“Zombie movie it is.” He stood and held a hand out to me. “And did you say slow moving?”
I gripped his hand and allowed him to help me up. “I sure did.”
He pecked me on the lips, right there in front of his entire family, and I froze. “I thought you did,” he muttered.
“Aww, you two are so darn sweet!” his mother said.
It hit me then, how out of my element I was being here. Ian had introduced me to his family. He’d brought me home, something no guy I’d ever dated had done before, dare or not. The beautiful words Cassie had said earlier swam through my mind, forcing me to embrace them in the moment. I needed to stop thinking about my past relationships, because if I didn’t, I would wreck what I had standing right in front of me.
“Will you guys stop? You’re going to make her think I was some weird monk or something who’d taken a vow of celibacy.” Ian grinned.
The green of his eyes brightened, and his smile reached all the way up to the corners, crinkling them in a genuine way. Ian was happy, truly happy. Breathing in, I decided I would enjoy this moment for what it was.
* * * *
I spent the entire ride to Ian’s place listening to the radio and thinking of quotes or symbols that would resonate with me as deeply as the one Cassie had said. I’d made up my mind that I wanted to get another tattoo, but now I needed to find one that spoke to me.
“You’re scary when you’re quiet, you know that?” Ian said. His eyes shifted from the road for a split-second to look at me. “What are you thinking about so hard over there?”
“Getting another tattoo,” I answered.
When we came to a red traffic light, his brows pulled together and he glanced at me again. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, I think you’re a little out of luck today. It’s Sunday. There’s no place open.”
“Then I’ll wait until tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll figure out exactly what I want.”
We drove the rest of the way to his house, listening to the radio play crap songs. Once we pulled into his driveway, I spotted Mojito perched in the living room window, staring at us. When we made it inside—and past an excited Mojito—I flopped down on his couch and pulled out my cell phone, ready to find something worthy of tattooing on my body.
“You’re serious about getting another one?” Ian asked from the kitchen, where he stood getting Mojito water and food.
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I mean, they’re just so permanent.”
“That’s sort of the point.” I smirked.
Opening the browser on my phone, I typed in inspirational tattoos. Instantly, loads of sites with pictures of people with stupid quotes along their wrists and forearms popped up. While I might not know what type of tattoo I wanted, I did know I wouldn’t be getting it on my wrist. I wanted it on my foot.
Ian chuckled as he rounded the couch to sit beside me. I glanced at images on my screen to see if there was something funny I’d missed, but didn’t see anything.
“What? What’s so funny?” I demanded.
“Nothing, it’s just that we go to dinner with my family, and all of a sudden you want an inspirational tattoo. How the hell does that even happen?”
I shrugged. “Your sister really affected me. Listening to everything she was saying, I had one of those moments, you know—the kind where you feel completely empowered, inspired, and more positive than you’ve ever felt before. It was like a high, and I want to find something to give me that feeling again every day when I look at it.”
Ian pulled out his cell and leaned back, propping his feet up on the coffee table. “I’ll help you look.”
Scooting closer to him, I nestled into his side and continued in my search. “You know, you should get one with me.”
“A tattoo? I don’t think so,” he insisted.
“Why not?” I shifted so I could stare into his eyes. “I think you’d be dead sexy then.”
A rumbling laugh bellowed from him. “Dead sexy, huh? Are you trying to tell me you don’t think I’m sexy enough the way I am?”
“Not at all. Just that I think you could be even sexier with a tattoo. Every girl wants a guy who’s all tatted up.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s a fact.” I nodded.
“In that case, I’ll agree to get one with you, but you have to wait until I find the right one.”
I leaned away to get a better look at him. “You cave pretty easily, you know that?”
Ian laughed. “When it comes to you, I guess I do. So do we have a deal?”
“Oh yeah.” I pecked him on the lips to seal the deal, and then went back to searching for something that spoke to me.
EPILOGUE
LAUREN
-One Month Later-
“Aren’t we supposed to get one together? I told you I wouldn’t get one until I found something I really wanted,” Ian reminded me.
“Well, I know what I want, and I can always get another one whenever you figure yours out,” I insisted.
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he held my stare and grinned.
We were sitting in the lounge area of the tattoo place a few shops down from Paige’s Closet, Inked. Flipping through the magazine I’d scooped up from the oversized coffee table, I waited for the girl with combat boots that laced all the way up to her knees to call my name.
“I’ll be right back.” Ian stood and walked over to the desk with the girl behind it.
“Okay.” I dragged the word out, unsure what he was doing. We hadn’t been sitting here long enough to complain.
Straining my ears, I attempted to hear what the two of them were saying, but couldn’t. Ian nodded his head and muttered a thank you before making his way back to sit beside me.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“I wanted to know if they had enough time for me to get something, too.”
“What?” I gasped. “You found something?”
“Yeah, I was just waiting for you to mention it again.” He smirked.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He shrugged. “Because, I wanted to surprise you.”
