Page 112 of Sweet Vengeance
“Baby…it’s fine.” Ollie sets his hand on my thigh, making me realize my leg is bouncing. What. The fuck. Is that? I’m losing my shit here.
“Is it really, though?”
He gives me a sweet smile, then pushes his glasses up his nose, and somehow that helps. He’s so fucking cute. “It is. I promise.”
“You can’t make promises like that,” I tell him, the same words he’s given me before, and he snickers.
“Do you trust me?”
Goddamn it. “You know I do.”
“Then it’ll be fine.”
“What if he notices these?”
Ollie studies the scratches on my knuckles. “Well, you probably shouldn’t have beat someone up the day we got on aplane to meet my father.”
“It wasn’t my fault! We had to!” I argue playfully, and Ollie laughs.
He threads his arm through mine, then drops his head against my shoulder, making my rapidly beating heart slow down. This will be okay. We’ll be okay.
“My dad is going to love you, Cillian, because I love you. Because you make me happy. We both know everything won’t always be easy, but no matter what happens, we’ll always work through it together.”
We will. I know that. “We have so much other shit to deal with, I just want the things that should be easy to be easy. I want to be someone he can be proud of. This would be a whole lot easier if your father was a criminal.”
Ollie doesn’t laugh. “Youaresomeone he can be proud of. You’re honest and the most loyal person I’ve ever known. You listen, not only to me, but to all those you care about, and you hear them, you really hear them. There’s nothing you wouldn’t give me. I don’t think a father can ask for more than that for their child.”
I mean, I’m fairly certain they can, but if Ollie wants to pretend otherwise, then so will I.
I try to calm my shit down the rest of the flight, thankful no one other than Ollie is here to see me this stressed out. Not that Rory and Tiernan don’t know. I spilled my guts to them about it before we left.
This just means so much to me because I know how important Ollie’s dad is to him. And despite everything I do, I wasn’t lying when I said I want his father to be proud of me…want to be someone Ollie can be proud of too…despite the drugs, murder, and mayhem. I get that I’m asking for a lot.
We didn’t check bags, so when the flight lands, we onlyhave our carry-ons to grab. Once we’re off the plane, Ollie takes my hand, leading me through the busy airport.
“My dad always meets me by baggage claim, carousel eight. When I was young, we took this trip to California. It’s the only time I’ve ever been. We went to all the amusement parks—I’m a bit of a roller-coaster nut, I’ll have you know.”
“No shit?” I ask, not having expected that.
“Absolutely. Anyway, it was our last trip before the accident. Our baggage was supposed to be at carousel eight, but they lost it. At first, we were frustrated, but my mom just said…why let something so small ruin what was such a great trip? We should keep all our memories, good and bad, but never let the bad outweigh the good. Then my dad decided that despite losing our bags, it was a lucky trip, and that made carousel eight lucky too.”
“So just like that, you and your family made it lucky? Just because you decided it?”
“Yep,” he tells me, and damned if I don’t believe him, if I don’t want to be able to find all the magic in little things the way Ollie does and share it with him.
“We should go,” I say.
“To an amusement park?”
“Toallthe amusement parks. It can be a thing. We look up every one in the United States and visit them one by one, then when we’re done here, we start in another country.”
Ollie stops walking, turns and looks up at me, his brown eyes wide and bright and full of so much fucking happiness. I don’t get how I make him feel that way, but I’ll do everything in my power to keep doing it.
“Really?” he asks.
“Fuck yes. I think you forget, Kitten…I’m rich.” I wink, and he rolls his eyes.
“I think you forget you’re sweet. Thank you, Cillian. I would love that. She would love that too. I got my love ofroller coasters from her.”
