KATE

(YEARS AGO)

1.

I knew I wasn’t drunk, but I was getting close, so I pretended to keep drinking. I would put the bottle to my lips and threw my head back, letting the burning liquid touch my lips but I didn’t take another drink. It wasn’t that I didn’t like being drunk, I just didn’t want to waste my night with Sawyer by not remembering it. Plus, the way he kept drinking, I figured I would need to be able to get him home. Or wherever he wanted to sleep that night. I wished he could crash at my place, but things weren’t exactly easy when it came to that stuff. 

There wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t warned about these guys. Sawyer, Tate, and a few others. The few others I really never got close to at all. It was like Tate was the brains and Sawyer was the balls. Sawyer would just punch someone for any reason at all while Tate was the one checking for the cops and, making sure we got out of the situation without getting hurt. 

Tonight, it was finally just me and Sawyer. He and Tate met at Tate’s apartment and talked about their tattoo shop. They were actually getting really serious about it. I had no idea how they planned on getting money to make it happen, but I wasn’t going to be the voice of reason. Tate was smart enough to find a way to do it. And Sawyer had the nerve to take care of everything else. 

“You really want to do this,” I whispered to him, my head on his shoulder. “The tattoo shop.”

“Yes,” Sawyer said. “It’s going to happen, darling.”

“But… you don’t even have a tattoo yet.”

He looked at me. “You’re right. What kind of place will it be where the owners aren’t all inked up?”

“Exactly,” I said. “You’ll look like a fraud.”

“I better get some ink.”

“How? You’re not old enough.”

Sawyer curled his lip. “Don’t tell me I’m not old enough. I don’t play that game, darling. There’s always a way around rules.”

“You need someone to sign for you. And you need to find a shop that will let you do it.”

I shouldn’t have said a thing. I saw the look in his eyes. Those wild, bad boy eyes that made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. The way he smirked and slid off the small brick wall and put his hand out for me to take. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

“We’re going back to Tate’s.”

“Why?” 

“I’m getting a tattoo… tonight.”

* * *

2.

Tate was half asleep on his couch when Sawyer opened the door. It was pretty cool that Tate had his own place. Well, he shared the place with someone. His cousin, or at least someone he called his cousin. He worked with computers and was never home. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if everything that happened in the apartment was even legal.

But that didn’t matter. 

What mattered was the chain of events after Sawyer woke Tate up. 

“Come on, brother,” Sawyer said. “We need to get ink.”

“What?” Tate asked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Ink,” Sawyer said. “Check it out… we have this idea for this tattoo shop and we have no ink. It’s not right.”

“You don’t have ink,” Tate said with a grin.

“What?” Sawyer asked. 

Tate pulled up the right leg of his jeans. He had a dragon on his calf. 

“When?” 

“A week ago,” Tate said. “Walked right into a shop across town and they didn’t question me. The guy that inked me was named Brian. Really cool guy. Where do you think I got all the ideas from for the shop?”

“You got a tattoo without me?” Sawyer asked. 

I stepped forward to make sure I kept the two of them apart. It didn’t take much to set them off on each other. Thankfully it never came down to punches, but I always feared it would. 

“Listen, Sawyer,” Tate said. “Brian is cool as hell. He hates the shop where he works. So he spilled so much about what’s good and bad there. I’m going back next week for another one.”

“Bro, you have to call him. Right now.”

“What?”

“Call him,” Sawyer said. 

“Sawyer, what are you doing?” I asked. “It’s late…”

“Fuck that,” Sawyer said. “Call him up and ask him to ink me. Right now. I’ll pay cash. Whatever he wants.”

“Are you serious?” Tate asked. “Because I have a tattoo, you need one?”

“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “We won’t be taken seriously about the shop until we have ink. It makes sense, right? We love the art. The ink. Everything about it. We have the attitude for it too.”

“Sawyer, we’re a long way from even thinking about this for real,” Tate said. 

I saw the look on Sawyer’s face. 

I faced him and touched his face. “Hey. It’s okay. We’ll do it in the morning.”

“No,” Sawyer said. “Tonight. Right now. Make the call, Tate. I have cash.”

“Bro, what are you doing?” Tate asked. 

“Sawyer, what are you going to get tattooed?” I asked. “Huh? You have nothing in mind.”

“Yes I do,” Sawyer said. 

“What?” I asked. 

Sawyer touched my face. He smirked. “You’re going to draw something for me.”

* * *

3.

I spent the next two hours drawing. In that time, Tate got Brian on the phone and he agreed to come over to Tate’s and tattoo Sawyer. For a second I thought they were going to break into the tattoo shop Brian worked at. 

It made me tingle everywhere that Sawyer wanted me to draw something for him. He said to make it a surprise and that he didn’t want to see it until it was in his skin. Talk about pressure, huh? But that was Sawyer. He was fast. He said what he wanted to say. He did what he wanted to do. If you got in his way he knocked you out of the way. If he punched you, you were better off staying down. If you punched him, he would get up and take another punch just to say he did. But as crazy as he was, when it was just me and him, the world slowed. Time stopped. He was soothing and comforting. The things he said to me and the way he loved me was like nothing I could have ever imagined. That was the part of Sawyer nobody knew and saw. I think Tate may have seen that part a few times, Sawyer putting his guard down to his best friend. But nothing like I saw. 

When I finished the final sketch, I chewed my bottom lip for a little while, hoping it was something he’d love. A skull with a lit cigarette between its teeth. A rose tattoo on the skull with some shading of colors behind it. Everything that made me think of Sawyer. And my favorite colors so the tattoo would forever be me and him together. It was insane to be as young as we were talking about forever, but that’s what he did to me. It was also crazy to be talking about opening a tattoo shop but I didn’t doubt it for a second. 

Oh, and it was also crazy to see Sawyer sitting in a chair at a kitchen table with a tattooed guy named Brian leaning over the table with a buzzing needle, inking his arm. 

Sawyer stared right at me the entire time, not looking once.

“This is fucking insane,” Tate whispered to me as he stepped up next to me. 

“Would you expect anything less from him?” I asked.

“No, not at all.”

“You two are going to open up a tattoo shop, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I think we are,” Tate said. “It’s going to be a hell of a ride.”

“With him by your side though, Tate, I think you’ll do just fine.”

I looked at Tate and smiled. 

Tate smiled back. “With you by both our sides, we’ll do just fine.”

I swallowed hard. 

Tate always made comments like that and I never knew what he meant. 

Brian finished the tattoo and when Sawyer looked at it, his eyes went wide and he nodded his head. He paid Brian with cash and said he wanted him to come back tomorrow night for more ink. 

It was one of the craziest nights I would have with Sawyer. 

And one of the few where we weren’t trying to break each other’s hearts.