Eight
The day before we were all due to head home—Caleb, Syd, and Jonny for the airport—Dad handed Caleb a slip of paper before looking over at me.
“Don’t make me regret this, Porter.”
I frowned. Regret what?
Caleb grinned crookedly before pointing at me. “What did we talk about a few years ago?”
I was still frowning. “Dude, we’ve talked about a lot over the last few years.”
My brother walked over, showing me what Dad handed him. It was a permission slip of sorts. I reached for it to read over the print, ignoring Dad’s signature while trying to figure out what it meant.
“Oh, shit,” I finally said, it dawning on me. “Seriously? We’re doing this right now?”
“Happy early birthday, bud.” Then, addressing the room of my siblings and taking the slip back from me, “We’ve talked about it through the years, but now that Porter here is seventeen—”
“Almost! He has five weeks.” Jonny cut in, walking over to Caleb and looking over his shoulder to read the paper. “Whoop, whoop, Caleb here is inking his virgin skin.”
This caused Caleb to frown. “When the hell did you get a tattoo?”
Jonny chuckled. Just a few days with the family and he was a changed person. He was laughing again and didn’t look as tired.
“I haven’t,” Jonny answered Cael, pulling me back to present. “You, my brother, are just afraid of needles.”
“I am not afraid of needles.”
“Are fucking too!”
I knew Jonny had changed over the years, but I hadn’t been aware just how much until I saw him arguing with Caleb. This was Jon Jon.
Level-headed, good natured, and the guy who would get into faux-fights with his siblings, huge-assed smile on his face.
“Language, boys!” came Mom’s voice from the kitchen. “We have little ears in here!” Sydney and Brandon were talking with my parents. Well, Sydney was. Brandon was probably playing with a truck or something.
Caleb grinned wide and mimicked Mom, low enough so only those close enough to them could hear.
“Cael, you are nearly thirty years old. You should be over the ‘mocking Mom’ stage,” Jonny taunted.
“I just turned twenty-seven, asshole.”
“Oh my God, you two. Both of you, grow up,” Myke butted in. “Are we still doing the eleven?”
Years ago, it was decided that we would do a sibling tattoo and it would be the number eleven.
Eleven was a significant number in our family.
It was Dad’s number throughout his career. Mom’s photography studio was Studio Eleven. While not born in the eleventh month, Myke was born on the eleventh of February. And lastly, there were eleven years and eleven months between Myke and myself, eleven years between first child and last.
So eleven was an important number. Eleven was pretty much synonymous with Prescott.
“I’m game,” I shrugged. After a chorus of yesses, some with leading hells, we all moved to cram into Caleb and Sydney’s Pilot, the only vehicle here that could transport all six of us in one trip. Sydney stayed back with Brandon and our parents, making this solely a sibling trip.
For probably the first time in my existence as Baby Brother Prescott, I felt like an equal with my siblings.
It was a damn good feeling.
***
“I’ll pay for this one but you’re on your own if you want to get another,” Caleb told me as we sat, watching as the girls got their tattoos done.
While my brothers and I were getting the roman numeral eleven on the inside of our biceps, taking up nearly the entire underside, the girls were getting the XI much smaller and on the inside of their wrists, under the base of their thumbs. The girls’ tats would be done much quicker than ours would.
Because of state laws, we had to cross over into Michigan to get these tattoos, as I wasn’t eighteen yet. Our family lake house was in Wisconsin, but right on the state line so it was an easy trip to make.
“You getting another one?” Jonny asked from my right, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, looking over at me.
I shrugged a shoulder. I was considering…
And I may have stupidly mentioned it to Caleb on the drive over, as I was the lucky one to shout ‘Shot Gun’ before everyone else left the house.
“Porter boy here has a girl these days,” Caleb said, pushing at my shoulder so I leaned into Jonny. “You remember Mo, right?”
“Caleb,” I warned. Not that a warning from a kid nearly eleven years younger than him was going to heed anything.
“Wasn’t she your best friend in middle school?” Jonny asked me, curiosity on his face.
“Yes.”
“The boy only has one word answers. He’s smitten,” Caleb said, making Jonny laugh.
“That’s a big word for you, Cael,” Jonny retorted.
It was like a verbal war going on either side of me. Eventually I was going to have to cut in because being the monkey in the middle was never fun.
“Yes, Mo from growing up. Yes, I’m dating her. It’s only been a few months.”
“But boy-o there is in lo-o-ove,” sang Avery from the tattoo chair nearest us.
“Oh my God, you guys!” I said.
“Leave the boy alone.” McKenna had my back. Thank God. “He probably has a secret wedding Pinterest board, but we won’t snoop.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. Ok, so maybe Ken didn’t have my back.
“You know I met Jenna in middle school, yeah?”
I looked at Jonny.
Yeah, I knew.
Was that a warning?
Or a comment on how he married his middle school girlfriend?
Either way, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it.
“Speaking of Jenna,” Caleb said, his voice serious now.
“No. Not speaking of Jenna.” Jonny’s voice had that hard edge again, the one he lost the moment he walked through the lake house doors the other day.
I glanced at Caleb before doing what he was doing, staring down Jonny. Something was totally going on there. But what?
“Just don’t be stupid and tattoo her name on your body,” Myke broke through the stare-off from her own tattoo chair. “Anything can happen in the next few years, Ports. I know she’s been a part of your life for a long time, but you just started dating. Don’t be a stupid kid.”
***
The elevens were all completed and I was the lone Prescott kid still in a tattoo chair while my five older siblings stood around.
Yeah, that didn’t make a guy nervous.
Not about the tattooing. The first one didn’t hurt at all, really. There had been a few tender spots, sure, but it wasn’t bad at all.
It was having five sets of eyes on you while you got tattooed that didn’t sit very well with me.
“Can you guys not be in here staring me down while I get another tat?” I asked the room of waiting siblings.
“Well, where are we going to go? It’s snowing,” Avery asked, frowning.
“I don’t know, but somewhere.”
The tattoo artist working on me chuckled to himself as he cleaned his gear, getting ready for my next one. While he was doing my eleven, I told him what I wanted so he was in on the plan, even if my siblings weren’t.
After a moment of discussing, the five of them decided to go to the coffee shop across the street, finally leaving me with the artist and the buzz of the needle.
I dropped my chin to watch as the needle decorated my skin over my rib cage. This wasn’t going to be big, no bigger than the one on my arm, but it made me smile as much as the family one did.
The person who inspired this one made me smile.
***
“What’d you get?” McKenna asked as I entered the coffee shop a little while later.
I shook my head, grinning. “Never mind.”
“It’s probably a daisy or something,” Jonny taunted.
“Oh! One of those watercolor lions.” Caleb nodded a few times.
My brothers were assholes.
I let them know what I thought of them, by flipping them the bird.
“Well?” Avery asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” I was good at being secretive if I really wanted to.
“Damn, it really is a watercolor girly tattoo, or else he’d show us.”
Myke simply stared at me, her eyes narrowed as she tried to figure me out.
She was too much like Dad in that regard.
Unless these five were in my room while I was changing though, they weren’t going to know what it was until next summer at the earliest. Which worked for me.
Only one person needed to see it, and she wasn’t in this room.