AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nineteen
Declan
Rubbingthe back of my neck with a towel, I headed out into my bedroom and saw Aela lying on the bed. Her feet were crossed at the ankle, her arms were behind her head, and the distinctly masculine pose had me coming to a halt and smirking at her.
“I feel like I’m being sexualized,” I teased.
Her nose crinkled. “Objectification is no laughing matter.”
“I think I can deal with it, this once at least.” I arched a brow. “You okay?”
“I’m worried about the Feds.”
“Don’t be. They always sniff around us, and if anyone has to worry, it’s not us but theFamiglia.They were the ones who had Feds as witnesses to their shootout.” I had to laugh. “If there could have been a better time for us to be tailed, it was then.”
“Is there ever a good time to be tailed?”
“No. Never a good time to be shot at either.” I jerked my chin up. “Know what I was thinking when it went down?”
“No. What?” she asked softly, quietly. Her gaze was wary. Uncertain. Totally unlike my Aela.
“You. Seamus. I was thinking about how, when it happened before, my life didn’t flash before my eyes, and this time it wasn’t my past but a potential future I was missing out on.” I sighed. “Messed with me. Made me a better shot, though, so I can’t complain.”
“A better shot?”
I nodded. “I’m a shit shot,” I told her drolly.
“Should get Seamus to help you. He’s damn good. Can hit bullseyes from forty yards.”
Rolling my eyes, I grumbled, “Of course, he can.”
“Hey,” she murmured, “I’m not teasing. It would be a good way for you two to get to know each other. To have a thing. You know? If he’s teaching you, then he has a position of power over you. Kids like that shit. Makes them feel important.”
“He is important.”
“I know. He’s everything.”
I swallowed, because before, I’d have scoffed. Now? She was right.
Hewaseverything.
What was the point to anything without thinking of a future with him in it? Without wondering how to make the future brighterforhim?
It was like my investment before had been solely in the present. Now that I had to think of him, it changed my perspective for the better.
“Okay, I’ll take him this week. I’d have him carrying if I could.”
She laughed a little. “I’m not sure that fancy pants school would like him armed.”
“Probably not.”
My grousing had her laughter deepening, then it softened, and she inquired, “You pulled strings to get him in there so late in the term, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “He wanted to go there so go there he will.” I tossed my towel back into the bathroom, twisting around to do so. The move pulled muscles I really wished I hadn’t pulled and, making sure my grimace was hidden when I faced her, I sighed when I realized she’d seen everything anyway.
She was an artist, for God’s sake. A student of the human form and expression. Pulling the wool over her eyes was never going to happen.
“Thank you for doing that,” she rasped. “It will make it easier for him to settle down.”
