Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 17

When we got home half an hour before the agreed time, Lottie and Mason were also already back again. They sat outside on the terrace with Mark, listened to soft music, talked and seemed to have a drink.

Félicité was apparently already in bed, that was why we tried to get on the dimly lit terrace as noiselessly as possible.

"Hey." We greeted my family, unnecessarily whispering. I didn't wait for a reply before I started teasing my sister.

"Why are you here already? Wasn't it good? The festival?"

"Yes, definitely. Unless you aren't a staunch fan of Italian folk music."

I giggled mischievously and sat on Harry's lap as there was no more chair available. Not that I minded. It was a welcome circumstance.

He had his arms wrapped directly around me and was stroking my stomach through the thin fabric of my shirt. I leaned back and watched as Mark turned in his chair and reached down behind him.

Then, in the best bartending manner, he let two, previously opened, beer bottles slide over the glass table.

I felt Harry's incredulous look almost on my skin as I passed one of the two bottles to him.

"You are on vacation, Harry. Now you can. We won't tell Anne anything." Mason explained and Mark nodded in agreement.

One might assume that precisely because of his job as a doctor, Mark strict would be against alcohol at our age, especially Harry's age. But in reality, he didn't have the slightest problem with it.

I had drawn a lucky ticket with mark anyway, because he had great confidence in me. I was very happy about my casual relationship with my stepfather and I always tried not to disappoint him.

I had never come home drunk or done anything dumb. Except the one time when Niall had tattooed a stickman on me. The stickman had caught Mark's eye, but he'd never questioned it.

He probably assumed it had a deep meaning or something.

I watched in amusement as Harry sipped lightly at the glass bottle, at first grimaced in disgust and held it away from him, but, after a few minutes of the conversation, in which he more or less participated, dared to take another sip and apparently be able to enjoy it more.

In my mind's eye I saw Anne shaking her head, disappointed. Sometimes I had the feeling that she didn't want to see her little curly angel grow up. Alcohol was a particularly sensitive issue. She wanted to protect him from all evil. Always pack him in cotton wool and preferably never let her son move away. It had been a struggle to convince her that Harry could go on vacation with us.

If she had known what Harry was doing, she would probably have come to Italy as quickly as possible and would have dragged her child back home.

She might have been a little weird at times, but I still loved her.

"Well, tomorrow we'll sleep in, go swimming and eat ice cream, I promised Féli that. Will you come with us?" Mark asked all of us.

While Lottie and Mason nodded in agreement, I put a hand on my chin and slowly shook my head. "I wanted to show Haz the area and take a stroll around the next town... look at the lights in the evening. A bit of tourist stuff, you know?"

That was actually just a relatively cheap excuse. I had planned something else. It wasn't anything bad, however nobody should know that at first, Because I could imagine someone trying to stop me. But my decision was made.

"Sure, have fun."

We sat together for a while and finished our drinks, until I saw my sister slowly closing her eyes across from me.