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I nodded. “I want him to be happy. I know that if he’s happy, you will be too, and I want that just as much.”
She stared at me for an inordinately long time, like she was trying to judge how truthful I was being. I wasn’t sure if her X-Ray vision picked up on anything, but after a little while, she murmured, “I really don’t want you to get shot.”
I had to laugh. “Well, that’s not on my to-do list either.”
“Good to know,” she sniped, but her eyes narrowed. “In fact, I want it so little that I didn’t know—”
When she broke off, I tipped my head to the side. “You didn’t know what?”
“It made me realize that nothing has changed for me. Nothing, Declan. It makes me feel like I’m seventeen again, and I’m most definitely not that.
“I always knew the day would come where you’d find me and discover the truth about Seamus. Every day you didn’t, every month that passed and year that dwindled away to nothing, I breathed a sigh of relief. Each year with me, away from you and the family, was important. It imprintedmyvalues on him. I didn’t want to be like Mom, and I would have been if I’d stayed with you.
“I’m not saying you wouldn’t have treated me better than Dad, because I think you would have, even if I’d been a lot less independent back then, but I didn’t want to be that. And I wanted him to be raised outside of the life.
“Everything I did as a kid was about not showing Dad up, about making sure I hung around only with Points’ families. I didn’t want that for him.”
“You want him to be normal,” I murmured softly, and for the life of me, even as she pissed me off, I got it.
How couldn’t I?
When I was a kid, growing up, I’d felt like a changeling. Plopped into a macho household where things like the arts were disdained. Da had thought I was gay for half of my childhood, for Christ’s sake. That was before I’d even discovered things like the opera and ballet!
My friends all had to be from Points’ families too, and within those friends, I was well aware that a lot of the guys wanted to hang around me for who I was. It was well known that the kids you grew up with, who you were close to, would be a part of your crew. They’d grow with you, get promoted to run with you, and that meant knowing if someone liked me for me was impossible.
I’d been held back a year in school simply because I’d been so behind with all the shit Da had shoved on my plate when I was a fucking teenager in an attempt to toughen me up.
Eventually, I’d learned to keep my trap shut. Never to talk about things that mattered to me, because if I did, then he’d think I needed another dose of goddamn tough love.
“You’re not mad at me for wanting that, are you?” she whispered softly.
“How can I be when I was raised the way I was?” I scratched my chin. “I’m not saying I like it, and I’m not saying I appreciate you lying to me the way you did, but for his benefit, I understand, and in some ways, I’m grateful. He’s a well-rounded kid, Aela. I don’t know if he’d have been like that if he’d been raised like us.”
“Thank you.”
I ducked my head, and muttered, “What were you going to say? Before I interrupted you, I mean.”
She blew out a breath. “For as long as I knew you’d find us eventually, I had plans in motion. I knew that if you’d turned into a prick, or, I don’t know, if you were going to abuse me for what I did—”
“I’d never do that!”
“I didn’t know that. And I’m not sure your da doesn’t want to slap me around, Dec.”
“Just let him fucking try,” I ground out, my fists bunching at the thought. “I’ll fucking kill him before I let him take a step toward you in violence.”
Her lips curved into a tiny smile. “My hero.”
Surprisingly, there was no mockery in her tone.
And it warmed me.
She meant it.
Fuck, it had been a long time since I’d been anyone’s hero, and even then, it had been her. Before I’d turned into the villain, before she’d run off and I’d had no choice but to let her flitter away.
She cleared her throat as our eyes caught and held. “I had plans in motion,” she repeated. “I knew I might have to get out. And today, everything inside me was screaming danger, danger, that I needed to take Seamus away from this insane life, but the thought of not being with you, Dec, it hurts just as bad as it did when I was a kid.
“I don’t want that. I want you. I want this. Us.”
