Sweet as Syn

19: SYN-Playboy Bunny Tattoo

Elias was a good older brother. I don't see his leaving me alone with our uncle as heartless abandonment. He wasn't a clueless little kid with a heart made for forgiveness as I was when we lost our mama and papa. He was a tortured teen with the responsibility of his little sister and his own life in his hands. He needed his phoenix moment, to break free and never return, and I was happy he had it. I knew I'd have my own one day, as he had promised. But him fleeing left me alone in every sense of the word.

With the change he made working seedy jobs over the summers in Detroit, he invested in a flip phone for me before he left—you know, the one you have to press the button three times to type one letter in a text—and we always kept in touch through that.

Though I always had Elias just a phone call away, we lost that closeness we had before our childhood was stolen from us. The number of times I almost called and begged him to take me back under his wing was devastating, but I couldn't do that to him—clip his wings when he'd only just gotten them. I know he would've come back for me if he knew how much worse it got after he left, but I never told him the bad. I was alone in my misery and successes.

So, walking out of the exam hall to four proud faces... It means more to me than the guys could ever comprehend, just having them there to share a simple good grade with. Rain or shine.

Which means this tattoo we're about to get carries more significance than one might understand when they see a Playboy Bunny next to our genitals.

"Nothing like a little eleven a.m. obliteration," I chuckle as Cameron holds a water bottle full of vodka Sprite to my mouth outside the shop. I'm riding a high from the good grade, the alcohol, and the thrill of getting my first tat.

The tattoo parlor is small but clean, and there is a woman named Alex, probably around twenty-five, with random tattoos littered around her arms, and a huge older gentleman in his sixties, named Hank, covered head to toe in ink, working the shop. I can already tell the guys want theirs done by Alex, since she looks like she'll be a lot gentler, so I offer to go first with Hank.

"You've got bigger balls than all these guys combined," Hank mutters gruffly in my ear as I lie down on his table. I think Hank just became my new best friend.

"Mystery solved. Size really doesn't matter," I shrug innocently, and both tattoo artists share a chuckle while my scaredy-cat friends mutter excuses under their breath. Eight hundred and eighty-five pounds of pure muscle, tails between their legs, trailing their ninety-pound queen.

Cam is on the table next to me, since he's gotten tatted before and was a touch less anxious. He also lost the coin toss. The alcohol definitely helped calm me, and now I'm more excited than nervous—more so now that Hank thinks I have girthy balls.

I lift the bottom of my shirt and reluctantly, but with help from the buzz, push my running shorts down on the right side, holding it below my hip bone. I pull my underwear down with it and look up to see the guys staring at my exposed skin like it is a hypnotizing pendulum.

"You guys have seen the inside of girls' buttholes," I whisper-hiss, feeling self-conscious for not being a hundred and fifty pounds heavier with goodies dangling between my thighs. "Don't look at my hip bone like it's the wildest thing you've ever seen."

Hank snorts, grabbing alcohol swabs and cleaning the area.

"Once again, why do you have to say the weirdest shit?" Brooklyn asks rhetorically.

I flip him a playful sneer before reaching my arm out to hold Cameron's shaky hand.

"Alright, kid, you're gonna feel a prickly sensation, but I doubt you'll have any problem with the pain," Hank explains with a knowing one-sided smile, clearly amused by me.