I swept my thumb over the tattooed moon on Shea’s hip. After getting cleaned up, we took dinner to bed and curled under the sheets. We barely touched our food before we were wrapped up in each other again, skin to skin.
Shea traced the tattoo on my inner arm, following the motorcycle’s bold lines and the airy wings of the dragonfly. She gestured to the moths on her other hip.
“The moths and the moon are a matching pair,” she said. “They represent embracing the darkest part of the night. Spreading your wings when others seek shelter.”
“And these?” I asked, brushing my knuckles over the lotus blossoms on her breasts.
“Blooming in the mud. Beating the odds to thrive anyway.”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” I said.
She shrugged, wiggling impossibly closer to throw her leg over mine.
"When Dad left, it hit me hard," she admitted. “So, I had to find a way to remind myself that it wasn’t the end of the world. I could succeed, I could have a future that was brighter than the past that I had left behind.”
A pang of sympathy hit me in the chest. I twisted a lock of her hair around my finger, kissing the top of her head.
“What about the dragonflies on your back?” I said.
"I've always been obsessed with them," she said. "A dragonfly perched on my sketchbook after school one day, and I couldn’t believe how vibrant it was. I’d never seen a shade of blue like that. It was so…magical."
I smiled, listening to Shea gush about colors. She wasn’t usually the type of person whogushedabout anything. But that must have been a sign she was lowering those walls she’d built to protect herself, letting me see the real Shea underneath.
“And the ivy?” I said, trailing my fingertips along the leaves that graced her neck.
“Resiliency. Ivy grows like a weed and it’s tough. It reminds me that I can grow anywhere I want to, as long as I put my mind to it.” Shea adjusted her position, tapping a tattooed compass on my ribs. I flinched, ticklish. “Your turn. What does this one mean?”
“To follow my gut instinct, wherever that might take me,” I replied.
Shea’s nimble fingers skimmed across my chest, down my torso to my hip where a little tree frog sat.
“And this one?”
I hesitated for a moment, idly combing my fingers through Shea’s hair.
“It’s stupid. You’ll laugh. And for good reason.”
“No, I won’t,” she protested, lifting her head to look at me. Then she poked me in the chest. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll call your brother and make him spit it out.”
I groaned and caught her hand, kissing her knuckles.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
She laughed quietly, brushing a light kiss to my jawline.
“Tell me,” she murmured.
I sighed.
“Fine. The truth is…I was twenty-one and drunk, doing dumb shit with a bunch of friends. I don’t know who came up with the brilliant idea to get tattooed when we were so sloshed, but we spun the roulette wheel and got…this.”
Shea’s eyes sparkled and she bit her lower lip, clearly fighting to contain her amusement.
“I knew you would laugh,” I said.
“It’s cute!”
I groaned and rolled my eyes.
