The hard pinch to my butt cheek was unexpected and made me squeal.
“You know, one of my favorite memories from when we were little was when you spent the night and Mom read us the Jungle Book. I remember thinking it sounded weird, but when I looked at you and saw how into you were, I started paying closer attention. There was a scene in it where they come across the elephants—”
“I love that scene,” I said softly. It was my favorite scene from the book, but I think it had something to do with the original cartoon movie of it.
“I know. You said it back then, and then you started telling us about how smart they were and explained how an elephant herd operated. After that, you made me watch the movie twice before we went to bed. Every time I see one, all I can hear is the song from the scene while I try to figure out how they can suck things up like water with their trunk and not drown.”
“Remember when we tried to pick up peanuts with our noses?” I chuckled, thinking back to something I hadn’t allowed myself to think about for a long time. Memories that went back over two decades that’d hurt to remember for so long.
“Oh shit, I forgot about that. You had to go and get it removed at the hospital because you snorted it so hard, it got stuck.”
I had. I’d inhaled to get it to stay in place instead of just trying to scrunch my lip against my nose. The damn peanut had gone so far inside that we couldn’t get it out. Every time I tried to pick it out, I just pushed it higher until I freaked out that it was going to get stuck behind my eye.
“That was so embarrassing. Pops was blowing up my other nostril and tried to make a grabber out of a bobby pin to pick it out, and it was too painful to take it out again, so I had to go to the ER with a bobby pin and a peanut up there.”
Logan had been doodling on my back with his finger, but he rolled onto his side and burst out laughing. “I had no idea.”
Yeah, there was a reason for that.
“Pops didn’t want my parents to know he’d made it worse, so he was the one who took me instead of them. The doctor who treated me knew him, so he wasn’t surprised by it at all. Afterward we went home, and Pops told them he hadn’t wanted to worry them about it because Mom had just had her appendix removed and was still in bed recovering from it.”
His body was moving the bed with his laughter. “Do they know now?”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “He told them about my tattoo, and in self-defense, I dropped the peanut story to get back at him.”
I was still smiling at the memories by the time Logan stopped laughing, but what he suggested next would have tipped me from liking him to all the way in love with him if I hadn’t already been there.
“Your grandpa reminded me of an elephant. Majestic, strong, never forgot a thing, protective of the people around him, capable of doing anything, and he was someone that people stopped to appreciate. Mixing that with The Jungle Book, I think an elephant would be a great cover-up for your fake Egyptian symbol.”
I stayed quiet while the worlds settled into my bones, but my mind remained active.
I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him. I wanted to put the incident behind us like it never happened.
I wanted to tell Pops he was right and I was wrong. I wanted to share my happiness with him. I wanted more time with him, to make more memories, and ask him which ones were his favorite.
I wanted something that was impossible, and I wanted something that was possible.
I could look forward and make new memories. By getting a tattoo like the one he’d suggested, I could keep Pops with me, as well as keeping old memories alive as well. Wouldn’t that be what Pops would want me to do?
“I want that,” I croaked, then cleared my throat. “I don’t want a cartoon, I want a black line drawing of one facing whoever took the photo I pick. Like it’s about to charge at them, suspended in time watching the person in front of them.”
His hand landed gently on my back and began to sweep up and down it. His reply was brief, but it was everything. “Then that’s what you’ll get. We’ll find the perfect photograph and make sure you have Pops with you.”
Raising my eyes from where I’d been staring at his throat, I took in the soft expression on his face. He was reading me, always making sure I was okay.
“It’s more than that. It’s my memories from the past, ones that I wish had been recorded so people could watch them and enjoy them, too. A lot of people forget what made them who they are today, and that was one of the moments that made me who I am today.”
Smiling at me, he tapped me on the nose. “Well, we’ve got a recording of you booping me on the nose and knocking on top of my head to share out to whoever you want to.”
Cringing, I pushed my head deeper into the pillow. “I’d prefer it to be non-embarrassing ones.”
“You think going to the ER with a peanut and bobby pin up your nose isn’t embarrassing?”
Bursting out laughing, I pressed the nostril the peanut had been up. “I swear I can still feel it twenty-one years later. I thought if I inhaled, it would go into my brain and get stuck there.”
Pulling me into him, he kissed the top of my head. “We’ve got a lot of history,
