“I know, baby. I know. It’s scary. It’s terrifying, your instincts tell you to run, run from me, run from confronting your father, just… run. But I’m not letting you. Because it’s not what you need. You need to runtome, and while you’d figure that out eventually, I’m speeding up the process just a little, because I think you’re a little too thick headed to get it right now.” He grins at me when he pokes my head. “Plus, I respectfully refuse your suggestion of our breakup.”
“You refuse?”
He nods, still smiling. “If you want rid of me, you’ll have to forcibly remove me from your home. You can’t kick thewounded out onto the street.” He dots a kiss on the tip of my nose. “And you can’t carry me by yourself.”
He has it all figured out. “My brothers are in the other room, and Scott.”
Another nod. “Sure, but they’re all on my side. Team Xavier all the way.”
I can’t fight the smile pulling on the corner of my mouth. “Your side?”
“I’m in this for the long haul, Arte. I’m not going to cower in a corner or let you flee just because the big, bad daddy de la Peña wants to burn the whole world down. Do you plan to run from your siblings too?”
The question hits harder than I expect. Them seeing me like this—completely unravelled, cornered, drowning, letting fear consume me—shame licks up my throat like flames of fire. My stomach wobbles. “I… uh…”
“Fuck. That’s exactly what you were going to do, wasn’t it? Leave them all and go fight this by yourself?”
At my silence, he tips his head back and rolls his eyes. “If it was one of them?—”
“But it isn’t one of them. It wouldn’t be. They don’t fuck up like I do, Xavi. They only strike when they know they’re going to win.”
“Bullshit.” It’s an impatient, strangled snarl from the back of his throat. “Ares was an addict, an alcoholic, and was in front-page trouble damn near every week. Apollo burned his own bridges with your dad. I’m sure Athena fucked up somewhere, no one’s perfect. Not even her.”
My mouth opens but he doesn’t stop.
“Don’t. Don’t give me the ‘it’s different because it’s me,’ crap, okay? Just don’t. Because it’s not. For the record, they won’t let you frolic off into the sunset to face this by yourself either, and if you try, I’m pretty sure there’ll be bloodshed. And before you ask, I mean yours.”
The sigh that leaves my weary, stress-ridden body is bone-deep. “It’s not their fight to face. It’s mine. My mess, I’ll clean it up.”
He squeezes my face tight with his palms, making my cheeks puff out. I must look ridiculous. And he’s so fucking strong because other than his eyes being ever so slightly etched with pain, he gives nothing away. “Artemis de la Peña, I love you but sometimes you are so obtuse.”
My brain fritzes, hard rebooting right where I stand. I reach out to clutch his shirt in my fist, to ground me. Did he say…? This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. I’m the one who’s supposed to stay untouched. “You can’t love me. You… can’t.” If he loves me, he can be used against me.
He laughs. It’s deep and pure. “Right, so here’s the thing? You aren’t the boss of me. You don’t control my feelings, or the world, and yes, Idolove you. I love so many things about you, but I’m not sure you’re ready to hear the list so I’ll stop there.” He looks me dead in the eye. “I love you.”
The words punch straight through the armour I’ve spent a lifetime welding shut. No one has said those words to me without strings, without an agenda, not since I was a kid too naïve to know better. My bones go weightless, and my traitorous heart is starved, desperate for more.
His words both ruin and save me. “You can’t.”
“I love you.” His voice doesn’t waver.
“You shouldn’t.”
“I. Love. You.”
Any resolve that might have been left in my body leaves on an exhale. “I don’t know how to let you.”
Another laugh. “We can start by stopping the whole running away thing. Unless you’re chasing me in the woods with a goal of fucking me senseless in the leaves, then we can talk.” He winks at me.
“You’re not leaving.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not leaving.”
“We’re not breaking up.”
Another shake. “We’re not breaking up.”
“And I need to figure out how to let my siblings help me fix this clusterfuck?”
