“Mhm, those calls were to protect you,” I told him. “To make sure you weren’t going to be in any trouble when I—I left.”
“How long did you know you were going to leave me, before you actually did?”
We were doing this now. We’d teetered around it for a while. “Few weeks.”
“And why didn’t you just tell me?”
I turned my head up to the ceiling. “I told you, I was trying to protect you.” This wasn’t the life I hoped he’d have, and that didn’t matter now. He’d made his decision. He was doingthis, and there was no way back. “I’m glad I’ve got you back now.” And glad I hadn’t told him before I left. He had the tenacity to follow me, and the group I was with had all died—that would’ve meant his could’ve met the same fate—and I didn’t like to think about that.
“I wished you would’ve just told me, it’s not like I couldn’t handle it.” He tried his best to turn my head, but I wasn’t going to let him.
“Art,” I said, staring at the ceiling.
He climbed on top of me to look me in the eye. “If we’re going to be this badass duo, I want your honesty.”
“My honesty,” I said, unable to hold back my laugh. “You’re not thinking, you’re feeling,” I told him. “Feeling will get you hurt. We can’t be abadass duoif you’re stuck on feeling, it’s why I couldn’t have you with me. You make mefeel, you make it hard to think. And when you’re on an Opp, you need to think. At all times. All thought, not feel.”
Artemis sighed and lowered his head to my chest where he no doubt heard my heart racing. He laid there for a moment, slipping his hand inside my bathrobe, his fingers collecting my chest hair between them and for once, he wasn’t trying to antagonize me, he was soft with it. “I don’t want to go back,” he said.
“To Sanctum?”
“Yeah, I want to stay here forever.”
“You know we can’t do that,” I told him. “You know Mercy’s going to ask a lot of questions, and you know she’s going to want true answers.”
“I can just tell her this isn’t for me,” he grumbled. “I just feel—down.”
“You wanna go rogue?” I asked, chuckling. His head bobbing, he looked at me and frowned. I held him close in an embrace. The last thing I wanted was for him to become despondent. “You don’t wanna go rogue, people who do make trouble for themselves. They stop getting help, they start fucking with people they shouldn’t. You need the guidance. And it pains me to say it, you’re in too deep now. You need Sanctum.”
***
Artemis was quiet most of the car ride back to the docks and Sanctum’s HQ. I’d probably be in the same boat as him, unsure of what to do, or where to go next, especially if I’d made the decision to join the agency based on chasing a guy down—especially if that guy was me.
He’d been flip-flopping constantly, usually a good thing in bed, but not quite a good idea when it was deciding on what you wanted to do for the rest of your life. I knew what I would do, but that was purely from a background where I’d spent a lotof time working in the military. I knew what I would do because that was in my blood and it was in my bones.
“I want to give you what you wanted in life,” I told him as we came to a red light.
“All I wanted was you,” he said, turning to me. “I did all of. this for you.”
“No, you did this for yourself,” I said. “I don’t want to take any of that responsibility.”
“But you’re supposed to take the responsibility,” he said, a smirk forming at the sides of his lips. “I knew what I was getting myself in for, it’s what we started back in Miami, it’s the work we began then.”
“We’ve got to talk about things,” I told him. It was a wild concept, talking, especially when I grew up around roughhousing and that was a form of communication. “I need to know what’s going on in your head, Art. The things you want out of life, your dreams, aspirations, and not just, handle a gun to kill people.”
“Last time I told you what I wanted, you left.”
I remembered it. The talk about a picket fence dream that we could spend together. We’d raise an animal, probably a dog, and he wanted a nice garden to put all of the neighbors to shame. It reminded me of the comfort I’d give him, the comfort I’d offered to him in his time of need. I was his protector, and to protect him, I couldn’t let him continue to live dangerously.
“I have a different dream now,” he said, his smirk growing bigger. “And no, it’s not to handle a gun, because I’ve got these fists.” He screwed them up on his lap, but as I glanced to them, the lights changed color.
We didn’t have long to get back to Sanctum, and I wanted Art out of Mercy’s program. I needed him to put his foot down like the brat he could be and tell her it wasn’t for him. Every timeI thought I’d made peace with it, I’d actually just made myself hate it a little more.
“I love you,” I told him.
“Yet you still left,” he said. “I’m no longer as mad about that, but I will keep bringing it up to see the look on your face.”
I narrowed my eyes on the road ahead, wishing they’d been aimed at him. That was the type of bratty behavior I’d been talking about. Pushing buttons, except I didn’t want mine pushed right now.”So, what do you want?” I asked. “I’ll make it happen.”
