He nods, then slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, head in his hands.
“You good, bro?” I ask, curious why he’s not with Issy.
Rhett looks up at me. “Yeah, man. I mean… I love them both, but I’m fucking terrified. Terrified of failing them, like we were failed. Terrified I’ll do something wrong.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Listen, we all fail, the real issue is whether you’ll man up and fix it or if you’ll let years go by, allowing anger and hatred to build. You get the choice.”
He nods. “You’re right. I just have to make better choices than the old generation. Do better. And I will. Because they’re worth it.”
Amara watches him, then squeezes my hand. “You got this, Rhett. I believe in you both. We’re just a phone call away.” She smiles before looking up at me. “You ready to go?”
“Of course.”
We walk down the corridor, her hand in mine.
At the elevator, she looks up at me.
“Do you ever want that?” she asks.
“A baby?”
She nods.
I study her, the delicate line of her jaw, the way her eyes are always wide and curious. I imagine her swollen with my child,imagine the violence of birth, the blood and the screaming and the welcoming of a new life into this fucked up world.
I like the idea.
The elevator opens, and we step inside.
As the doors close, I press her against the wall, my mouth at her ear.
“One day, Amara. I’ll fill you up with my bloodline, and you’ll ruin the world for me.”
She smiles, a real one, the kind that means she believes me.
I kiss her, slow and deep, the way you kiss something you own.
The way you kiss someone you love more than you love yourself.
The elevator glides down, the city waiting for us.
We are the future, and the world doesn’t even know it yet.
From the penthouse balcony, I can see all of downtown. I don’t believe in safety, not in the way lesser men do, but I like this perch above the world. I like knowing that down there, the chaos is caged, and up here, we’re free to be whatever animals we want.
Amara steps out onto the terrace behind me. She moves without fear now, a lioness who’s learned that the only way to be safe is to create it. She watches the city for a moment, arms folded against the cold, then looks at me.
“You hate hospitals,” she says.
I nod. “They’re filled with the wrong kind of suffering.”
She leans on the railing, hip cocked, eyes tracking the motion of a helicopter as it glides toward the trauma center. “You’re not as detached as you pretend.”
I smile. She’s not wrong. “Detachment is boring. Deciding who is worthy of attachment is better.”
She laughs, and the sound cuts through the white noise of the city. I want to memorize that laugh, capture it in a bottle and take a shot every time I need to remember why I fought so hard for her. I want to bite it out of her throat and tattoo it on my tongue.
“Did you mean it?” she asks, softer now. “About wanting a kid?”
