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He said it as a joke, but I knew he wasn’t really joking. He’d lived his whole life with parents who’d rejected, abandoned, and neglected him. Parents who’d left him vulnerable and unsafe. I knew he was afraid to trust me, trust that I wouldn’t leave him.
I looked him directly in his beautiful eyes and shook my head. “Never.”
****
Epilogue
Ava
“Jack, we need to go. We’re going to be late for the party!” I implored from the doorway connecting the house and the garage, trying to drag him away from my father as they worked on his car. “You’re going to get dirty.”
Jack looked up from under the hood of my dad’s car, wiping his greasy hands with an equally greasy rag. “Sorry, babe, I was just giving Will a hand with this–”
I held my hands up. “Don’t tell me. I have no idea what you’re going to be talking about. Just clean up so we can get to Katya’s graduation party. Please,” I said sweetly, throwing him heavy puppy dog eyes and holding my hands in a prayer position.
Jack’s shot me a warm smile. “Sure, babe.” He turned to my dad and gave him a slap on the back. “Good luck with that carburetor, Will.” Jack spent a lot of time with my father, working on the car, talking about sports, going to ball games. Guy stuff, I guess. They got along great. I think my father has come to understand that Jack’s father really wasn’t a father at all, so he was happy to step in and live out his own father-son fantasies with Jack.
“Thanks for helping me out, Jack. You kids have a good time.” My father waved at us as I dragged Jack out of the garage toward his car.
Jack looked amazing, and thankfully clean, in a green, slim-fit button-down shirt that matched his eyes perfectly and a pair of jeans. I was wearing a sleeveless, light blue, V-neck sun dress with a loose skirt that fell just above my knees with a pair of slip-on sandals.
After we got in Jack’s car, he shot me a hot look. “I fucking love it when you wear dresses,” he growled after starting the car, sliding his hand up my leg to rest on my upper thigh. “Please tell me you’re not wearing underwear.”
I slapped his arm and laughed. “Of course, I’m wearing underwear.” Then I shot him a smoky look sliding my own hand up his thigh, perilously close to his groin. “For now.”
Jack groaned and tipped his head back. “Fuck, we don’t have to stay at this party for long, do we?”
I grinned. “For a couple of hours, at least.”
Jack grimaced. “Torture.”
*****
We got to Katya’s place and walked around the house to the spacious, beautifully landscaped back yard. There was a curvy shaped pool with a waterfall grotto at one end and a hot tub at the other filled with floating lanterns. Even though there were only about fifty people here, there was a giant canopy tent with a buffet big enough to feed three times that amount, and a full bar.
It was an interesting mix of people, some of which were clearly newly graduated high school students and friends their age, mixed with a smattering of Russian mob types who did absolutely nothing to blend in and huddled up in small groups around the bar.
I saw Hannah, Nikolai, and Katya standing under the canopy and made a beeline to the only people at the party I recognized, with Jack following close behind me. When he’d said he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight all those months ago, he was barely exaggerating. I thought Nikolai had Hannah on lock down – he had nothing on Jack. I knew instead of being driven by an external fear of a homicidal ex-mobster, like Nikolai was with his father, Jack’s fear was entirely internal. I’d had to check him a few times when he got out of hand.
“Hey, guys!” I said. “Congrats, Katya!” I gave her a hug. “You look beautiful.”
Katya always looked amazing, and today was no exception. She was wearing a black, square-necked, sleeveless mini-dress with a bohemian graphic print on the lower half and black pumps. Her golden-red hair was loose and was only wearing one piece of jewelry, a silver or platinum locket.
“Your necklace is so pretty. Where did you get it?” I asked leaning out to inspect it more closely.
“Oh,” she said, reaching up to touch it. “It’s a graduation gift.”
Since she wasn’t sharing who gave it to her, I decided not to inquire further, but I wanted to. I shot a quick glance at Hannah, who shook her head, reinforcing my decision.
Jack wrapped his arm around my waist from behind me. “Congrats, Katya,” Jack said.
“Thanks, Jack. Anyone want anything from the bar?”
“You’re brave to have an open bar at a high school graduation, especially when no one is carding,” Nikolai said, taking a sip of his beer.
“Look around, Nik, you think these kids are going to get too out of hand considering the muscle here?” Jack said.
“God, when you say it like that,” Hannah said, and jokingly put her drink on a nearby table.
