“I just had a flashback to when my mom was nearing the end with her cancer. She’d asked me the same question. It was awful, but I answered her just the same. She made me promise to do it right away so I didn’t regret anything later… as she did.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”Nice going, Simone.I didn’t mean to bring up such a sad time in Lily’s life. She didn’t talk about her mom very much.
“It’s okay. It was like déjà vu or something.”
“Did you ever do it? The one thing you wanted to do before you die.”
Lily softly laughed. “I did. The very next day, actually.”
“Oh good. Better to not have any regrets.”
“I was young and immature. Just twenty years old. So I didn’t have any clue what I wanted to do before I died. Especially when put on the spot like that. I blurted, ‘Get a tattoo.’ Mom laughed and dared me to go the next day. I never back down from a dare.”
“A tattoo? I had no idea.”
“Yup, right on my left ass cheek. Miranda is the only one who knows about it. She went with Mom and me to get it.”
“Huh. On your ass, you say?”
“Yup.”
“Then Henry has seen it too.”
“Wow, way to ruin a moment, Sim.”
“Sorry, he just popped into my head. What kind of tattoo did you get?” I had to quickly divert the conversation in a different direction before Lily went off on me. Bringing up Henry was insensitive of me. I knew better, but I still let the words spill from my lips.
Lily sighed. “It’s fine. He doesn’t affect me anymore.”
I didn’t believe her. My stupid cousin had given Lily the best three days of her life, holed up in her apartment last spring. Then he left town like it meant nothing. I knew it was a risk for Lily to hook up with Henry. He was the free spirit in the family. He traveled the world, living off his inheritance. Will had said it was because he was cut out of holding an executive position at SJI. Henry hadn’t been groomed to run the company like Will. I suspected it hurt Henry’s feelings, though he never admitted as much.
“So what kind of tattoo?”
Lily snorted. “Black puckered lips withkiss my assinscribed in a fancy script below it.”
I burst into giggles—classic Lily.
“Hey, I was twenty and hating life at the time. I wanted to tell life and cancer to kiss my ass. Getting it tattooed on my bottom seemed like the best way.” She laughed into the phone right along with me.
Talking to Lily always made me feel better. There wasn’t much she took seriously. She lived life to the fullest, probably because her mom couldn’t. Lily and Axel dealt with the losses in their lives very differently. It seemed he shut down and hated the universe, while Lily did her best to find happiness in the little things.
Maybe Axel finally decided to live life to the fullest too. Perhaps falling in love brought him out of the funk he’d been in the last decade. I hoped so, because I sure loved this new side to him.
“So where is your beast of a man?”
My body heated as I thought of Axel strutting around my bedroom naked. It had only been a short while, but I missed him already. “He had some errands to run.”
“Hmm, kind of late, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but I think it’s work-related. I don’t know where he went.”
Axel
I ran through In-N-Out after spending half an hour at the gym. I figured Conrad would devour the food even if he had already eaten dinner. The dude’s stomach was a bottomless pit.
Buying the burgers and shake was a bit of a peace offering for being absent the last few days. I’d texted every day to check in, but I should have tried to spend some time with him. Damn, hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
I let myself into the room and found Conrad on his bed watching baseball highlights.