Santiago leaned into me. “So…uh…since we’re both gonna be working on base together, you gonna show me your tattoo?” He waggled his eyebrows.

I snorted before I could stop it. “No.” My cheeks burned. Why did he have to say it like that in front of all these guys? I already felt like too many people were paying attention to me, and now they were probably mentally undressing me.

“Her tattoo?” Ahiga said, looking at me. “Most people who have them don’t mind showing their art.”

“Yeah. Maybe people who have them on their face don’t mind it, but not me. Mine’s personal.”

I didn’t know why I felt that way about my tattoo, but when I’d been trying to pick what to get, I could only come up with one thing that I was okay with forever marking my skin. And when the artist was done, it felt like I’d made a part of my soul visible. Suddenly, I was vulnerable in a way I didn’t like.

I’d made Vanessa—the tattoo artist—promise never to tell anyone what it was. I’d even taken the sketches of it and burned them.

Thankfully, the tattoo was hidden on the inside of my left hipbone and small—about two inches by one inch. The only people besides me and Vanessa who had seen it since was Roan—because he’d been with me when I got it—and Haden.

I regretted that Haden had ever seen it, and the one time he’d ever touched it… I could still see the shock in his eyes as I slapped his hand away from me. We’d been hot and heavy one second, and then he caressed that spot, and I suddenly felt dirty. I’d grabbed my clothes, barely bothering to dress before I was out the door.

I didn’t answer his calls after that night. It’s why I don’t date. After that night, I knew I was too much of a mess to handle a relationship. It wasn’t worth the time.

I stared down at my plate. I’d barely managed a few spoonfuls of this lab-grown junk.

Someone kicked me under the table, and I glanced up.

“You watching your figure?” Ahiga asked.

“Girl doesn’t need to watch shit. She fine,” someone yelled from down the table.

I stared so hard at Ahiga that I was pretty sure he knew I was murdering him in my mind.

“Eat,” he said, clearly not bothered by my stare.