Page 100 of Sweet Vengeance
“Ugh. Why did you have to pull out the term of endearment?” I try to smile but end up pulling him closer instead. This always helps. Being with him makes everything better. “What would you do?” I ask, honestly curious.
“You need to do what you want, not what I want.”
“I know, but I trust your judgment more than mine. You’re more levelheaded. I’m more like the mini mob.” This time I do smile. “Most of us react first, ask questions later. Tiernan thinks things through more, but his first instinct is still anger, and mine is too.” But not Ollie’s. He’s better at using logic, looking at a situation from more than one angle. He’s a lot better at making adult decisions than anyone in this house and maybe anyone I know.
“Cil…”
“Please. Tell me. I trust you.”
“Thank you.” He looks at me with a world of tenderness in his gaze. “I think…I think you love your dad. You don’t want to, but you do. Who knows if he deserves that love, but if there’s a chance he does, I want you to have it. Maybe he’s trying, and it could be too little too late. Only you can make that decision, but if it were me, I would give him a chance.”
“I hate that I fucking care.”
“That just means you have a big heart. Don’t hate that.” He shrugs. “I love that about you.”
“The murderer with the big heart?”
“Yes,” he answers simply. “It’s you who taught me we can be more than one thing.”
Fuck, I love him. So goddamned much. I want to protect him, to keep him safe—from them, from me. “I don’t wantyou around them. Any of them…or to see me with them.” It’s different with the people in this house, but the others, they’re harder, colder. They’ve seen and done more.
“Then how will this ever work? They’ll be a part of your life forever. If I am too, then you can’t keep your two worlds separate. I know I said that in the beginning, but it’s not feasible. That might be easier while we’re at school, but soon you’ll want to go back there for good. Where does that leave us if you don’t want me around them?”
He’s right. Ollie seems to always be right. “We have to be careful. And you have to fucking listen to me. And you can’t trust anyone. I want you by my side every fucking second, but if you can’t be, you’re to be with Rory, Tiernan, or Dean.”
“Yes, sir.” He steps back and gives me a playful salute.
I roll my eyes. “I’m serious. I can’t believe I’m even thinking of bringing you there.” But how will we ever last if I don’t?
“I can take care of myself. I have to be able to take care of myself. That’s important to me.”
“I get that, I do, but you need to see where I’m coming from too. You want to protect me just as much as I want to protect you. We just do it in different ways, but even you thinking I should go is your way of trying to protect and take care of me. That’s what love is.” I have no fucking idea when I got so damn smart, but I’m really proud of what I just said…and I know it’s true.
“Good point.”
“Right? I fucking owned that.”
Ollie chuckles. “I’ll be careful, but you have to be careful too.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Um…well, that’s debatable. But now that we’re going to Boston this weekend, I want to ask you something.”
I study him for a moment, wondering where this is going. “What is it?”
“Go home with me for Christmas. Are you allowed to like, have a mob-free vacation? I want you to meet my dad. I want him to know you.”
My heart stumbles over itself a couple of times. I can’t wrap my head around it sometimes, how he can love me. How he can look at me and think I’m the man he should bring home to meet his father.
“Why?”
“Because I love you,” he answers as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
“He will.”
“Or doesn’t want you to be with me?”
