Heart Bones

by Hoover, Colleen

  I take the showerhead off the holder and wash the sand from myself. Samson leans against the wall and watches me the whole time.

  I like how he watches me. Even though it’s dark, especially in this shower, he looks like he’s soaking up every inch of me.

  When I’m finished rinsing off, I replace the showerhead. I see Samson move out of the corner of my eye. Then I feel him behind me. He snakes an arm around me, pressing his palm flat against my stomach.

  I lean my head back against his shoulder and tilt my face toward him. Samson brings his mouth down on mine.

  We remain in this position while we kiss—my back against his chest, him wrapped around me from behind. His hand slides up my stomach and disappears beneath my bikini top.

  He cups my breast, and I suck in more of his air in a gasp. Then his other hand begins trailing down my stomach. When he reaches the edge of my bikini, he dips his thumb inside, pulling away from my mouth. He looks in my eyes and gets his answer.

  I do not want him to stop.

  My lips are parted as I anticipate whatever it is he’s about to do.

  He watches my face as his hand disappears between my legs. I arch my back and moan, and that move puts even more pressure behind his touch.

  I’ve imagined what this would feel like since the night he first kissed me. His actual touch puts my imagination to shame.

  It doesn’t take long for my entire body to react. It’s embarrassingly quick before I’m trembling beneath his fingers. I reach for his legs behind me and grip his thighs. He falls against the wall, pulling me with him, never stopping the rhythm of his hand. Luckily, when it gets to be too much, he covers my mouth with his and muffles all my noises.

  When it’s over, he’s still kissing me. He pulls his hands away from between my legs and he spins me until I’m against his chest.

  I’m completely out of breath as I fall against him, my arms limp and my legs sore. I sigh heavily.

  “I want to get a tattoo,” Samson says.

  I laugh against his chest. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

  “That was my second thought,” he says. “I didn’t say the first one out loud.”

  “What was the first one?” I look up at him.

  “I think it’s obvious.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not. I’m afraid you’re going to have to say it out loud.”

  He dips his head and brings his lips to my ear. “I can’t fucking wait for our first time,” he whispers. Then he turns off the water and walks out of the shower like that thought was never whispered aloud. “You want one?” he asks.

  I’m kind of in shock, I think, so I take a few seconds to respond to him. “Want what?”

  “A tattoo.”

  I never thought I’d want one until this moment. “Yeah. I think I do.”

  Samson peeks his head back into the shower and smiles. “Look at us, deciding to get spontaneous tattoos. We are definitely fun people, Beyah.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “I have an idea,” Marcos says with a mouthful of food. “My friend Jackson.”

  Tonight is Baptismal Dinner night. Breakfast again. We haven’t been talking about anything specific, so none of us knows what Marcos is referring to. He’s met with blank stares, so he points across the table toward Samson. “Jackson has dark blond hair. Blue eyes. Your face structures are different, but it’s a tattoo shop, I doubt they really look at your I.D. too hard.”

  Oh. That. Samson can’t find his wallet and it’s been three days since he suggested getting a tattoo.

  You can’t get a tattoo without identification, and even though he’s torn his house upside down for the better part of three days looking for it, he hasn’t had any luck. He thinks the last renters might have found it and taken it. He said it’s always in his backpack, but we both looked in the backpack and it wasn’t there. Everything else he owns was though. I don’t know how he carries it around so casually; the thing weighs fifty pounds.

  Samson chews on Marcos’s suggestion, then shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

  “Tattoo shop?” my father asks. “Who’s getting tattoos?”

  Sara immediately points at me and Samson. “Those two. Not me.”

  “Thank God,” Alana mutters.

  Not that I’m much more than her husband’s daughter, but that comment stings. It doesn’t bother her if I get one, but she’s obviously relieved her daughter isn’t getting one.

  My father looks at me and says, “What are you getting?”

  I point to the inside of my wrist. “Something right here. I don’t know what yet.”

  “And when are you going?”

  “Tonight,” Marcos says, holding up his phone. “Jackson just said we could swing by and borrow his driver’s license.”

  “Nice,” Samson says.

  “Do you know what you’re getting, Samson?”

  “Not yet,” he says, shoveling a fork full of eggs into his mouth.

  My father shakes his head. “Both of you are getting something inked onto your bodies for the rest of your lives in a matter of hours, and neither of you know what you’re getting?”

  “We have to take the ferry to get there,” Samson says. “That’s plenty of time to think about it.” Samson scoots his chair back and stands up. He’s got a slice of bacon in his hand as he walks his plate to the kitchen. “We should probably get going. Ferry line might be long with it being the end of the weekend.”

  “Beyah,” my father says, his voice pleading. “Maybe you should think about this for a few weeks.”

  What a parental thing to say. I think I like it. “Trust me, Dad. I’ll have much bigger regrets in life than a tattoo.”

  His expression falters when I say that. I meant it as a joke, but he looks genuinely concerned about my decision-making abilities now.

  The tattoo shop is empty, and I think that worked to our advantage. When the guy took Samson’s fake driver’s license, he looked at Samson, then back at the driver’s license. He shook his head, but said nothing. He just disappeared behind a door to make copies of our paperwork.

