Relentless(24)
“I want one.”
“You want a tattoo or a tattoo artist?”
I rake my fingers over his chest and up to his collarbone before I wrap my arms around neck. “Can you take me to get one?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve already been a bad enough influence on you.”
“Please. You have this cool little mantra right over your heart. I have a mantra, too.”
He cocks an eyebrow as he leans in to kiss my jaw. “What’s your mantra?”
“You’re not going to like it. Nobody likes it. I got it from a book on Buddhism. Not that I’m Buddhist, I just read a couple of books and this one sentence sort of stuck with me.”
His lips trace a light trail down to my neck and I have to stop myself from grinding against him. “Just spit it out.”
I draw in a sharp breath as his tongue slides across my collarbone and he lays a soft kiss on my shoulder. “I am in training to be nobody special,” I whisper.
He freezes for a moment then looks up at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not fighting the tide trying to be something great or memorable. I am in training to be nobody special. I go with the flow or, as you might say, I’m riding it out.”
He chuckles as he shakes his head. “You’re right. I hate it.”
“Hey! I didn’t talk trash about your mantra.”
“That’s because mine’s awesome,” he says as his fingers roam over my back.
“Ride it out? Oh, how profound.”
“And aiming to be nobody special is profound? It’s not profound, it’s depressing. Besides, you could never be nobody special.”
Chapter Ten
Relentless Laughter
ADAM STOPS BY THE CAFÉ every single day this week on his way to work, as if to prove that ignoring me all last week was just a fluke and that he’s taking his stalker gig seriously. The best part of his visits is how much Linda and my coworkers like him. He actually convinced Linda to let him give her a lesson in how to dance Gangnam Style in front of six other customers. Watching Adam and my boss groovin’ out in the middle of the café caused major swoonage. Despite these picture perfect morning meetings, I have yet to see Adam after work.
“I’m telling you, he’s a male stripper and he doesn’t want you to see him come home covered in kiss marks and the stench of cheap perfume,” Senia says, twisting open a bottle of Coke for us to drink with the pizza we ordered.
“He’s not a stripper. He works for his dad’s construction company,” I say as I grab a slice of cheese pizza and the glass of soda Senia just poured for me. I lean back on the sofa and take a sip before I continue. “Then again, he does seem to be a good dancer.”
“You know what they say about good dancers.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I try not to blush.
“I may never know if that’s true.”
“You should ask him to go on a double date with us,” she says before taking a gigantic bite of her pizza. “We should go to that new hookah bar.”
“Hey, skank. No talking with your mouthful.” I take a few gulps of soda as I consider her offer.
The last time I went on a double date with Senia was when she and her freshman boyfriend, Tar Heel point guard Kevin Brown, took her, Chris, and me, to a frat party where she got so drunk she pissed in Kevin’s lap. They broke up five minutes later and I’m not allowed to speak of that night.
I would love to see Adam charm the pants off Senia and Eddie, but I’m also nervous about taking him out in public with that temper of his. Especially since something tells me he still hasn’t told me the whole story behind it. Somehow, I doubt that quitting surfing was the reason he developed anger issues. And if I don’t know what really triggered it, I don’t know if I’ll be leading him into a potentially volatile situation.
“Claaaaaaire!” Senia whines, and I set down my pizza and soda on the coffee table. “Please come with us. I promise I won’t make fun of his dance moves or how he hasn’t gone Gangnam Style on you yet.”
“I don’t know if a hookah bar is the best place for him,” I reply, thinking of how lame he’ll probably think it is to smoke flavored tobacco compared to his normal greenery.
“Why?”
I shrug and purse my lips and make a few more skeptical faces before I finally answer. “Adam’s a pothead.”
“Big fuckin’ deal, so is Eddie. At least now we know they’ll get along.”
“Eddie smokes pot?”
“Yeah, I just always tell him to do it before he comes over so you don’t get pissed.”