“Yeah, I’m… ugh.”
He looked so hesitant it killed me a little. “Can I help?”
I sighed long and hard, took stock of how I felt and how I knew he must’ve felt. “Can you come hold me?”
Smiling, he climbed onto the bed and helped me get under the covers, then he pulled me gently to his side and squeezed me hard.
I hadn’t been at home for almost two weeks. It felt like centuries.
“I was so fucking scared,” he whispered into my hair.
“I know, your mom told me.”
I felt his chest shake with laughter. “She loves you.”
“Good.” I had liked her a lot. Although I still couldn’t spell or say her name correctly, mostly because of the rolling R.
“I love you, you know that, right?”
I tilted my head to look at him. “I love you too.”
He leaned closer to kiss me gently, then with more passion that made both of us moan. Of course, that was when my head decided it wasn’t a good idea and the pain spiked.
“Ow, fuck.” I grunted and carefully laid my head on his chest again.
“Do you need Tylenol?”
“After the nap. I’m fine for now.” I sighed.
“There’s a silver lining, you know,” Luke said suddenly.
I snorted. “What’s that?”
“Well, it’s your left hip. You wanted the tattoo on the right hip.”
I burst out laughing, which made my head feel like someone had stabbed it, but I couldn’t help but to laugh even more. “I hate you,” I whimpered when I calmed down again.
“No, you don’t.”
No, I suppose I didn’t.
With Luke’s help, I’d written an email to a couple of people I knew from school who had ended up choosing a similar career to what I was doing these days. One of them could take on extra work, so I forwarded her information to the two clients whose projects I was working on right then. Luckily everyone was understanding, and I didn’t have to worry about letting anyone down. Of course, I did, on some level, but it couldn’t be helped.
In a couple of days, I started to really want that tattoo. The problem was that there was no way of me getting it until my hip was completely healed. Luke had told me the position I’d have to be in while he tattooed the other side would largely rely on my bad hip and yeah, couldn’t do that. It would be several weeks if not longer until we could work on that.
So, one day while he was at work, I called an Uber and, with my fancy new cane in one hand, went to the shop.
“Bear!” Sara squeaked and rushed to me as soon as I stepped inside.
“Hey.” I carefully returned their hug.
“It’s so good to see you on your feet!”
Georgia, likely having heard Sara’s voice, came to the front and gave me a hug, too. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks, I keep having some stuff with my head and well, can’t have the tattoo of the… the… fuck,flowersdone until I have healed the hip they had to do… I mean cut open.”
Both of them nodded. “Tattoos can wait,” Georgia said.