  When Marcus returned to the car earlier with Jackson’s driver’s license, I couldn’t stop laughing. He’s a good fifty pounds lighter than Samson and at least five inches shorter. Marcos told Samson if the tattoo shop doesn’t believe it’s him, he should just say he’s been lifting.

  They didn’t even question it. I’d be offended if I were Samson.

  “They must be desperate for business,” I whisper. “He didn’t even question you.”

  Samson slides a photo album in front of me full of ideas for tattoos. He grabs one for himself and we start flipping through the pages.

  “I want something delicate,” I say, scrolling through pictures of hearts and flowers, but nothing tugs at me.

  “I want the opposite of delicate,” Samson says.

  What is the opposite of delicate? I flip toward the back of the book and come across tattoos that seem like they would be more up Samson’s alley than mine, but none of them seem like something he would like. When I get to the last page, I close the book and try to focus.

  Delicate to me means dainty, soft, fragile. So, the opposite would be what? Strength? Durability? Maybe even threatening?

  I know immediately after that thought what he should get. I open my phone and search for pictures of hurricanes. I scroll through several before I find one I think he would love.

  “I found one I think you should get.”

  Samson doesn’t even look up from his book when he says, “Okay.” He continues scrolling while he flips his left arm over and says, “I want it right here.” He points at a spot on the upper inside of his forearm. “Go show it to the guy so he can start getting it ready.”

  “You don’t want to see it first?”

  Samson’s eyes slide over to mine. “Do you think I’ll love it?”

  I nod. “I do.”

  “Then it’s the tattoo I want.” He’s so matter-of-fact about i
t, like there’s no question at all that this tattoo is more about me than anything else. I can’t help but kiss him.

  There are two tattoo artists working tonight, and even though we’re both getting a tattoo, I still haven’t found what I want. Samson is in the chair, the tattoo gun pressed to his arm. His head is tilted away from it so that he doesn’t see it before it’s finished.

  He’s scrolling through his phone, trying to help me find something.

  “What about a sunrise?” he asks.

  That’s not a bad idea, so I look through a few. I ultimately decide against it. “That seems like it would take a lot of ink and would look better if it were bigger. I want to start small.”

  I’ve flipped through every book they have. I’m starting to think my father was right. Maybe I have to give this more thought.

  “I have an idea,” Samson says. “We should look up meanings and see what kind of symbols they correlate to.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you want it to symbolize?” he asks.

  “Maybe something that means luck. I could use some better luck in my life.”

  He starts scrolling through his phone while I go to check the progress of his tattoo. Even though I chose a hurricane for him, it’s not with typical black ink. I chose a tattoo that resembles what it would look like on a radar screen, with reds, yellows, blues and greens. It’s not necessarily a watercolor tattoo, but the colors all swirled together against faded black edges sort of make it look that way.

  It’s turning out even better than I hoped.

  “Found yours,” Samson says. He goes to hand me his phone so I can see what he picked out for me, but I don’t take it.

  “I trust you,” I say. It’s only fair.

  “You shouldn’t.”

  His expression after he says that sends a swirl of unease through me. He’s right. I shouldn’t trust someone I hardly know anything about. I was just agreeing to let him do what I’m doing—choosing his tattoo blindly. But I feel like between the two of us, I’m oddly the more trustworthy one. I grab his phone to look at it. “What is it?”

  “A pinwheel.”

  I look at the photo. It’s delicate. Colorful. And he doesn’t even know I’ve chosen a hurricane for him, so we would both have tattoos that resemble a pattern of rotation.

  “It says pinwheels are supposed to turn around bad luck.”

  “It’s perfect,” I whisper.

  Sara and Marcos have been outside since we filled out the paperwork for the tattoos, which was a good two and a half hours ago, but they haven’t come inside to complain about the wait. I’m sure they’ve found something to keep themselves occupied.

  My tattoo is finished. It’s perfect. He lined the outside with a thin line of black ink and then filled it with color, but the colors bleed outside of the lines like dripping paint. I got it on my left wrist. I showed Samson and then took a picture before I let the guy cover it up with a bandage.

  Samson’s tattoo artist wipes his down one final time. Samson hasn’t peeked once. “All done,” the guy says.

  Samson sits up in the chair without looking down at the tattoo. He stands up and walks to the bathroom, then summons me to follow him with a nod.

  He wants to look at it with no one else around. I don’t blame him. He might hate it and that wouldn’t just make me feel bad, it would make the tattoo artist feel bad.

  I walk into the bathroom with him and close the door behind me. It’s a small bathroom, so we’re standing really close together. “Are you nervous?”

  He says, “I wasn’t. But now that it’s done, I am.”

  I smile, and then I start anxiously bouncing on my toes. “Look at it, I’m dying.”

  Samson looks down at his tattoo for the first time. It’s about the size of a fist, right beneath the inside crease of his elbow. I’m staring at his face, waiting for his reaction.

  He has no reaction.

  He just stares at it.