I leaned back in my chair, but didn’t remove my eyes from his. “Oh my God, if you’re going to get my name tattooed on you, please don’t. That’s not sexy; that’s just plain weird.”
“I thought having any tattoo would make me dead sexy though.” A wicked gleam of excitement flashed through his eyes.
“Not that type of tattoo,” I insisted. An intense staring contest commenced between us. “So, that’s not what you’re getting, right?
From the corner of my eye, I noticed combat boot girl take some chick’s money. I continued to stare at Ian, waiting for him to tell me what he was getting. My mouth opened to ask again, but we were both called back.
“Tell me.” I set the magazine I’d been holding on the table and stood.
Ian shook his head and laughed. “You’ll have to wait and see. Don’t worry. It’s not your name.”
Letting out a huff of air, I decided to drop the issue and followed combat boots to my room.
“Bo will be with you in a minute,” she informed me before turning to show Ian to the room beside mine, where the newsiest tattoo artist at Inked would be working on him.
Making myself comfortable in the black leather chair, I took my right shoe off and then my sock. My heart drummed in my chest, and my mind began to feel ultra-awake. The adrenaline high from getting a tattoo was already making itself known.
After searching for something that spoke to me for what seemed like forever, I’d finally decided on two and planned on getting them both today. The first being a swallow, which I’d learned stood for a new beginning and rebirth. And the second being the saying: be the wind, not the cloud. I planned to have them both on my right foot.
When Bo—a scruffy-faced guy dressed in a black T-shirt and dark jeans—walked into the room, I told him exac
tly what I wanted and watched, mesmerized as he put what I saw in my head down on paper. Even though I’d opted to go with a simple black and white tattoo this time, it still took over an hour to finish due to all the detail. The final product was breathtaking though, and worth every painful second.
Once combat boots girl had me all bandaged up, I slipped a sandal out of my purse and walked back to the lounge. Ian sat in a chair, waiting on me. The forearm of his left arm was wrapped in gauze and taped like my foot, making it impossible to see what type of tattoo he’d gotten.
“You went through with it?” I asked, my lips forming a wicked smile.
He cocked his head to the side. “You thought I wouldn’t?”
“Maybe.” I grinned wider. “Some people can’t handle the pain.”
He laughed. “Oh, I could handle it fine.”
“So, what did you get?”
“Words and an outline of some stuff I’ll have to come back and get filled in later.”
I smacked him on the chest. “Enough with the cryptic crap. What does it say?”
“It’s words to remember, a reminder of sorts…like yours,” he said. “Worry ends where faith begins.”
I replayed the words in my mind, liking the sound of them. It was a beautiful saying, and I wondered where he’d come up with it. “Where did you hear that?”
“I found it online.” He shrugged. “I wanted something that meant something to me, and that does.”
“I like it.” I pecked him on the lips and walked to the desk to pay.
When we got to my car, Ian grabbed the keys from me and climbed into the driver’s seat. I didn’t protest. My foot was freezing in the chilly fall air.
“Where to now?” he asked. He adjusted the seat so he could fit comfortably behind the wheel and glanced at me.
Inhaling deeply, I propped my newly tattooed foot on the dash and held his stare. My eyes flicked to the clock on the radio once Ian cranked the engine. It was only two thirty in the afternoon. “Are you up for something a little naughty?” I arched an eyebrow as I brought my eyes back to his.
“Something naughty, huh?” His eyes widened with interest. “Like what?”
I nodded and bit at my bottom lip before telling him what I had in mind for the rest of our Saturday. “How about we take a trip to Pleasure Paradise?”
Pleasure Paradise was a local shop, which sold everything from adult movies to lingerie. It was where I’d bought my extensive collection of vibrators.
“Okay,” he said, without a second thought.
I laughed as he pulled out of the parking space we were occupying and started in Pleasure Paradise’s direction.
“You think you’re confident enough to walk inside a store like that?” I asked, remembering the look on his face when he’d flipped my mattress over months ago and came face-to-face with my intimate stash.
“Confident enough, are you kidding me? I just got a tattoo.” He shifted his eyes from the road to glance at me for a split-second. “Sweetheart, I went from confident, to dead sexy, to fucking badass in a single afternoon.”
The laugh that erupted from me was the belly-tightening, short-of-breath, I’m-crying type. It must have been contagious, because soon Ian was laughing with me.
“I take it you don’t have the same opinion?” he asked.
“You didn’t need a tattoo for me to think those three things. I’ve always thought you were all three,” I insisted, gaining control over my laughter before I peed my pants.
“Funny, because from the first time I met you, I knew you were all three, too.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and let his words wash over me. Warmth slipped through my core, and I shifted my head so I could stare at him while he drove. Time seemed to stand still, and my heart grew sluggish inside my chest. Never in my life had there been a moment where I’d felt such peace. Cassie’s words floated through my mind, just as they had a million times since I’d first heard them:
“We all tend to clutch onto the past, and because of it, we cause our minds to be unavailable in the present. This is man’s greatest fault.”
