She shrugged. “Well, there was something I wanted to talk to Max about. But I figured it could wait until he was a little more sober.”
Rupert snorted. “Good plan.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t that bad.”
Dani’s face fell flat. “You were heaving over the edge of your bed when you first woke up.”
Rupert nodded. “And you were trying to strip me down last night.”
John cackled. “He was what!?”
I pursed my lips. “No I wasn’t, asshole.”
Rupert held his hands up. “Bible. Fucking hand on the Bible, dude. You were trying to strip me down because, and I quote! ‘You wanted to make sure things still worked for Dani.’”
Everyone fell apart in laughter as I slumped back into my seat. Fucking hell, I’d never live this shit down. But their laughter didn’t deter me from the point I’d caught.
Which was the fact that Dani wanted to talk.
“What’s on your mind, gorgeous?”
She was still trying to recover from her laughter.
“I mean, when you’re done laughing at my expense.”
She held her hand up. “Sorry! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Hoooo, holy hell. I haven’t laughed that much in ages.”
John sat back. “You and the rest of the table.”
We all fell silent for a moment before Dani cleared her throat.
“I was actually wanting to talk with you about your plans for today. Got anything special going on?”
I shrugged. “Other than drowning myself in water, no. Why?”
She grinned. “I wanted to see if you could take me to get that tattoo.”
Rupert and John stared at Dani as my heart stopped in my chest. The tattoo. The tattoo. Was she serious? I felt my insides warming. I felt my heart coming back to life as fireworks went off inside my brain.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
And when she smiled brightly, I knew the answer before she said it.
“Dead serious, handsome.”
27
Dani
I looked down at the stencil on my outer thigh and I sighed. I wrung my hands together as I sat in the one chair all of the other Red Thorns had gotten their tattoos done in. It was intricate. Even though I was told not to touch it, I wanted to run my fingers across it. The small emblem. The rose, with its thorns. The cute little sunset background. Mine was much smaller than Max’s, but they were identical in all of their ways.
And that made me feel special.
“It’s not that bad. I promise, gorgeous.”
I looked over at Max as he took my sweating hand.
“Sorry,” I said softly.