“You okay?” I ask after a minute.
He stands and grabs the edge of the blanket, pulling it up so fast he almost dumps me on my ass before I can scramble to my feet.
“Yeah,” he says, his concentration solely on folding. “Yeah, all good. We should get going.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, unable to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Of course. Lights are back on. No reason to say.”
four
Duke Dolce
We hunch into our coats, hurrying down the street. The lights are back on, the wreaths twinkling on every lamp post, heaters humming. Traffic is backed up, though, and there’s an edge in the air, as if people aren’t quite sure whether law and order still applies. Some old familiar urge rises, the itch to smash a window and set off a chain reaction, run screaming as the alarms blare, create a stampede, chaos in the street; to set a fire and watch the world burn. But I know now it’s just my demon whispering his intrusive thoughts.
You don’t have to obey.
I can have the thought, know it’s not real, choose not to make it real.
Just like what happened on that rooftop wasn’t real.
I glance sideways at Colt. He has his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his parka, his head down against the wind. Neither of us have spoken since we left the scene of the crime. Maybe it was all a fucked up hallucination on my part, wishful thinking after all the times I’ve replayed our stolen moments all those years ago in my mind.
I remind myself that he probably never revisits those old memories. To him, they’re probably nothing but painful and shameful, better left forgotten, or in the past where they belong.
To him, I’m not the guy that got away, the one that could have been. I’m the guy who bullied him relentlessly in school, called him every slur, burned his arm until he went into shock, beat him up. I stood by while my brothers cut off his finger andbeat him so bad he had to leave school for a year. While they held him down, I made him suck my dick until he threw up.
Of course he isn’t thinking about coming back to my place, about seeing how good I’m doing now. That wouldn’t make him feel good. From his vantage point, I was always doing good, always on top. Seeing that I’m successful on my own would only make him feel shitty.
I clear my throat. “Hey, so, I’m sorry I freaked out back there.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s kind of cute.”
“My phobia is cute?” I ask, surprised by how normal he sounds, like the weirdness is all on my end. Apparently it is.
“I mean, not when you’re freaking out,” he says. “But the fact that you have it… Yeah, it’s kind of cute that a six-foot-four guy from a mafia family is scared of the dark.”
“Fuck you.”
His lips quirk up into a smirk. “I thought I had to catch you first.”
“I’m six-five,” I mutter, scowling at a car laying on the horn.
He chuckles and pulls out his cigarettes, tucks one between his lips, and tears a match off a booklet.
“Hey,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. “You said you were out of matches.”
“I never said that,” he says, tipping his head to peer at me from the corner of his eye like a cocky asshole. “And even if I had, which I would have if you asked, how else was I going to get you to cuddle me?”
“You’re trouble, Colt Darling.”
“Just now figuring that out?” he asks, grinning at me from behind the two fingers holding his cigarette.
“No, I know,” I say, shaking my head when he offers the cigarette. I don’t want to take off my leather gloves again, or getthe smell of smoke on them, a smell that will linger, reminding me of him every time I wear them. I have enough reminders without torturing myself with more.
“What hotel are you staying at?” I ask, because I don’t want to think about what he said. He’s just fucking with my head. There’s no reason he’d want to be close to me. I need to put an end to this before it begins, before it goes further, before it goes anywhere. If I don’t do it now, it won’t change anything. The ending stays the same.
It ends with Colt walking away. It always has. It always will.
“Are you offering to walk me home?” he asks, his pierced brows rising and his smile turning amused. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a gentleman.”