Ian glanced my way and flashed me a smile as he turned up the radio. A pop song I knew he hated blasted through my speakers. This was his way of filling the silence that always seemed to envelop us on car rides, though. Suddenly, I wondered when I’d learned this about him, and what other tiny things I’d gathered over the last few months of being with him.
The song on the radio shifted, and Ian sang the words to a Justin Timberlake song unintentionally. My lips twisted into a smile as I listened to him sing without realizing that I could separate his voice from Justin’s without an issue. He sounded nothing like him.
“What’s so funny? Are you laughing at my singing?” he asked with mock hurt.
“No.” I shook my head. Ian mouthed the words to the chorus and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, smiling. My chest filled with the warmth I felt for him, and the words I’d never said to any guy I’d ever dated slipped from my lips. “I love you.”
They caught him by surprise as much as they had me. Ian didn’t hesitate though. His hand gripped my thigh, and he shifted his gaze from the road for a brief moment. “I love you, too.”
My heart swelled and the biggest smile stretched across my face. I tapped my tattooed foot against the dashboard and belted out the words to the song on the radio with him, thinking that maybe what had happened with Jimmy was meant to be. Maybe I’d needed that heartbreak in order to recognize a good guy when one came my way.
Peeling off the bandage on my foot, I glanced at my swallow tattoo and smiled. Ian was that good guy. He was my new beginning, and I wouldn’t spend another day being a cloud. I would strive to spend them all being the wind.
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Shaken Not Stirred – Excerpt
Keep reading for a preview of Shaken Not Stirred, a New Adult Contemporary Romance/Romantic Comedy by Alyssa Rose Ivy.
Shaken Not Stirred
Alyssa Rose Ivy
Book Description:
Finding the perfect guy is like mixing the perfect drink. It's all about the taste and presentation.
Faced with a pile of med school rejection letters and no plan B, I ended up tending bar in a beach town while living with two male roommates. All of that would have been fine if I'd had a clue what to do with my life or if my love life wasn't just as pathetic as my career path. But in the end I figured one of those things out—and I also discovered his perfect drink.
Chapter One
Sex on the Beach is overrated. I don’t mean the carnal act, although I’ve heard the same thing about that, sand in the wrong places and everything, but I’m talking about the drink. With so many other drinks out there, why does everyone order it? It’s the name of course. If you want to create a popular drink, put “sex” in the name. Bottom line: sex sells.
“A Sex on the Beach. Wait, make that two.”
I glanced up at my latest customer. He ran a hand through his short brown hair. Wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar popped, he was trying to pull off thirty, but my guess was he was nearing forty. Without looking, I knew he was wearing flip-flops with his khakis. Guys like him always did. They left their suits at home, and tried to act younger and cooler than they were. They usually spent their time hitting on younger girls, who were looking for rich older guys to break the monotony of college boys. I’d dated my share of those boys and understood the boredom, but these losers weren’t any better.
“Sure.” I turned my back to him, pulling down the glasses and going through the motions that were all too familiar. When I first took the job bartending at Surfside Bar & Grille in Corolla, North Carolina, I thought it would be a good sum
mer escape. It was almost Labor Day, and I wasn’t going anywhere. The Outer Banks served my purposes just fine. What was the point of picking up and leaving?
“Here you go.” I set the two pinkish-orange drinks down in front of the suit and waited for him to slip me a credit card. My guess was an American Express.
He slid me a Visa. I’d lost my touch.
“One’s for you.” He grinned at me, as though he was telling me I’d won some great prize.
“Uh, thanks, but I don’t drink on the job.”
“Come on, don’t you like sex on the beach?” He raised an eyebrow.
I knew exactly how to handle him. “I think your friend misses you. You better bring over her drink.” I nodded toward a blonde—bottle not natural—who was currently shooting me daggers.
He didn’t bother to turn around. “I’d rather talk to you a little longer.”
I leaned back against the far counter. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
He grinned like a Cheshire cat—all white teeth. “I like the attitude. It’s sexy.”
“And you’re wasting your time.” I wiped down the counter, biding my time before another customer came over to the outdoor tiki bar, or the guy got bored and found blondie.
“Have you worked here long? I don’t remember you from last summer.” He tried to pull me into conversation again.
“I wasn’t here last summer.” I didn’t bother to turn around. That would just encourage him.
“Where do you go to school?”
“I don’t.” It had only been about three months since college graduation. He didn’t need to know that.
“Oh. You kind of look like a college girl.”
“What, her ass looks smart?” A low voice called from behind me.
I smiled. There was no need to turn around to know who had uttered the words. I’d been listening to that same snarky attitude since before I could walk.
Suit wasn’t too happy with the interruption. “Excuse me? Was I talking to you?”
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