Oliver’s lips turn up faintly as he shakes his head.
“You said you wanted to know if I was a liar," he says carefully.
“I determined you were not.” My voice drops.
“But I was," he says, his voice barely a whisper. “I lied to you. I didn’t know who youwere.”
I watch his gaze flicker between us for a moment, before he looks in my eyes again. The cool breeze blows and the trees rustle, and the sound of tires escaping the gravel echoes around us. Lights flash as everyone leaves the scene, one by one.
Save for us.
“I thought you were an asshole. Some thieving, conniving asshole who—”
“Oliver, you don’t have to—”
“No.” He holds his free hand up, settling it on my chest. My heart skips a beat beneath his palm. “No, Ineedto do this. I need you to understand—”
His voice cracks, and that breaks me more than anything. A single tear falls down his dirty cheek, and I don’t think twice about wiping it away with my thumb. “I thought that if I just didthisthing for my boyfriend—”
My eyes close at his words, the sour taste hitting me in the mouth. Part of me knows he needs to say this and I need to hear it, but it doesn’t mean I am comfortable far from it.
One word rests on the edge of my tongue.PUP.
I suck in a breath. I know if I said it right now, Oliver would end this conversation. But if there is one thing I have learned as the creator of Veil, it is that code can always be rewritten.
And although our source code may have been altered, it doesn’t mean we can not still prevail and become better than how we were written in the first place.
I open my eyes, gazing back at big green ones, and I let out a steady breath.
“I thought I didn’t have a choice," he says. “And then you showed me that I do.”
“Oliver…” I breathe his name, letting my forehead fall against his.
Crickets chirp and the world is eerily quiet and cold, but there is a warmth in my heart I can’t deny.
“I sat tied to that chair, and I never thought I’d see you again,” he chokes. “And you want to know what I thought about? As I sat there waiting for him to kill me?”
I see the truth in his eyes as the tears run free.
“What?” I ask, terrified to hear his answer.
“I thought you’ll never know,” he sobs. “You’ll never know it wasn’t all a lie.”
Tears flood my eyes, and I bite my lip, trying to force them back.
Oliver’s hand rises to my throat and he squeezes gently.
“And that you’d never know how much I fucking love you.”
“Fuck, Oliver…” I cry as I kiss him. His tears are warm against my cheek as my own fall from my eyes.
“I love you, too,” I whisper against his lips. I kiss him everywhere I can as gently as I can.
When I’m done, I pull away and brush his tears away with my thumbs and gaze into his eyes with firmness.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, my heart filling with a mixture of pride and warmth.
“Starving,” he says with a faint laugh as I pull him close and hold him. I kiss his hair and hold him for a moment. I just feelhis warmth, his solid body, his heartbeat, and breathe because it means he’ssafe.
