“How so?” I ask, intrigued.
Brady lifts his hand to his mouth and draws his fingers across his lips. Then he puts his hand down. “I’ll share, but you have to understand how I grew up. My parents are freethinkers. They are very into exploring different beliefs and are mystical in thinking. My dad is a surfing instructor. My mom is a crystal healer. I was raised to explore different ways of looking at the world, and that is the root of this tattoo.”
I instantly get a flash of Brady’s parents in my head, from Brody and Hayley’s wedding. I remember his mom anointed all of us bridesmaids with an essential oil blend for love and peace before the wedding and remarked how she wished Brody would have done a sage smudging to purge negative energy before the ceremony, but he said absolutely not.
Hmm. I wonder how mystical Brady is.
Intriguing.
Tick.
Our server approaches before Brady can say more. “Good evening. I’m Hien, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening,” she says, placing down cocktail napkins and two glasses of water in front of us. “May I get you something from the bar?”
“I’d like a glass of sauvignon blanc, please,” I say.
She nods and turns to Brady. “And for you, sir?”
“I’d like a Saigon Export Beer,” he says.
“Very well, I’ll be right back with those,” Hien replies before whisking away to the bar.
“Okay, back to the tattoos,” I say.
“Right. Growing up, I was taught the importance of your spirit animal,” Brady explains. “That it will present itself to you for a reason, and that animal will guide you during that phase of your life.” He stops speaking for a moment, his eyes locking on mine. “Do you think that’s crazy?”
I could almost laugh. He’s worried about sounding odd to someone who would love to be a ferret ambassador?
“No, I don’t,” I say. “I think the best things happen when you are attuned to yourself. And I think animals, for some people, are a huge part of that.”
Something different flickers in his eyes. “You do get that, don’t you?”
I nod. “I do.”
“I had this weird dream about an octopus the day after Brody’s wedding,” Brady explains. “And where most people would think, ‘where did that come from, how weird,’ I knew it was my spirit animal connecting with me. I had broken up with Grace that night, and she told me to move my flight because she didn’t even want to be on the same plane with me back to California, and my gut knew this animal popped up into my dream for a reason. Especially with it being a marine animal. So the first thing I did when I woke up was reach for my phone and pull up the octopus as a spirit animal.”
I’m fascinated by this. I love that his brain is open to different messages and ways of thinking; it’s so different from the way I grew up, where there was only one way to see the world—and that was the way my family saw it, and their parents saw it, and their parents before that saw it.
“So, what did you find out?” I ask, eager to hear more.
“I dreamed of the octopus in the ocean, which means you are on the right track,” Brady says. “So that appearance confirmed I was right to end things with Grace. We had struggled for so long; we were trying to force this relationship to work when it wasn’t meant to. It’s hard to see that when you’re in love with someone, but love shouldn’t be that hard all the time.”
“Had you ever had an animal dream before that night?”
“No. That’s why I knew, from what I remembered my parents telling me, that it was my spirit animal. So then I read everything I could about it, and it made so much sense. The octopus can adapt to situations. It’s a symbol of strong intuition. It’s grounded. It can have complex emotions. It’s also associated with focus and intellect. Independence. Protectiveness. And secretiveness,” he adds lastly.
“And you see these things within yourself?” I ask.
“As soon as I read the description, I was like, this is where I am. This represents me, and I wanted it inked on my arms as a reminder of that.” He places both his forearms on the table in front of me. “On this arm,” he says, lifting his right hand, “I have a full octopus sleeve, going up my shoulder, with some of the arms across my chest. On my left arm, I have just one octopus tattoo, going up my forearm. But I put them here to guide me. And when I got traded from Chicago to DC, I needed it to remind me every day that I can adapt to this change, even when it’s something I didn’t want.”
I can’t keep my eyes off his arms as he walks me through some of the tattoos on his skin. God, his body is adorned in art; whoever did this work was a fantastic artist. I love the stories behind the work, as I am learning so much about Brady just from this first story he is telling me. He’s intelligent, for one. Yes, I know he’s a Stanford graduate, but the way he has learned these symbolic meanings about the octopus and applied them to his life experience—and things he wants to grow within himself—is unique. Refreshing, to be honest. Brady has shown me in one story that he’s not the typical man, and I like that.
I’m about to ask more when Hien returns with our drinks. After she sets them down, she smiles at us. “Are you ready to order?”
“I’m so sorry. We’ve been talking; can we have a few more minutes?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says. “I’ll be back.”
As soon as she leaves, I shift my attention to Brady. “I have more questions.”
“But I have a question for you first.”
I take a sip of my wine. “Go ahead.”
“Do you have any ink?”
I blush. Furiously.
“Okay, that’s a yes by the color of your cheeks, so it must be somewhere interesting,” Brady says, his smile deepening.
I lick my lips. “Okay, yes, I have ink that nobody knows about, except for you now.”
“Really?” Brady asks, his eyebrows rising in surprise.
“I got it after Brody and Hayley’s wedding, too,” I say. “I was dumped by the guy I was seeing that Sunday night. And after crying a bunch of tears and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to get a tattoo to remind me of how I should want to be treated. But nobody knows the location or the phrase—that’s a secret.”
The tattoo is actually down my spine, in small, beautiful script lettering. Obviously, people will see it now that summer and swimsuit season is approaching, but for now, I’m keeping it closely guarded as my own little note to myself.
Brady leans back and places his arm across the back of the booth, giving me a glorious view of his tattoo sleeve and massive chest. “Now that is infinitely more interesting than an octopus.”
I laugh. He gives me that beautiful, crooked smile.
“I still have more questions about your ink,” I say.
“Before we continue this deep dive into my tattoo history, we should probably decide what to order before Hien comes back,” Brady says. “Have you had Vietnamese food before?” He glances down at his menu.
“Outside of pho and banh mi, no,” I say.
He glances up. “So when I threw this at you, you had no doubts?”
I decide to flirt with him. I lean forward across the table, my eyes locking with his.