"Are you bored or do you just want an excuse to touch me?"

His voice came out dragged, with that lazy accent that always made his stomach turn, while he threw himself on his stomach on his carpet, a T-shirt rolled up to the back of his neck.

"Maybe both," you replied with a little smile, sitting next to him with a little pot of colored pens in your hand. "Be quiet. It's art."

Joey let out a muffled laugh against the carpet. "You're going to turn me into a human coloring book."

"You've tattooed yourself all over, this is practically an invitation."

His broad shoulders went up and down, in a near-sigh of surrender. And then he was quiet. Really quiet. The rare kind of silence that he only delivered to you.

You leaned over, starting with one of the tattoos on your arm - the skull near your elbow. Contoured with the purple. Then came the red one. The blue one. He only moved when you bumped into it unintentionally, or when your breath hit his skin.

"I knew you were going to do this," he murmured after a while, his voice too low, as if he didn't want to break the bubble they had created there. "Be all focused, biting your lip. Pretending you're not thinking about anything else."

You stopped, unable to hide your smile. "Thinking about what, exactly?"

Joey turned his face a little to look at you sideways, his hair falling on his forehead, his look sharp as always. "I don't know. In how you love to be too close. Or how you're drawing me as if I already knew every line."

His heart gave a strange beat.

"Maybe because I know," you answered in a whisper. "You leave it."

He was silent for a second, just looking at you.

"I just leave you."

That was hovering between you, heavy and beautiful.

Then he put his face back on his arm and murmured, with that cynical way that only hid how much he cared:

"If you draw a pink heart, I swear I'll get up and leave."

You laughed, but drew it anyway. Small, right in the middle of the lines of his arm.

And he didn't leave.