‘tattooist’ emblazoned over the door, I would have guessed that this was a fancy art gallery, not a place where someone got ink layered under their skin.
‘You want to get one?’ Jessy asked quietly, squeezing my hand.
This was mad.
Seriously, people did not just wander into tattoo places and get a tattoo. This was something you thought about for ages, considering the pros and cons, thinking about –
My gaze met Jessy’s, warm and trusting and … something else. Something that left me feeling breathless.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said back just as quietly, and found to my surprise that I really meant it.
A tattoo with Jessy … Well, if I couldn’t keep the woman herself …
‘You could always get matching tattoos. Very popular,’ suggested the woman by the desk.
I turned back to Jessy. She was leaning up on her tiptoes to examine a few of the designs.
‘They’re all so gorgeous,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘Look at the detail.’
My heart swelled with affection. She was so … so thoughtful. So observant. Always seeing the beauty in the smallest of things.
‘I want to get a tattoo with you,’ I heard myself saying.
Jessy stiffened, just for a moment, then turned to me slowly. ‘You do?’
