She just did.

I nodded. “I do, too. You don’t throw my conviction in my face, and I will never throw this in yours. We’re moving forward. Together.”

“Together,” she whispered.

Pulling the door open of the tattoo shop, I dropped my keys into my cross-body bag and glanced around for Phoenix. His text had been vague and suspicious, a request that I meet him at work to see something important. I was a little nervous, because I suspected he had gotten that cobra tattoo done and I wasn’t sure there was anywhere on his body I really wanted to see that every day. Then again, while I wasn’t up on tattoo pricing, I also knew he was dead broke still and a piece like that had to be at least a few hundred bucks for the outline, and more for the shading.

I was also nervous because I had his surprise birthday party planned for when he got off work, and I still needed to pick up the cake, prep the food, and wrap the gifts I’d gotten him. I wanted his birthday to be perfect.

In the week since I’d told him about Nathan, we had only gotten closer, because I wasn’t holding anything back at all. He spent every night with me, but I still had plenty of time to study when he was at work, and he was totally fine with me going to the ACT and digital arts clubs. I had met Helen-Marie for coffee a couple of times between classes and I really liked her. Phoenix was spending time with Jayden and Easton when Tyler and Riley were working and he was enjoying doing that. They looked up to him, and he needed that purpose, whether or not he knew it.

Phoenix had spent too much of his life alone and I didn’t want another birthday to go by where he was solo at Dairy Queen. I didn’t have anything big planned, just the usual group at our apartment, which fortunately did not include Nathan because he was working, but I wanted Phoenix to see how much he mattered to me. How he mattered just in general.

This was the first time I’d been to the shop and I felt a little naked with my bare skin next to all the heavily inked artists and customers waiting in the lobby. It was mostly a big, open room with lots of tattoo art displayed on all the walls, cubicles to one side where the artists worked. The buzz of the needles filled the room, along with heavy metal music. Phoenix fit here, I could see that. A year ago, I would have felt uncomfortable walking in, and I would have attempted to dress the part to fit in, but now it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t rock star enough for this crowd. Being comfortable with who I was, in my own skin, was an awesome feeling.

What I found when I didn’t think about my clothes, about dressing to impress, was that I gravitated toward patterns and texture, comfortable clothes with something funky about them. I guess it was the artist in me, but I was definitely morphing into Boho Girl, and it felt right. It felt like me.

“Can I help you?” a guy with a shaved head and ear gauges asked me.

“I’m looking for Phoenix. Is he available right now?”

“You’re Robin, aren’t you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Hey, I’m Bob.” He stuck his hand out over the counter. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” So this was the owner, the one who hadn’t cared that Phoenix was fresh out of jail. I wanted to hug him but restrained myself.

“I could tell it was you. He’s in the third room on the right there. Go ahead on over. It looks fucking unreal. Almost as beautiful as the real thing,” he said with a wink.

That confused me a little. How beautiful was a cobra? But then again, art was art, and it all brought its own particular beauty.

Phoenix was lying on his side on a table, arms over his head, another guy bent over him with the needle. “Hey, baby, perfect timing. He’s just about finished.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked, the sound making my teeth rattle and my stomach turn just a little. It looked like the guy was working on Phoenix’s flank, below his ribs, the paper towel in his hand smeared with black ink and blood. Ugh.

“It’s not that bad.” Phoenix smiled at me, that smile that made my heart squeeze.

“There you go.” The artist sat back on his chair and surveyed his work. He spritzed it down and wiped it again. “Looks badass.” Then he finally turned around and looked at me. “Hey, Robin. I’m Paul.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.” I gave him a big smile. It made me girly happy that Phoenix had obviously been talking about me at work, given that both Paul and Bob knew who I was.

But then Phoenix stood up, his hands behind his head, skin red and raised from the needle, and he turned to look in the mirror. There wasn’t a snake inked on his skin. There was me.

I gasped. “Phoenix . . .”

“You like it?” he asked, turning left and right to admire it in the mirror. “It looks amazing. Paul, you rock.”

It was my portrait. It was me, not smiling, but looking out solemnly, head tilted, hair tousled like I was outdoors, eyes peering up from under my lashes.

“Dude, that was a killer sketch of her,” Paul said. “You really captured her.” He peeled his gloves off and told me, “I’m not big on tattooing someone else’s sketch, but in this case it made sense for Phoenix to do the drawing, and he can’t ink his own side, so I said I’d do it. Glad I did. You look fantastic.”

I did. I looked . . . pretty. And I was on Phoenix’s body. Forever. Tears filled my eyes. I had thought that he had abandoned the sketch he had started of me because he had never shown it to me. I had asked once, but he’d said it wasn’t finished. But now here it was, and it was beautiful.

It wasn’t a massive tattoo. It fit well in the spot, and it wasn’t the kind of portrait tattoo that is basically someone’s round head slapped onto them with a circle enclosing it. The way my hair was done, windblown and loose, the edges of the tattoo looked natural as they spread out. I was wearing a necklace that I didn’t own, that didn’t exist. It was a thin chain with a tiny bluebird charm.

“What do you think?” Phoenix asked when I still didn’t say anything, my lip starting to tremble.

I just nodded. Then finally I managed to force out, “You are really talented, Phoenix. It looks fantastic.”

“Good subject matter.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “I thought about a kitten but decided on this instead.”

Giving a watery laugh, I bent forward to study it closer, amazed. “No one has ever sketched me before.” Let alone put me on their flesh permanently. The fact that he didn’t seem concerned that we would ever break up made me even more in love with him. This was more forever than even marriage.

He couldn’t have given me a better gift, especially after telling him about Nathan.

“It’s my birthday present to myself,” he told me.

I reached out, like I could touch it, intrigued by all the individual lines raised on his skin, at the intricate shading that had gone on to make my hair, my eyes, all with a needle. As an artist, I was fascinated. As his girlfriend, I was stunned.

“Now you’ll always be with me,” he said.

“Seriously, dude?” Paul asked, busy cleaning up his equipment, still on his rolling stool. “I’m gagging.”

“Fuck you. We’re having a moment.”

We were. I stood back up and kissed him quickly, before whispering in his ear, “I love you. Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, his eyes dark with desire and emotion.

“For this. For you. For everything.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say, because I was struggling with words.

Paul wasn’t. “Let’s get a picture, then I need to bandage it.”

As Paul used Phoenix’s phone to take a few shots, and I did, too, with my own phone, I suddenly knew what I wanted. Phoenix had been wanting to practice his own tattoo skills but hadn’t been able to. Now was his chance.

“Phoenix, I want that little bluebird on me.” I wanted a visual reminder of him on my body, just like I was on his. “Can you do it?”