We head outside, where a pink mustang is parked with a man sitting in the driver’s seat.
“What is this?” I laugh, noting the car looks like it belongs to Barbie.
“Ta-da!” She raises her arm in the air. “Our ride for the day so we can enjoy all the festivities and drink.”
“Drink? You do know I’m still only twenty?”
“Eh.” She shrugs. “A little drinking hurt no one.”
We hop into the car, placing our seat belts on, then I quickly check my phone. A text from Hunter came through two minutes ago.
Hunter:Enjoy your birthday, but tonight, you’re all mine.
“Why the face?” April questions, furrowing her brows. “Dirty birthday text? Show me!”
I quickly hit delete, panicked she’ll read it. “Nothing like that, just my cousin.”
When April said drinking hurt no one, boy was she wrong. Since we legally couldn’t buy any alcohol, she made sure the car had a cooler full of it.
Our first stop is rollerblading in Venice beach, but really April just wants to stop at Muscle Beach Gym and drool over the men working out. There is a lot of sweat and grunting, both of which I find very unappealing.
Next, the driver takes us to this cute little book café the next beach down. The space is so quaint, with bookshelves everywhere you look, housing classics to some more recent works.
April organized a little tea party, but we are so buzzed we just can’t stop laughing long enough to eat. We manage to eat some food until the waiter comes out with a cupcake and a burning candle.
“Awww, you didn’t have to.” The entire café sings happy birthday, then April offers cupcakes to everyone. “April, you can’t afford this.”
“It’s your birthday, don’t worry about that.”
Our next stop is bowling, which is so much more fun when drunk, followed by our last stop of the day—the tattoo parlor.
“God, my dad will kill me,” I mutter, looking at the wall of designs.
“Get it some place he won’t see.”
April picks out the bunny ears since she’s obsessed with rabbits. It’s such a bizarre tattoo, but she doesn’t care, sitting in the chair so they can ink her ankle.
As I continue to glance at the wall, nothing catches my attention until I stumble on an anchor with wild roses wrapping around it. It’s perfect.
The other tattoo artist directs me to lie down, covering my bottom half with a sheet as I pull my dress up to ink it just below my panty line. It’ll be inked just above my public bone so it can be hidden when I wear bikini bottoms.
It doesn’t take long, even when we lie and say we haven’t had a single thing to drink. The pain isn’t too bad, more so annoying than painful.
When we both finish, April pays for our tattoos, much to my disappointment.
“April, you’ve done enough already. Why did you pay for me?”
“It’s your birthday, silly.”
“You shouldn’t have spent so much money on me today.”
April purses her lips, staring at me oddly, then releases a breath. “Hunter gave me his credit card. He kind of said it was on him.”
“But … but …” I stammer, unable to process my thoughts. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he can. He has more money than he knows what to do with,” April assures me. “Look, don’t tell him I told you, okay?”
I nod, but I can only think about how I just branded myself, and he paid for it.