Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
What happens after the war? she texts.
I know what she’s asking. About our future. A relationship, whatever that means. What if we did have kids one day? Would we sit them down and explain about the time Daddy kidnapped Mommy and plotted to kill their grandpappy?
I don’t know, I reply, feeling a little pathetic like I should say more, but I can’t.
I have to go. Talk later?
Sure. See you, Mia.
She’s doing the right thing, turning down the meeting. She’s helping Ma. I still can’t fight the itch, the urge to be close to my woman, hold her, own her. For how long? Why?
I return to the car, drum my fingers on the steering wheel, and stare across the street. A big part of this job is waiting and waiting.
CHAPTER 19
Mia
Lexi sits at the window with David in her arms, rocking him gently. She’s got this warm, love-filled glow to her cheeks every time she glances down at him. It tugs at something in me, but I ignore it. I don’t want to think about the future.
“You stood up to him,” Lexi says when I explain the showdown at Uncle Leo’s house. “That’s good, Mia.”
Lexi doesn’t know exactly what my dad did, but she’s a good friend. She knows it’s bad. I don’t need her to explain that she understands why I hid it, why I don’t want to talk about it. She hid something, too. Sometimes, it’s what we feel like we have to do.
I nod. It reminds me of what Dante said—or texted. I put myself out there and asked about the future, but we have already agreed. We have to avoid it. So why does my stomach keep tingling?
“I knew it was bull… uh, fluff,” she says, raising an eyebrow at me. I’ve got a painting of Lexi somewhere, highlighting her heterochromia, her eyes being unique colors, one green and one blue. “It takes some getting used to.”
“But he looks happy,” I say.
Lexi nods, smiling. “I hope so.”
“You seem happy.”
“That doesn’t even come close. I never could’ve seen myself like this: settled down, happy, and in love. Now, with him, it’s like bungee jumping.”
“Something else I’m not interested in,” I say.
Lexi shrugs. “If you don’t want kids, don’t have them. It’s not for everybody.”
“Exactly,” I say. “I can focus on my art. Maybe do some shows. Travel the world with… or alone.” With my man, I was going to say, because that would’ve perfected the fantasy. “I can do whatever I want.”
“You can,” Lexi says, “but don’t feel like you can’t want certain things.”
I clasp my hands together in my lap. Lexi laughs softly. “I know that look. How addicted are you, then, to the phone?”
“Is it that obvious?” I say, smiling.
“I’ve been there, believe me.”
“It’s so much easier to talk to him over text,” I say quietly.
“Dante,” Lexi says, shaking her head as if she can’t believe it. “He comes over to see Colt sometimes. He always seems so… I don’t know. Blank? Not cold, not warm.”
“I know,” I mutter. “That’s how he seems.”
Until I melted him. Until I brought out that possessive heat that sets me alight.
“When you talk about him, you look happy. I believed you all those times you said you didn’t ever want a man.”
“You used to say the same,” I say. She told me about how she’d often say the same to Ruby.
“I don’t think I ever believed myself, not really,” Lexi says. “I think I always hoped, deep down, there would be someone out there for me. I just wouldn’t get out of my own way.”
“I’m not in my way,” I tell her, “because we’re not in anything. We have a connection.” I pause and clear my throat, my emotions feeling raw. “But we’re not talking about the future. We’re just…”
“What? Chasing… P-L-E-A-S-U-R-E?”
I laugh quietly, not wanting to wake David. “I’m not that sort of girl,” I tell her. “I just… I don’t know. I guess we’re both choosing not to think about it.”
“That can’t last forever,” Lexi mutters.
“Not everything has to.”
She looks at me, but I have to turn away. She can see I’m just lashing out. I can’t think of forever, but I also can’t think of the opposite… or the end.
“What’s next, then?”
“We have to stay away from each other, but he wants to see me… in secret.”
“So?” Lexi looks at me as if she expects me to be keen to go.
“I can’t put him at risk,” I say, even if my whole body is aching to be close to him, sleep in his arms again, and feel his warmth wrapping all around me in the most ecstatically protective way ever. “If he gets caught in the middle of this war bullcrap, he’ll lose his job. Maybe more. I can’t let him do that.”
“But he wants to see you?” Lexi says. “Or needs to?”