“She’s not mine,” I cut in, too fast. “We…” My voice dies.
He keeps going, words tumbling now. “I don’t know if it’s because of the past or because of her. The girl I took… the girl I shouldn’t have. I don’t know if it’s guilt or obsession, but it’s eating me alive. I can’t sleep, can’t think. I hate myself for it, but I want her anyway.”
He’s shaking, fists clenching and unclenching. I’ve never seen him like this. Not when we were kids. Not when Victor beat the sense out of him. Never.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
He laughs bitterly. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”
I want to hit him. I want to tell him to shut the hell up and never say her name again. But instead, I lean back, arms crossed, watching him unravel.
“You know what I think?” I say finally. “I think you’re an asshole.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “You’re not wrong.”
“I think you should lose my number.”
His eyes flick up, sharp with panic. “Jamie—”
“Don’t. You think I can just listen to that and pretend it’s fine? You fucked up, Miles. You always do.”
He looks like I just tore something out of him, but I don’t care. I push off the wall and walk to the door.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
We sign him out twenty minutes later. Maxwell doesn’t say a word. He just tips his head as the guard hands me back Miles’s belt and chain. I slip him another roll of cash for good measure.
Outside, the rain’s stopped but the streets still glisten under the sodium lights. The city smells like wet asphalt and moss.
We drive in silence for a while. Miles stares out the window, jaw tight. I should drop him off and be done with it, but old habits die hard.
We make a stop by the warehouse where Rico’s waiting. The kid’s pacing by the door, cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“You’re late,” he says when he sees us.
“I know.” I toss him a folded wad. “For your silence. I think you’ll need to do the drop on your own tonight.”
“But the boss––” Rico says.
“I will pay you for your time,” I tell him.
Rico counts, nods, and disappears inside.
Miles looks at me. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah,” I say, lighting my own cigarette. “But I did.”
We end up at his apartment. I haven’t been here in months, not since before everything fell apart. This is where we go when we need to lay low.
He drops onto the couch, groaning. “You remember when life was just stealing bikes and skipping class?”
“Barely.”
I toss him a beer from the fridge and crack one open myself. We sit there for a long time, the TV playing some muted rerun neither of us watches.
Then he mutters, “You ever think maybe we were born cursed?”
I smirk. “I think we just keep making the same dumb choices and expecting them to fix themselves.”
