FRIENDS?HAD HE really just asked if we could befriends?
The word was like a slap in the face, and I stared at Rafael, waiting for him to realize his fuck-up.
But he only stood there in his priestly garb looking holier than thou, the look on his face so earnest and sincere, like he truly believed we could just go back to the way things used to be.
“Friends,” I repeated slowly, letting the word roll around on my tongue. “After everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve confessed to you.Friends.”
“Yes. Can we at least try?”
A sharp laugh escaped me before I could stop it, because holy shit. He was actually serious.
I pushed away from the rail, turning my back on him. It was either that or kill him, because kissing him was out of the question.
Taking in a deep breath, I looked out over the city only for my eyes to land on a cathedral directly opposite the rooftop. Fuck, even the view was mocking me, and I slammed my eyes shut.
“You know the answer,” I said, my voice coming out with a bitter edge I couldn’t hide if I wanted to.
“You could choose differently.”
My eyes flew open and I turned around, pinning him with a fulminating stare. “Icould choose? You really wanna go there?”
Rafael shook his head, and it pissed me off to no end how unaffected he seemed by all of this. The way he just stood there so…so…priestly. “Alessio,” he said, and damn if my name on his lips didn’t send a dagger straight through my chest, “you brought me back into your life?—”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? You trusted me with your brothers, but you won’t have anything to do with me.”
I opened my mouth to refute that, but he was right. He was back in my life by my choice. Because I hadn’t been able to stay away, because I knew my brothers needed something to relieve the heavy weight our decisions and actions carried. Because I trusted Rafael, even though I hated him.
No,I thought, swallowing hard. I didn’t hate him, even though I wanted to. It would make things so much easier if I could.
“I poured myself out to you, Rafael.” My jaw clenched tight at the memory I wished alcohol could’ve made me forget. “I bled on the fucking floor for you in that confessional, so when you ask stupid shit likewhy, it makes me wonder how you could forget so easily.”
“I told you already, I didn’t forget,” he said so quietly I almost missed it over the sound of laughter and music filtering in from the other side of the roof.
“I thought priests weren’t allowed to lie.” I shook my head and dragged my fingers roughly through my hair, a move that had Rafael’s eyes locking in on my hand.
Probably judging the way I’d let my hair grow out. I’d kept it on the short side back then, though not as close-cropped as he wore his now, and maybe it had been partly a fuck-you at first. A way to separate myself from my strict upbringing.
Yet another distinction that set the two of us apart.
Rafael stayed quiet, silently watching as I shoved my hair behind my ear and I scoffed.
“Say it.”
My words seem to jolt him out of his thoughts. “Say what?”
“That you don’t approve.” God, I wished I still smoked. Surely Theo had a kretek I could steal.
“Approve of…?”
I spread my hands wide. “My hair. Me. My fuckin’ mouth. The things my brothers and I do that you pretend not to know anything about.”
“That’s not for me to judge.” He said those words like they were true, and he stood so goddamnstill. Like nothing I said affected him in any physical way.
It was beyond infuriating, and I found myself wanting to poke, wanting to get some kind of reaction. Any reaction.
“How did it feel tonight, huh?” I said. “When you stood up there and blessed something your church hates? Something you denied us?”
