Page 93

He jolted out of wherever his mind was at, his grip on my hand loosening. “I’m not nervous,” he said.
“Really,” I deadpanned, and his cheeks went a little pink.
“Okay, a little. But it’s not what you’re thinking.” He shook his head. “Really.”
“Uh-huh. So you’re not wondering if I’ll be going to hell for this?”
He laughed. “No, Liv. Hell wouldn’t take you even if you wanted to go. You’re pure, you just don’t know it yet.”
“Me? Pure?” I burst out in laughter, cracking up at the ceiling. “That has to be the most backward thing anyone has ever said to me, Neil,” I said. As soon as I could catch my breath again, anyway.
“We’ve already established that we’re not all that different, you and me,” he countered. His eyes were bright with amusement, with a comfortability and ease that had formed between us.
And yeah, I guess he was right. “Yeah, okay,” I relented. “But I still think assuming I’m not going to hell is pushing it.”
He smirked. “I’ll drag you out of there myself if I have to.”
“Okay, deal.” I laughed. I could totally see him doing it. Somehow defying the laws of his afterlife and dragging my sorry ass out of hell behind his glowing, angelic form.
“You ready?” Mike—the tattoo artist—said, peeking over the low wall that separated the waiting room from the rest of the shop.
“Yep,” I said, and I tugged Neil along with me.
Mike fixed the stencil to my arm, made sure the placement was to my liking, and got to it, dragging the needle of the gun over my skin.
Neil tensed, and it made me smother another laugh. “What is with you?” I asked him.
“I don’t know.” He let out a breath. “I guess I don’t like the idea of someone hurting you.”
Oh.
Wow.Okay.
Hand to Neil’s God, my heart melted inside my chest and spilled out all over the place. Totally giving me away. Shining in my eyes, and tilting my lips into a smile, and tightening my fingers around his.
I never would’ve guessed that these kinds of moments existed. Where just looking at someone could remind you how much you loved them all over again. A laugh, a smile, a few words from their mouth. The way he was looking at me in the middle of the buzzing tattoo shop—worried and slightly nervous, but with a hint of fascination, too.
I felt myself loving each piece of him.
I could hardly remember any of the reasons I’d tried so hard not to anymore. He’d taken all my preconceived notions and beaten them to a pulp. Took everything Linda had ever said about love and exposed them for the bunch of sad lies that they were.
And I couldn’t think of a single reason why it was supposed to be so scary anymore, either.
Sure, I’d hardened my heart and made a half-assed attempt at avoiding it, but in the end, there was no deciding if I did or didn’t fall for Neil.
It was more like:Oh, shit. There’s a cliff, and I want to see what’s over the edge of it, but I’m speeding way too fast, and… yep, we’ll be skidding off the ledge now.
Love was a blindfolded push into a canyon. With a faulty parachute. And maybe you’d survive it, or maybe you wouldn’t.
But Neil was worth the risk.
Somehow, I knew he was a safe place to land, and it made everything else okay.
I clutched his hand tighter, dragging it up to my mouth and scraping my teeth over his finger in a soft bite. He smiled, a small chuckle hidden beneath his breath, and his cheeks went pink again as he eyed Mike beside us—who was still inking the small and simple outline of a film reel on the inside of my arm, right above the butterfly.
My lips twisted into a cocky smirk, and Neil shook his head in response, the pink fading from his cheeks slowly. And it hit me all over again how much I loved him.
(Yeah, I was calling it. I was a lovesick idiot.There, I said it.I wasn’t mad about it.)