I smiled and laughed quietly. Now, forever didn’t seem long enough. He kissed me sweetly on my lips, and I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through his hair. His kiss became deeper and my body felt like it was melting.
“Why didn’t you tell me you ran into Josh?” I asked, pulling back from his alluring lips.
“I don’t know. It didn’t seem important,” he answered with a sigh.
“I was ready to punch him. Heh, I told him never to talk to you again,” I confided, recalling my outburst. I felt a little embarrassed because I would have to see Josh on Thursday, but I meant every word I said. Wesley was a million times the man Josh could even dream of being.
“I wish I could tell him the same thing. I just can’t wait for this semester to be over so you won’t have to see that prick again,” Wesley said, hugging me tightly, protectively.
I nuzzled my face against his chin and neck in agreement. But it didn’t matter, because the cutest, smartest, funniest, sweetest guy in the whole world had his arms wrapped around me, and I didn’t have to share him with anyone. I didn’t care if I was greedy; Wesley was mine and it was like no one else in the world existed.
Chapter 34
I GLANCED at my coworker Jeanine, then at the man sitting on a stool in front of me. He had tattoos covering both arms and the back of his neck and a piercing in his eyebrow and lip. He was young, probably twenty-four or twenty-five, and cute in an eclectic kind of way. He held my tongue out with a clamp, basically a pair of glorified tongs, and marked the middle of my tongue with blue ink.
“All right, you’re gonna feel some pressure, but it shouldn’t hurt and it’ll be over in a sec, okay?” he said.
“O-pay,” I managed, nodding slightly.
The man picked up a sterilized needle from a tray on the table beside him and I tried to swallow, unsuccessfully. He looked at me with the needle in his right hand and smiled.
“I’m gonna count to three and on three, I want you to exhale,” he explained.
“O-pay,” I answered, nodding again.
He counted slowly and I glanced at Jeanine and then balled my hands into fists. I exhaled deeply on three and the needle punctured my tongue quickly and cleanly. Fortunately, my tongue and jaw were numb, and I only felt a lot of pressure and a dull ache. The man removed the piercing tool and screwed the ball onto the post of the stud. Carefully he removed the tongs, and I pulled my tongue back into my mouth. He smiled again and handed me a small, round mirror. I stuck my tongue out, looked at the silver metal ball atop my tongue, and grinned. Jeanine stood in front of me and nodded with a thumbs-up.
“It looks great, Tor!” she said and stuck out her own tongue. “Now we match!”
The man who did the piercing smiled lightly then explained how to care for and clean it, accompanied by a badly copied square of paper with the same information. I thanked him and gave him thirty dollars, twenty-five for the piercing and a five-dollar tip. Then Jeanine and I went out to her car.
“Let me see it again,” she said, turning on the interior light after she started the car. I stuck my tongue out and she squealed the way only girls could. “That’s so cool! And with your innocent face, no one would even suspect that you had your tongue pierced!”
I glanced at her sideways then laughed, picking up the grocery bag with the bottle of Biotene in it. I smiled, feeling the metal ball on the roof of my mouth. The numbness was fading and was replaced with a dull ache.
Jeanine drove me home and then asked to see it again as she idled in front of my apartment building. “It looks great, Toren. Wes’s gonna love it, for sure,” she said, nodding affirmatively.
“Thanks so much for going with me. And taking me,” I said, laying the grocery bag on my lap.
“No problem! When do you work next?”
“Not till Friday,” I answered. I only worked Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays since I had school Monday through Thursday.
“Well, you should be pretty used to it by then. It might be uncomfortable sometimes, but just use the mouthwash three times a day, eat soft foods, and trust me, no straws!”
“Thanks so much for going with me,” I said again, and Jeanine shook her head. “I’ll see you Friday.”
“All right. Call if you have any questions or whatever.”
I nodded, said goodbye, and shut the door. She left as I was walking up the stairs to the third floor. Wesley was home; I saw his car in the parking lot. The piercing was his birthday present and I knew there was no way to hide it from him for a week.
It had all started at work. Jeanine had laughed and I saw flash of silver in her mouth. As it turned out, she had her tongue pierced before we even met and I never noticed. I asked her why she had it and she answered that it was because it was neat… and her boyfriend loved it. Since I had been wracking my brain for a birthday present for Wesley, it seemed obvious. I asked Jeanine where she had it done, and the conversation led to Wesley’s birthday in a week. She explained that I should get it done soon if I wanted to “use” it on his birthday since it took about a week to heal and get used to. So after work, we went to a crumbling little storefront with a neon “tattoo” sign in the window. It was surprisingly clean and sterile inside despite its outward appearance. And now, I had a hole in my tongue.
“Hi, I’m home,” I announced, walking in the front door. Wesley was
