Before long he and I have set up the whole area. “Thank you,” he quietly says once the final chair is pushed in. The words shock me. They were said so faintly but the empty room carries his gratitude to me.
I look at him and he’s staring down at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Yeah, no problem. Just helping where I can.” He moves his eyes up at me. I wink to ease the tension between us, and his cheeks flame bright red. I love seeing him blush. He’s a gem when his faint skin is rosy.
He shuffles around on his feet but doesn’t shy away. “We’re all good now so you can take off.”
“Nah, I said I’m here to help. I’ll go see if the nuns need anything else. Then I can stay and help serve the food.”
I’m fishing. Luring him in. Somehow Iwillmake him need me.
“Declan—I think—um, that won’t be necessary. Again, thank you.”
Not going anywhere is what my soul screams, clawing at me to stay.
I walk up to him, closing the distance between us. It’s not as close as I would like, but I’m close enough he can’t escape me. “I’m just trying to help. Please let me.”
“I know what you’ve done. You’re not a good man. You…” he looks around before he says, “kill people. It’s a sin.”
“I do. But I don’t just kill for fun. I protect what’s mine. My family, our business, and my community. I keep Southie safe from the true evils.”
Ewen is right, I have killed people. And I won’t stop. I need to protect. Always. That’s what I am, a protector.
Our views will never align. “Look, we could go back and forth all day about this. I’m not going to change, neither are you. But let’s push that to the side. I just want to be your friend. Nothing else. And as your friend, I’m here just like Caleb—to help you. To give back to my community.”
My desire to touch him is amped up. I want to hug him, feel his heartbeat against mine. But that will be whenever he allows me. For now, I’ll be his friend and nothing else. It’s the only way I can be in his life. Going back to watching him from afar isn’t possible anymore. My obsession is too strong to not be in his vicinity.
So many emotions cross his features at once. A war of confusion, lust, and so many others I can’t even fully catalog them all. His blue eyes bounce over my face, looking for the lies, trying to see if I’m being honest.
“You can’t?—”
I refuse to hear him reject me again. I gently grab the side of his face, feeling his soft skin. “No. You aren’t pushing me away. You aren’t going to stop me from being here either. Iwillbe here for you.”
His eyes are a deep blue, like waves crashing into the shoreline. “But I know who you are.”
“You do but I will never cause you or anyone you care about harm. I’ll protect you like I do everything else I care about.”
Those words make him angry. His eyes narrow, flames rise in them. He steps back, breaking our connection. “We can’t. Can’t be friends. Can’t be anything.”
Now it’s my anger that bubbles to the surface. “And why the fuck not? Aren’t you supposed to be the forgiving type? Forgiving people for their sins?” I grit my teeth and force myself to take a deep breath. “You are just like so many others hiding behind faith. Judging and not practicing the bullshit you preach.”
Ewen looks as if I slapped him, but he has to see that accepting me into his life is the only thing that matters to me right now. He’s so quiet. Just looking at me. Not the empty kind of quiet, no this one is heavy and deliberate. The words I just threw at him still hang in the air.
He licks his lips before he speaks. “I am sorry. I did judge you. But only because I’m afraid.”
“Why are you afraid?” I grab the other side of his face, framing it in my hands and forcing him to look directly at me when he answers.
“Because you make me think…and feel.”
I stare into his blue eyes, feeling like I could be drowning in the depths of his vulnerability. “Feel what?”
“I don’t know exactly. Just feelings I’m not accustomed to.” My heart beats so rapidly that I’m afraid it will jump out of my chest. And if that happened, I would gift it to him, giving him a part of me.
He reaches up and gently wraps his fingers around my wrists. He lowers my hands, breaking our moment as he steps back.“How about I stop judging and just get to know the man that is Declan. Become friends.”
I need to know what feelings he’s not accustomed to. But I will take this as a small victory. He wanted me gone, yet now we’re talking about being friends. Do I even have any friends? Not really. I have Ciaran and Fiona, but they’re family. A true friend isn’t something I can say I have.
“Alright friend. Let’s go feed the community. I’ll stay and help clean up after too.”
