“I was kidding.”
No, he wasn’t. He totally wasn’t. Why would he think that? “You weren’t, were you?”
“It’s possible.” He leans forward, opening the massive bag of food. Then stops. “A little while ago, a woman I thought I could have fallen in love with gave me some advice, and it changed my entire perspective. She told me to stop hiding from life.”
“Thought you could have fallen in love with?” What woman wouldn’t fall in love with Knight?
“Yeah.” He closes his eyes. “She was stunning, sweet, great with people, babies loved her, and completely in love with her now-husband. We were both so broken that for a while, I thought we could hide from the world together. But I was wrong. And hiding from the world felt wrong after that.”
Hiding from the world? “You can’t hide from the world. It always finds you.”
Knight turns to me. “What if there was a place where the world could never touch you? Would you want to live there for the rest of your life?”
Peace forever? Who wouldn’t jump at that? “I can’t just leave Daria.”
“Daria could visit you whenever she wanted. She’s an adult now who can take care of herself, and she’ll always have me around.”
I know that, sort of. She’ll always be my responsibility. Her mother entrusted her life to me. Then there’s—
“You’re finding excuses not to believe it’s possible for you.”
“Stop reading my mind, Knight.”
His lips twitch.
How do women not fall all over themselves near him?
“Think about it.”
Knight doesn’t mean think about how sexy he is. Could I really walk away from every stress in the world and all the people I’ve grown up with on The Street?
“Fea.”
“Fine. I’ll think about it.” Too much.
***
Could I ever be ready to walk away from The Street?
This place has been my life since I was fifteen, and the Adders let me hide here. Back then, they were nothing but punks with guns and bad attitudes. Now they’re fine-looking men with guns and bad attitudes. A grin slides up my face.
There are reminders all around of what these men do every day. The echoes of children’s laughter rings down the street as they play without a worry in the world.
I’m part of that. Every day, I help feed those kids, offer hugs to the little ones, and give advice to the older ones. But not one of us is irreplaceable. The three old women who started this place saw to that, and we continue the tradition. Knight is right. I could leave these cobblestone streets forever, and the world would go on; children would be fed, hugs would be offered, and advice shared.
Willow Street needs to be that way. Its purpose is to save as many of the unwanted children in the world as possible. To give the invisible lost a way to become part of the world again in a way that’s meaningful to them. That’s too big a purpose for even Maddox, our leader of sorts.
Maddox. The last thing I want to do is walk up to his office and talk about the incident. I stop in front of the door to his office building. How many hundreds of times have I gone up the elevator and into his office to talk about The Street business? Too many to count over the years.
What would it be like if this were the last time I walked in to fix a problem around here?
Knight’s making me dream impossible dreams. I pull open the impossibly heavy door that Maddox bragged at one time could stop a tank when braced properly and make my way up to his office. The blinds will thankfully be closed when I step in, covering his slithering little pets. They give me the creeps so badly, and he knows it.
Most people don’t need almost an entire floor for their office, but he does with all the people that seem to wander in there all the time.
Instead of greeting me like he normally does, Maddox paces the floor with a black polka-dot snake wrapped around his neck and arm as I step inside.
It’s hard to see the man in front of me and not the lanky boy who promised his gang would protect me the day we met.
