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as he whispered, “Are you ready?”
    “Yes. I’m ready,” she said. The first prick felt like she’d been burned, and she bit her lip, trying to hold back her cry as her back caught fire with pain. “Owowowowow! Okay, when does the not-painful part kick in?”
    “It’s different for everybody. Just try to relax.” Bzzzz went the little gun again and Katie tried to suck it up, but her eyes teared.
    Stupid nearly midlife crisis!
    All she felt was pain. Pain . . . pain . . . pain ! It seemed like she’d been sitting there for hours when in reality he’d barely begun.
    “I can’t believe you don’t use some kind of numbing agent,” she griped loud enough to be heard over the tattoo gun.
    The gun clicked off, and she heard Chase sigh followed by the clink of the tray, the snap of his glove, and his steps behind her. She turned to glance over her shoulder to see where he had gone, winced as her lower back stung and faced forward again. Suddenly, a bottle of whiskey was being held four inches from her nose. “Take a couple of swigs.”
    She eyed the rim dubiously and asked, “Really? From the bottle?”
    He grinned at her. “That’s good Scotch. I don’t share that with just anyone. Plus it’s not just one of the oldest forms of anesthesia. It’s also an awesome sterilizer. And just to reassure you, I’m clean. I swear.”
    She blushed and took a swig, the liquor burning her throat. “Smooth.”
    Laughing, he went back to his work, gloves snapping and then that irritating buzzing again. She took another drink of the vile brew, hoping the foul taste and burning throat were worth it.
    A moment later she heard the gun click off. “Why don’t you tell me what prompted the list? It’ll distract you from the pain.”
    Or just make things worse, sharing my humiliation with a virtual stranger.
    But what could be more humiliating than him reading every stupid thing she’d never done and always been too scared to do?
    Trying to take her mind off her tender back and said, “I got dumped about eight months ago. We’d been together almost seven years.”
    “So why the list now?”
    “I just got his wedding invitation in the mail yesterday.”
    The bzzzz -ing stopped and Chase slid round on his wheelie stool to look at her face. “Is it the same girl he cheated with?”
    “How did you know he . . .”
    He waved his hand. “Because he’s an obvious douche bag. Only a giant douche sends his ex-girlfriend a wedding invitation, unless they were friends for a long time before or after. Is that the case?”
    Katie smiled for the first time since yesterday. “No, we haven’t talked since he left. And yeah, he was pretty much a douche during our whole relationship. I was just the only one who didn’t notice.”
    “Then I’m really glad I shared my whiskey with you. Sounds like you needed something stronger than a sissy girly drink.” He slid back behind her and said, “That’s how it usually is. You don’t see how fucked up a relationship is until you’re out.”
    “It wasn’t all bad. We really were happy, most of the time.” She didn’t know why she was defending Jimmy, but the whole situation made her feel stupid. How had she not realized how broken their relationship was? How had she not seen that he had one foot out the door and his boots under someone else’s bed?
    Chase interrupted her descent into self-loathing when he said, “Any guy who doesn’t marry you after three years isn’t going to. My mom taught me that.”
    She took another gulp of whiskey and it no longer burned, just increased the warm sensation in her tummy. “Gee, I’ve never heard of the three-year rule; please teach it to me.”
    “After my dad left, my mom had a lot of boyfriends,” he said loudly over the gun. “Some even lasted longer than three years, but once she brought up the word marriage , they were gone. Then she’d lie in her bed for a week or two, crying, and start all over again. By three years you