“Your turn. Go,” I redirect.
“Okay, hmm.” She pauses. “Never have I ever gotten my partner’s name tattooed on my body.”
She sends me a look of approval when my fingers don’t move.
“Hold up.” I stop her, intrigued. “That’s oddly specific. Explain.”
Joey sighs, her lush lips pouting, like she’s considering her words. “Last year, Tyler tattooed my name on his chest.” The explanation lacks all feeling, like she’s reciting a fact about US history. “I thought it was romantic at the time, but…”
We both know what she’s getting at.
“Does he have a lot of tattoos?” I don’t know why I ask. I saw him go after her on the beach earlier today.
“Umm?” her voice goes up at the end.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Is that how you take your men?”
“Huh?” she asks.
“With tattoos?”
“If you’re asking me if I think tattoos are sexy, the answer is always yes,” she practically purrs.
“I see.” Earlier, when I was shamelessly eyeing her in that bikini, I noticed that she had a tattoo, but now I wonder if she has any others.
“Moving on,” she announces, forcing me to stop mapping her body in my mind. “Never have I ever,” her pause is longer this time, “stolen anything.”
Her jaw drops when I put a finger down. “What’s the story there?”
“Nuh-uh,” I say, shooting her a grin. “That’s not part of the game.”
“Hey. I told you my backstory.”
I blink at her in response, but I don’t budge.
“You play dirty.” She furrows her brows, but I’m not buying her edge. “Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Your turn.”
“Never have I ever gotten a tattoo of a bird.” I wink.
She puts down a finger right away.
“Three, I should say.”
“I’m only putting one finger down, mister.” She smiles and lowers her pointer finger, leaving her middle finger raised on its own. Lucky for me, I still have three, formed in the sign for ok.
“You saw that, huh?” Joey asks, rubbing the back of her left tricep where three little birds reside.
“Yeah, what’s the story there?” I ask.
“Nuh-uh.” She echoes my earlier response. “That’s not part of the game.”
“Fine,” I huff. “Go on.”
“While we’re on the topic of tattoos… Never have I ever fucked someone with a butterfly back tattoo.”
A sudden sense of dread washes over me and my heart rate picks up. “What the hell did you just say?”
“I said?—”
