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I tilt my head side to side. “That’s the difference?”
“Burian has no clue we’re working with them. That’s the edge. It’s all the edge we need.”
I’m not convinced, but it’s too late now. I lean across the truck to kiss him. He returns the kiss with a deep fervor, and we hold it there. Worries plague me, and I wonder if everything we did last night, all the promises we made, all our confessions, if it was all for nothing.
“You have to come back,” I whisper, leaning my forehead against his.
“I will,” he says. “I promise.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t want you to either, but you’re safer here, and I have to leave. Burian can walk out of that apartment any minute.”
I nod, gathering my strength to pull away. I stare into his handsome face, into his eyes, feel his desire wash over me, before I shove open the truck door. If I hesitate any longer, if I stay in here for one more second, I won’t ever go.
“I’ll come back,” he says as I close the door. “I promise.”
He puts the truck in gear and drives off.
Carmine’s guys are watching me, smoking away, saying nothing. I ignore them, turning to the house, and as I walk to the door I realize that I never told him how I feel.
I never said the words. “I love you,” I whisper out loud to nobody and nothing.
That asshole better come back so I can say it to his face.
* * *
Grandpop sitsat the table with me eating pancakes and drinking his coffee. We work on the crossword together like we normally do, acting like everything’s normal. He didn’t ask me any questions yet, but they’re coming.
“The house looks good,” I say, noting the cleaned dishes, the dusted counters.
“Housekeepers started showing up a few days back,” he admits with a shrug. “Figured you knew about it.”
I laugh, surprised, but I shouldn’t be. “I actually didn’t.”
“Really?” His face screws up in worry. “This have something to do with your job?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah, Grandpop. It does, but it also doesn’t.” I cross my arms, not sure how to broach this subject.
We’re close. We’ve been close all my life. He talked to me about my period, let me cry to him when boys broke my heart in high school, even did a half-hearted sex talk at one point.
But now I feel like I don’t know how to tell him that I fell in love.
“There’s a man,” he says, grunting the words. “What’s his name?”
I rub my face. “I should’ve assumed you’d put it together.”
“You been with him this whole time?”
“Yes, but it’s not what you think. We haven’t shacked up together. It’s because of the job.”
His eyebrows raise. “That job have anything to do with the tough-looking sons of bitches smoking out front right now?”
I laugh, clearing our plates. “You noticed?”
“Of course I noticed, Ren. I hoped you’d come out and tell me the truth sooner, but here we are. Better now than never.”
I put the dishes into the dishwasher then face him. “Those men are mobsters. They work for a friend of the man I’m seeing.”
