As I climbed into the truck, the smell of Shay’s freshly shampooed hair filled my nostrils. Just a tad distracting. I turned my amorous eyes on the road, ensuring that I pointed out the correct turns. It wasn’t nearly as riveting as the way his thigh swelled, straining against denim as he cajoled the old truck into shifting gears.

I was quite thankful to spot the exit sign, so I could point and babble and have something to do with my hands. “Here it is.” I closed the phone book in my lap. “Just down that way, on the right.”

The place looked clean and reputable—your basic strip-mall-type entrance. But as soon as I got out of the car, panic filled me. As Shay held the door open, I walked through it and tentatively asked, “It’s not going to hurt, is it?”

Shay raised his eyebrows and bulged his eyes. “What if it does?”

I couldn’t manage to smile at his sarcastic playfulness; I was too busy trying to figure a way out of this. “Well, what did yours feel like? A knife carving into you?”

He gave me a serious look. “No. More like a bee stinging me over and over.”

“What?” I jerked to a stop. “Oh, no, that sounds … No.”

“So, what? You’re just going to chicken out? It can’t be any more painful than that tongue ring.”

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t exactly pleasant either. But it was quick. This takes a little time, right?”

An amused grunt came out of the tattoo artist—a red-haired guy who was coated with pumpkin-colored freckles. “Depends on what we’re going to do,” he said.

I glanced between him and Shay. Neither looked like they would be very understanding if I ran out of there.

“Let’s see some ID first,” he said, and I showed him the fake.

“Okay,” the guy said as he handed it back. “So, what’ll it be, Kori?”

I avoided Shay’s glare as I slid the fake ID into my back pocket.

“This is what I was thinking of getting. A friend drew it,” I said as I passed the guy the Chinese symbols and tribal cuff Kori had sketched in her Doc Rocks! notebook.

But when he quoted the price, it was way more than I could afford.

“Do you know what the symbols stand for?” I asked. “I think she said they were Chinese.”

“No, they’re Hiragana. Japanese. Most people come in with incorrect translations. But, judging from this, she knew what they were and what they meant. It’s a quote from a movie.”

“I can’t remember to forget you,” I said.

“Yeah. I thought you didn’t know what it meant.”

Before I could answer, Shay cut in with, “I’m going for a smoke.”