“You don’t need to worry about that, because it’s not happening,” Avery says, squeezing me. “He changed his mind.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
I turn to him, dislodging his arm in the process. “I don’t need your permission to get a tattoo.” Sometimes I think he forgets I’m the big brother, not him.
Avery crosses his arms over his chest. ‘Well, I’m not giving it.”
“Luckily, you aren’t part of this transaction. I give my money to our good friend here, and then they do the work. Without your approval.” In case he missed that part. Sometimes he only hears what he wants to when he’s being petulant.
“What’s theonerule about relationships, Lake?”
“Don’t cheat?” Is this a trick question? I bet there’s more than one rule.
“What’s the second rule?”
Called it. “You’re changing your one-rule rule.”
“May I—”
“No,” Avery interrupts Loren, pointing a finger at him. “Stay out of this.”
Loren mimics locking his lips and throwing away the key.
“That’s rude. Besides, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” I had told him because I was excited, not for a lecture.
“I’m not letting you get a tattoo on a whim,” Avery insists. “This isn’t like you getting drunk from a goon, eating your weight in cheese, and throwing up in the pool.”
Loren clears his throat, and Britt snorts with laughter.
My mouth drops open in mock outrage. “You want to start throwing around bad ideas?”
“Only yours.”
“That only happenedonce, FYI. Also, it takes extreme talent to eat that much cheese. I could compete.” The drinking part I can skip. I still remember it vividly. The memory tastes like death. Or puke. Or both. Both. Definitely both.
“I don’t think it counts if you throw it up after,” Britt helpfully points out.
Bummer. “It was still impressive.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it,” Avery says, rolling his eyes. As if he fared any better that night. He’s conveniently leaving out the part where it was his eighteenth birthday. “Hangovers pass. Tattoos are permanent.”
“I know how tattoos work.”
“The number one rule—”
“Two—”
“—two rule is that you don’t get names tattooed on you. It’s class 101. You have no idea what will happen in the future, and then you have this regret just permanently etched on your skin.”
“That’s kind of morbid, going into a relationship already thinking there’s a chance it will end.” I don’t think that with Grady. I never will. He’s my person.
“No, it’s practical.”
