She had his hand in hers and was fiddling with it, but hereyes were aimed through the railing, where you could see a sliver of the deeppurple hues of the Rocky Mountains silhouetted against the night sky betweensome buildings.
She also had double stamps of approval.
Between then and now, Georgie had textedI’m in lovewith her!I want her to be MY girlfriend!
Dutch had textedShe’s cool, brother.
He didn’t need the approval, but it was good to have.
Now, they were in a weird zone.
Not a bad weird, but still weird.
Before they went out, she’d got him a beer, made herself avodka tonic, they settled in, and again they had a million things to say.
But neither of them was saying anything.
And it was…
Right.
Jag didn’t know if he’d ever been like this with a woman.Hewas always up for tying one on, working toward getting it on, then getting iton.
In other words, having a good time one way or another.
If he’d ever had quiet time with a woman, it definitelywasn’t on the first date.
Then again, he’d never taken a first date to his brother’sfor dinner.
He took a slug from his beer, set it aside, then gentlypulled away from her fiddling and took control of her wrist.
Evidence was suggesting she hung out there a lot, becauseshe had a lamp on the floor by the window that she’d switched on and setoutside.
And with that light, he traced the tiny drops inked into herskin that fell from her shoulder, down her biceps and inner forearm to herwrist, where there was a slightly less tiny puddle with an extremely tinysplash coming up from it.
“Probably don’t have to guess with that means,” he murmuredin her ear.
“No,” she agreed.
He swept the pad of his thumb across the puddle of tears.
She turned her head and pressed her temple into hiscollarbone.
Jag went after her hand.
On the side middle joint of each finger, there wereminiscule words, one for each finger, from index to pinkie:Live, Love,Laugh, Rock.
Fuck.
He was into this girl.
He ran his thumbnail under each like he was underliningthem.
Jag then turned her arm, and on the outside he saw thediminutive but decorative arrows pointing every which way in what seemed like arandom pattern.
When he touched one, she said, “Iwannago everywhere.Iwannado everything.I want toskateboard in Iceland like Walter Mitty.I want to spend the night in anelephant hide in Zambia.I want to do a wine and cheese tour of Paris.I wantalways to remember I shouldn’t be going only in one direction.I need to headout in all of them.”
“What directions have you gone?”he asked.
