“Oh, nothing,” I say, embarrassed. “I’ve just never seen your tattoo before, that’s all.”

I scrub furiously at the mat beneath me until my paper towel begins to shred.

“Oh! Here, look.”

Ryan comes over to kneel next to me on the mat. I don’t really like most tattoos—you only get one body, and I doubt most things in life are worth permanently etching into your skin. But this one makes my heart beat faster. I know the Olympic Games have their roots in ancient Greece, when men held footraces and threw javelins in a festival to honor the god Zeus. The athletic challenges were revived in Athens in 1896, when the first modern Olympic Games were held. When you remember the history, it’s hard not to see Olympic athletes like modern-day Greek gods.

“Can I touch it?” I ask timidly.

He laughs. “Sure.”

I run my finger over the outline of the rings. He earned this.

“If you wound up going to the Olympics, would you have gotten one?” he asks.

“Yeah, of course,” I say, nodding. “I mean, I’d want a small one, somewhere easy to hide, but yeah.”

“Why hide it?” he asks. He flexes his bicep, and the rings jump. “It’s an honor to join the club.”

“I don’t know, tattoos aren’t really my thing,” I say.

The expression on his face falters just a fraction of an inch.

“But yours, though… I like yours a lot,” I rush to add. “That’s probably the only one I’d ever consider getting for myself.”

“If you were to get one, where would you put it?” he asks.

“I used to think about this all the time, you know?” I tell him. “I thought maybe my ankle.”

“Huh.” He wipes his finger over the bare skin of my ankle, like he’s imagining ink there.

“Or the other place I was considering was the side of my ribs.”

I brush my fingers along the spot over my tank top. Ryan’s gaze follows my hand. He reaches out to gently slide his thumb over the same stretch of my torso. His knuckles accidentally graze the side of my breast, and I pretend like I don’t notice, like my skin doesn’t buzz with anticipation, like I haven’t already imagined what his touch would feel like there.

But then Ryan leans closer, and his hand is on the nape of my neck, and his mouth is on mine. The kiss is slow and sweet, but that’s all it is: one kiss. I savor the softness of his lips and the nuzzle of his stubble against my cheek for a long, lingering moment, and then he pulls away. As soon as I register the distance between us, a dull pang erupts in my chest.

“Why did you do that?” I ask in a hushed voice, even though I know there’s nobody else around.