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“I missed you,” I whisper. I want him to see and feel anything but rejection from me. I want him to feel what I do when he makes me feel like he does. Like no one could ever compare. Like I’m it for him. It’s us and forever.
“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “Fuck the rest of the world. This is where I belong.”
I’m not thinking highly of myself when I think this. But I do believe I’m the only “lighter” person who truly accepts Lilo for who he is. Other than me, he’s more comfortable around guys like Ghetti.
An image of a ferret out to steal gold always comes to mind when I think of Ghetti. He’s average height but thin, which is why they call him Ghetti, short for spaghetti, but he has dark eyes and dark ways. And a ferret’s disposition. I think it would have been a better nickname for him.
But I love that Lilo comes to me. I love being that person in his life. It makes me feel important. Special. He’s that person for me.
“It is,” I say. “As much as I’m yours, you’re mine.” Heat stings my cheeks. I’m not used to expressing things like that. Tearing open my heart and letting my feelings out.
The look he gives me in return makes it all worth it. He gazes at me with something I don’t see when he’s out on the streets. Absorption. Like he needs to feel me beneath his skin. He needs me to consume him so he can feel something different.
“My shadow man,” I whisper.
The moments that pass between us are charged. Heated. It’s like when our eyes connect, when we’re this close, one of us is the wire and the other is the outlet. We’re plugged in, and something electrical passes between us. But something better. Something that’s a mixture of euphoria and reality.
It’s a rush that’s real and ours—like when blood surges through a vein. What a high it is for the heart.
“You ever going to try to lock me out, Lucila?”
I notice his use of “try,” but I ignore it because I’m too caught up in the question.
“No,” I say, understanding. “I’m not ever going to turn my back on you. I won’t leave.”
“But you might try to lock me out.”
“If I do, I’m sure I’ll have a damn good reason.”
“Then I’ll have a damn good reason to make things right. To fight for this.”
“You hold the key,” I say.
“You’re the lock.”
“Then we fit,” I say. “We’ll learn how to make this work.”
We’re making promises that feel like vows.
“I love you, Lucila,” he says.
“I love you, too,” I say, moving my hands up his sides, wrapping my arms around his neck.
Those words, and the kiss that I initiate, seal everything. As young as I am, I know I’m in this for the rest of my life with him. Whatever this is between us.
Whatever it is, it’s mine. It’s mine in a way that nothing else has ever been.
Ava and I are so different. She’s wild, where I’m careful with each step. I hide so I can indulge in a simple chocolate bar. She’s probably out screwing gangsters and trying things that could only get her addicted. But we’re the same in this.
We both fight against the same hurt that highlights our differences—how we deal with it. We fight so we don’t fall hard enough to shatter what’s already been cracked. But tonight, when I fall, when I surrender, it will be to the safety of his iron heart. The heart that draws him to the darkness and to the light. The heart that’s hard enough to hide my fragile existence behind it. Hide the very thing he heard in my voice.
He’s a cold, hard shield against the world, but there’s warmth where he’s keeping me. In the sun. His darkness and my light keeping the feelings between us in shadow. They follow us wherever we go.
Our lips part, but our eyes hold. Then he leans down again, his lips more demanding this time. The kiss grows wilder. Uncontrolled. Our tongues tangle, and his breath is mine.
We lose ourselves to it.
My eyes refuse to open. They’re weighed down by what I’m not supposed to see but feel.
