Page 69 of What I've Tasted of Desire

You’ve got him…

When his voice had gone hoarse and he didn’t have any more tears left to shed, he looked up at me through wet clumps of long lashes. “I w-want t-to l-leave.”

“You want to go back to Westing House?” I asked, injecting just the right amount of confusion into my voice.

Alex shook his head, “I w-want t-to leave f-forever. I d-don’t want to b-be here any-m-more.”

I brought my hand up and wiped away the wet streaks across his cheeks and lifted his chin up. “You want me to take you away?”

“Y-yes.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“W-where n-o one can f-find us.”

“I’ll take you anywhere, Alex.”

I leaned down, closing the distance between us, and kissed his mouth. “Get dressed.”

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and pulled up my banking apps. I transferred everything in my checking and savings into my anonymous accounts in case the FBI decided to try to freeze my assets when they couldn’t find us after the smoke cleared.

Literally. Ha!

I walked into the spare bedroom and closed the door behind me. I slipped into my private room and hurried to unplug the chest freezer and pulled it out away from the wall to reveal the safe. I typed in the day, month, and year of Alex’s birth into the small keypad and the door popped open. I pulled the duffel bag out and confirmed that mine and Alex’s new passports were still in the bottom. They were, along with Maine driver's licenses that matched the names on the passports. We’d figure out where we were actually headed later, but for now, I’d just get us to the cabin and go from there.

I pulled the stack of letters between my parents, and the Polaroid camera out and stuffed them down into the bag. I took one last look around the room. A moment’s glance through Alex’s history, a warm appreciation of his past now that I had become his future. Some small part of me knew that I’d never see this shrine again, but I pushed it down sternly. Grown men put away childish things, after all. Despite myself, I reached up and grabbed the first blurry Polaroid I’d ever taken of Alex and stuffed it down into the bag before leaving my private sanctuary forever.

When I walked back into the bedroom, Alex was coming out of the bathroom. “You have everything?”

I walked over to my dresser and threw a few of everything in the duffel bag, leaving half of my clothing behind. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t attached to any of it.

“I j-just need a phone charger,” he said.

I stood upright and faced him. “I think we should leave them here.”

Alex’s eyes widened. “W-what?”

“If you really want to disappear, Alex, I would leave your phone here. We’ll get new ones somewhere else. I don’t want there to be any chance of Tom finding you.”

Alex shuddered when I said his name.

Exactly the reaction we were hoping for…

Alex gave me a blank stare and then giggled loopily. My god. The poor thing might really have lost his mind.

“Alex?”

“S-sorry, spaced out. Yeah, you’re r-right. Phones s-should stay.”

I took my phone out of my pocket and tossed it into the middle of the bed. I walked over and cradled his face in my hands, “I’m in love with you, Alex. And I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe and make you happy.”

Alex smiled up at me. “I love you, too.”

That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I kissed him, long and fierce, until I felt myself begin to thicken between my legs.

Don’t have time for that!

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