Page 16 of The #2 Guy

7

Christine

He’s sated and limp in my arms. I don’t know how or why but being with me always grounded him. It made me feel powerful that I had something no other woman had, the power to tame the beast and make him beg. My heart cracks open wide. I always loved him and hated myself for it. I punished myself by turning him in. I always prided myself on the law. On being the good one but he’s made me see I’ve been stuck on my own sense of righteousness and we both paid for it.

“You’re freezing.” His warm hands caress me as he moves to stand, cradling me in his arms.

“No. Please. I don’t want to go inside yet. It’s been so long since I’ve seen sky. Since I’ve smelled clean air.”

“Roque had you, but I thought you were dead all this time.”

She seems startled by my revelation. “Roque let you believe I was dead?”

He nods, looking away as his fingers pick grass. But the tell is his throat working. The damn stubborn pig-headed man really cares for me and I fucked both our lives up with this insane plan to avenge real evil people. My parents. I put my hand over his. “Can you tell me more… about my parents… about what they did. I do remember odd bits of pieces but it’s still a lot to take in.”

“After. If that’s what you really want. I’ll bring you back outside later, but we need to get warm.”

He hoists me up in his arms, skin to skin, he carries me over the threshold of grass and fallen leaves. I wrap my arms around his neck, “Johnny?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“How is this going to work? I can’t live like this and we can’t go back to the real world…”

“One day at a time. I still don’t trust you yet. That is going to take time. I mean… if you’re done fighting this thing between us…”

I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of him on the fall morning. “I’m trying. I am. I’m only tired of the death… the dying. The violence.”

“Me too. But I don’t know another way to live.”

“I could show you…”

He stops, puts me down in the grass and kisses me with tender passion. “Woman, I’m never letting you go. But I still haven’t forgiven you for breaking this,” he points to the middle of his chest.

“I didn’t want to. When we were together, I didn’t want to believe it. That you were the one who killed my parents, but I knew even if you were innocent of that—you were still guilty of killing someone else.”

“Look, babe. It’s the life I’m in. If you can’t accept that right here, right now. I’ll send you deep into the mountains in Peru. I have a cabin there. I’ll set you up with everything you need. But if I do that and you come back from the dead to take me or Roque down…”

I shake my head. “One day at a time, like you said. I’m still processing everything. I do have feelings for you, but I’m still trying to sort out what they are. I’m angry that I’ve been kept prisoner. I know you killed Roque to set me free but what happens now? That’s one hell of a power vaccum. How can we ever be safe?”

“We are safe. Look, babe, Roque… I didn’t kill him.”

“I saw your shot. That hit was not survivable.”

“It was faked. I was shooting blanks.”

“What?”

He shrugs, “I wanted you to go with me with less of a fight.”

“That whole shoot-out was a hoax? Where is he? I want to see him. Right now?”

“Roque? No.”

“Not Roque. The sexy as fuck gentle giant who kept me sane. I have feelings for him, too. It’s fucked up but I do.”

“Roger? The fuck?!” He yells. “Get over them. Now!”

“You can’t just demand feelings to go away.”

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