“Tsk. I’m not confused—you’re confused! I know exactly what I want, Pierce!” He half laughs while grinding his teeth. He collects himself with a few short breaths. “I want… I want you to live as long as possible. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I want you to see all the things you’ve been missing in life. And then, when you’re gone, I’m gonna spend those last twenty years counting the days until we’re together again.”
Miles pulls me even closer and slams his forehead down on my collarbone. I feel his breath come out in short, ragged bursts. I stand still, mulling over his statements, unable to move or respond.
I wish I was half the person he thinks I am. I’d be a goddamn superman.
With an unsteady hand, I trace the length of his spine. Miles must take my motion as acceptance, because he releases my shirt and wraps his arms around me. Together, held tightly by Miles’s grip, I relax a bit. He smells good.
“Tell me why you’re really leaving,” he demands in a hushed tone.
“I don’t want to see you hurt,” I reply, all anger gone. “At first I thought my past would haunt you…. Now it’s my future. What if someone comes looking for me? And they will. What if you’re caught up in it?”
“I want to be caught up in it.”
“What if your family is caught up in it?” I ask, serious and cold. “Jayden already got shot. Lacy abducted. How much more will have to happen before you realize it’s me that’s the cause?”
His nails dig into my back. “I’m not going to let them dictate how I live my life. We can beat them, Pierce. And even if you leave, I’m going to go after them, so there’s really nothing you’re saving me from.”
“Them?” I ask.
“Jeremy. His mob. All of them. I want them gone, and come hell or high water, I’ll do it.”
I return his embrace, unable to stop myself from smiling. “Pretty ballsy.”
“Yeah, well, stop trying to ditch me,” Miles states. “No dying. No leaving in the middle of the night. It won’t change what I’m going to do—and I’d rather have you with me. I… I want to be more confident. Like you. And when you’re around, I feel like your conviction rubs off on me.”
“Heh. All right. You have me. But I can’t promise anything about dying, except that it’ll happen one day.”
“So we’ll do this together?” he asks. “I don’t need to worry about convincing you ever again?”
It’s his conviction that gets me. He wants to do it together. No hesitation. And he wants to right the wrongs of my past. No reservations. Even I wasn’t that sure when I mulled over the possibilities of the future. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I was the one confused about what I wanted.
Marry me.
It’s what I want to say, but even in my mind, it feels awkward—something I never considered right for me. The crimson orange of the setting sun lights everything in a passionate way, and I blame the atmosphere for my sudden swell of emotion.
I don’t need any formal paperwork or ceremony to know that I’d die for him, or that I’ll never contemplate leaving him again. Still, he waits for my response, and I know he wants to hear my deepest thoughts.
“I love you,” I say. Words I haven’t uttered since childhood.
His voice is thick with emotion when he replies, “And I you.”
“Heh. Don’t get weepy on me.”
Miles breaks our embrace and smiles, a sort of mirth about him that I enjoy. “We have to move, by the way. My mother thinks our neighborhood is to blame. She won’t let me see Lacy again until I find a better place.”
“Fine.”
“Really? You don’t mind?”
“The kid next door won’t like it, but we can go anywhere you want.”
Miles rubs at his neck and stares at me. He lifts both eyebrows, like he wants to suggest something, and I wait for it, knowing it’s something preposterous.
“We could ask them to move too,” he finally says.
“Yeah. The old lady really has the funds for that.”
“We have the funds for that.”
Eh. I think back to Shannon in the retirement home—about how she said no one would come for her—and I know I can’t stand the thought of up and disappearing on her, especially when she and Lacy became fast friends. Then again, we aren’t made of money. We’re bound to burn through most of my mob money helping people out. You’d think half a million goes a long way, but shit isn’t cheap.
“We don’t have to do it unless you want to.”
“Fine,” I drawl. “Talk to her. Let’s see what we can do.”
Miles taps me on the arm. “I knew you’d come around, Pierce. You’re a good guy.”
More from S.A. Stovall
Vice City: Book One
After twenty years as an enforcer for the Vice family mob, Nicholas Pierce shouldn’t bat an eye at seeing a guy get worked over and tossed in the river. But there’s something about the suspected police mole, Miles, that has Pierce second-guessing himself. The kid is just trying to look out for his brother any way he knows how, and the altruistic motive sparks an uncharacteristic act of mercy that involves Pierce taking Miles under his wing.
Miles wants to repay Pierce for saving his life. Pierce shouldn’t see him as anything but a convenient hookup… and he sure as hell shouldn’t get involved in Miles’s doomed quest to get his brother out of a rival street gang. He shouldn’t do a lot of things, but life on the streets isn’t about following the rules. Besides, he’s sick of being abused by the Vice family, especially Mr. Vice and his power-hungry goon of a son, who treats his underlings like playthings.
So Pierce does the absolute last thing he should do if he wants to keep breathing—he
