Arlo chewed on his lower lip before asking, “What do we do?”
What could they do? Whoever was on the other side of the note had Holden’s car and his body. They held all the cards. They couldn’t just forget about it and go home.
“We go to that address. What choice do we have?”
Arlo released a shuddery breath. “None, I guess.”
Arlo had plenty of time to cycle through the five stages of grief on their forty-five minute drive from one side of the city to the other. There was something weirdly fitting about driving down a dark, empty interstate together. It felt…final. Fatalistic. Like maybe they were doomed from the start.
He’d tried to convince himself this wasn’t happening. That he was dead, and this was hell, and he would now get everything he had coming to him for beating a man’s head in with a brick. No matter how much that man deserved it.
Then he’d decided he wasn’t dead but in a coma. That none of the night’s events had happened. That Holden had beat him into unconsciousness and this was his body shutting down, pumping toxic chemicals into his brain that caused him to have these surreal experiences. It was the only thing that made sense when he thought about the events of the night, both bad and good.
Now, he’d settled into the reality that something had gone terribly, inexplicably sideways during the night—while Dimitri had buried himself inside him—and whoever was on the other end of that note was planning on blackmailing them or turning them in to the cops. It made the most—and least—amount of sense. What they’d done was surely worthy of blackmail, but neither Arlo nor Dimitri owned anything worthy of payment.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dimitri said for the hundredth time since they’d gotten back on the road.
“I know,” Arlo lied again, giving him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Arlo had already decided. He wouldn’t let Dimitri go down for this. He wasn’t falling on his sword again. Not for him. In the grand scheme of things, his life just wasn’t worth the same as Dimitri’s.
Dimitri had a mother who loved him, and friends who would miss him, and a shot at an actual future. Arlo only had Dimitri. Nobody would miss him, nobody would mourn him. It made sense for him to own up to what he did and just accept the consequences.
Arlo had already had the best night of his life. He’d had hours with Dimitri, hours in his arms and in his bed. He got to hold the knowledge in his heart that Dimitri had thought about nobody but him for years. That was amazing. Miraculous even. It gave Arlo something to cling to when the thoughts of jail or death gripped his insides again.
In one night, Arlo had gotten everything he’d ever wanted.
He glanced over at Dimitri, whose eyes focused on the dark ahead. “I love you.”
The car swerved as Dimitri darted his gaze towards him. “What?”
“I think I always have,” Arlo said, nodding his head as if that would somehow make Dimitri believe him.
“Why are you saying this?” Dimitri asked, frowning.
Arlo smiled softly. “Because I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to say it when we get there and I’ve wanted to say it every day since you walked back into my life, so I thought now was as good a time as ever, before we walk into the unknown. I just wanted you to know.”
Dimitri’s grip on the steering wheel tightened until he was white-knuckled. “I’m not saying it back,” he snapped.
Arlo felt like somebody had slammed his heart in the car door. “Okay,” he said, voice thick.
He wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything different. He’d hoped for one last moment to cling to, but some part of him had known Dimitri saying those words back was a bridge too far.
Dimitri suddenly swerved across three lanes of traffic, ripping a gasp from Arlo as he skidded to a halt.
Dimitri threw the car into park, turning to look at him. “Don’t do this.”
Arlo shook his head. “Do what?” he asked.
Dimitri’s nostrils flared, his jaw muscle ticking. “Don’t give me some grand finale speech like we’re about to Thelma and Louise ourselves over a cliff. I can fix this. I can. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“But if it isn’t—” Arlo started.
Dimitri’s hands gripped Arlo’s sweatshirt, pulling him close until their foreheads touched. “No. You don’t get to give me some weepy I love you. Because that sounds a lot like goodbye and I’m not letting you go.” He started kissing Arlo’s lips over and over. “I’m not letting you go,” he soothed. “I won’t.”
Tears streamed down Arlo’s cheeks as he clung to Dimitri, too. “I know you think you can fix this, but somebody knows what we did. We’re fucked.I’mfucked. I don’t want to go my whole life without telling you how I feel.”
Dimitri shook his head like he was rejecting Arlo’s words. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither of us are. If I have to kill someone tonight to make this all go away, I will. If I have to kill a dozen people to protect you, I will. I need you to understand that. I will never let another bad thing happen to you. I just won’t.”
