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We all stared him down impatiently. Vicious grinned.
“But as I said, he is savvy. He wants to control us enough, but doesn’t really give too many fucks about FHH. He’d buy fifty sharp.”
I knew then and there that the fucker had already drafted a contract with him. He sounded too cocky to make this sort of assumption. The looks Trent and Jaime gave me told me that they knew it, too.
“This shit can take months, even years to negotiate,” Jaime argued.
“Van Der Zee had already asked if we wanted to meet him.” Vicious continued, and all eyes darted to him.
Passing him the blunt as I coughed on a chuckle, I asked, “How long have you known that we were going to ask you this?”
“Enough time to make adequate plans.”
“Fucking fucker came to you first, how come?” Trent grabbed the blunt and inhaled, his eyebrows bunched together. Vicious tipped his head back and blew rings of smoke to the ceiling, his eyes hooded and evil.
“I’m in California. He’s in California. I handle the legal shit here. Who cares? You’ll get what you want, Trent. Time to wipe that miserable expression off of your goddamn face.”
We all looked between each other. I was smiling, and I didn’t even know why. No one promised me that Rosie wanted to move back to Todos Santos. In fact, she loved New York, which was why she lived so far away from her parents. But the ability to give her that option made me unreasonably happy.
“I’m in,” I said.
“For the right contract—and money—me, too,” Jaime added.
Trent blew out air, laughing. “Luna’s gonna be a Cali girl.”
Vicious grinned. “Let’s fucking do this.”
What makes you feel alive?
Being loved. Wildly. Under the open sky. Under the pouring rain. Under a spell that never, ever ends.
“No offense, Rosie, but I don’t want anyone to leave me,” Dean said when I confronted him about asking Emilia to never leave. At the time, I thought it was because he was a cocky douchebag. Now, it was crystal clear.
He had abandonment issues.
He had abandonment issues, and Millie abandoned him.
It made me irrationally mad at my sister, but also grateful that she did.
Flopping on the bed after Thanksgiving dinner, I thought about the afternoon, about that kiss in the rain—like we were in The Notebook and he was Ryan Gosling and I was obviously delusional—and started giggling. The giggling turned into coughing, which wasn’t that surprising.
But then, the coughing turned into blood.
Spitting a lump of bloody phlegm, I stared at it in the tissue in front of me for long seconds, unblinking.
The decision to keep this to myself was immediate. There wasn’t much point, anyway. Dean and I were heading back home in a few hours. He was in Los Angeles with his friends, and the last thing I wanted was to throw my whole family into high gear and make them drag me to a nearby hospital. Dr. Hasting used to see me at crazy hours, days and weekends. I could always get to her in New York if it happened again.
I rolled in my bed, side-to-side, unable to get some much-needed sleep. I coughed some more. Then sniffed some. Changed positions to try to figure out the best way to breathe without the mucus blocking my airway. And it was ironic, that my need for Dean was suffocating not him, but me.
No matter how much I enjoyed our love declaration, my body didn’t appreciate that it was in the rain.
He told me he loved me.
It brought to me the kind of glee money could never buy. But this happiness was also dunked with dread. Because I knew that someday—someday soon—I was going to die. Die in the middle of this beautiful life he had planned for us.
Would I leave him, a widower in his thirties, with kids to take care of? Would I let him take the fall? How many hearts was I going to break, and why did I stop fighting the need to prevent myself from breaking them?
He told me about Nina.
That was the other reason I couldn’t sleep. He tore my heart right out of my chest, and I had no idea how to put it back. Only Dean had this spell over me. The ability to make me feel like I was completely crushed, yet elated in the best possible way. I heard the door to my room creak and coughed into a worn tissue. Squinting my eyes at the material, I detected more dark spots of blood, my shoulder sagging on a sigh.
Thanks, reality. I had a fun ride today, but you just had to ruin it.
“Mill? Shut the door after you. It’s chilly.” I croaked again.
The door was pushed all the way open this time. Dean walked in, his body bigger than my fears and doubts. He slipped into bed while his clothes, shoes, and coat were still on and pulled the cover up to tuck us both in, then turned around and spooned me from behind. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. The red numbers said six o’clock in the morning.