  “It’s Hurricane Ike,” I explain, running my finger across it. “I used a radar photo of when it was right over Bolivar Peninsula, and had him turn it into a tattoo.”

  The only thing I get from Samson is a sigh. And I can’t even tell if it’s a good sigh.

  I feel anxious now. I was so convinced he would like it; I didn’t think about what it might mean if he didn’t.

  Samson slowly lifts his eyes. There’s no give in his expression that would hint at what he’s thinking.

  But then he grabs my face and kisses me so sudden and so hard, I fall against the bathroom door. I think this means he likes it. He lowers his hands to my thighs and slides me up the door until I’m wrapped around him, like he’s trying to tie us in a permanent knot.

  He’s kissing me with a freshly dug-up feeling he’s never kissed me with before. I’m not sure any other response to seeing his tattoo would have been an appropriate one now that I’ve been met with this response.

  He moves against me in a way that makes me moan, but as soon as I do, he pulls his mouth from mine like that moan was a big red stop sign. He drops his forehead to mine and his words are full of emotion when he says, “I’d take you right here if you didn’t deserve better.”

  I’d let him.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “No.” My father’s response is absolute.

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “I’m nineteen.”

  “She’s on the pill,” Alana says.

  I set my fork down and press a hand to my forehead. I don’t know why I even asked him if I could stay the night with Samson. I should have just snuck out and come home before he woke up. But I’m trying not to break any of his rules.

  Sara finished eating before this discussion started, but she looks like she’s enjoying it. She’s seated at the table with her knee pulled up to her chest, watching this conversation like we’re playing it out on a television. All she needs is a bag of popcorn.

  “Does your mother let you spend the night with guys?” my father asks.

  I laugh half-heartedly at that. “My mother didn’t care where I spent the night. I want you to care. I would just also appreciate it if you trusted me.”

  My father runs a hand down his face like he doesn’t know what to do. He looks to Alana for answers. “Would you allow Sara to spend the night with Marcos?”

  “Sara and Marcos spend the night together all the time,” Alana says.

  I glance at Sara just as she perks up in her chair. “We do not.”

  Alana rolls her head. “I’m not ignorant, Sara.”

  There’s a look of complete surprise on Sara’s face. “Oh. I thought you were.”

  I laugh at that, but no one else does.

  With that news, my father somehow seems even more torn.

  “Listen, Dad,” I say as gently as possible. “I wasn’t really asking you for permission. I was more or less telling you I’m staying at Samson’s house tonight as a courtesy because this is your house and I’m trying to be respectful. But it would make this a lot easier if you would just say okay.”

  My father groans, falling back into his chair. “I’m so glad I punched that damn kid when I had the chance,” he mutters. Then he waves toward the front door. “Fine. Whatever. Just…don’t make a habit of this. And be home before I wake up so I can pretend tonight never happened.”

  “Thank you,” I say, pushing back from the table. Sara immediately follows me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. When we get to my room, she falls onto the bed.

  “I can’t believe my mother knows Marcos sleeps over sometimes. I thought we were really sneaky about it.”

  “You might be sneaky, but you certainly aren’t quiet.”

  She laughs. “I can’t let Marcos find out she knows. He likes the forbidden aspect of it all.”

  I text Samson to let him know I’m definitely staying over, and then I open my closet door and stare into it. “What the hell do I wear?”

  “I don’t think it matters. The goal is to
end up in nothing by the end of the night, right?”

  I can feel my skin begin to tingle with nervousness. I’ve had sex plenty of times, but never in a bed. Never fully naked. And definitely never with someone I care about.

  Samson texts me back a fireworks emoji. I roll my eyes and slip my phone back into my pocket.

  “Have you guys not had sex yet?” Sara asks.

  I decide not to change clothes. I just throw a fresh T-shirt and a clean pair of underwear into my backpack. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for that,” I say. “We’re always with you and Marcos. And when we’re alone, we just…we’ve done other things. Just not that.”

  “Marcos and I have sex all the time. We even had sex while y’all were getting tattoos last week.”

  I look at her and wince. “In the back seat?”

  “Yep. Twice.”

  Gross. Samson and I had to ride home in that back seat.

  “Are you going to give me all the details tomorrow? Or am I just getting another lame high five?”

  Sara’s been patient with me considering how little I share about certain aspects of my life, and how blunt I am in other areas. “I’ll tell you everything,” I say, right before walking out of my bedroom. “Promise.”

  “I want every detail! Take notes if you have to!”

  Luckily, my father and Alana are no longer in the kitchen, so I slip out of the house without having to continue to discuss the fact that I’m having sex with my neighbor tonight. I am definitely not used to having a family who discusses every single thing out in the open like they do.

  Samson is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Desperate much?” I tease.

  He kisses me and takes my backpack. “Eager.”

  We begin walking toward Samson’s house. P.J. is following us, but Samson doesn’t have a dog bed for him. “P.J., go home.” I point to the stairs. P.J. pauses for a moment. I repeat myself, and then he finally turns and goes back up our stairs.

  Samson slips his hand through mine and holds it until we’re in his house. He locks the front door behind him, sets the code on the alarm and then kicks off his shoes.