Chapter 22 Torin
Torin
A lot of people change their whole life after a brush with death.
Massive career shifts. Renewed family bonds. Sweeping declarations.
For me?
It just makes me want to hold onto the life I have even harder.
It snuck up on me, realizing that I’ve actually enjoyed every moment of my summer spent at Onyx House, a place I thought would feel like a prison. But after a lifetime of feeling like I would never want to stay in one place, I finally understand why the guys love Onyx so much.
It’s been two weeks since that brush with death, and all I want is right in front of me.
Late in the day, when everyone else is down getting started with a rager of a block party on Red Row, I take Noah aside and lead him up into the attic of Onyx House with me.
“We can’t go on the roof right now,” he protests.
“We absolutely can, and we’re going to.”
“Why does it have to be out here?” Noah asks, hesitating as he steps out through the narrow window, protecting his injured arm.
“Because that’s how we fucking roll,” I tell him. “And I need a minute away from the block party. Watch the sunset with me.”
“Sunsets exist on the ground, too.”
“Yeah, but you like rooftops,” I tell him. “And I want to do this with you.”
He grabs one of my arms as I hop out of the attic window onto my good leg, pulling in a big breath of fresh air.
Downstairs, Red Row is blocked off from traffic with barricades, big speakers are blasting summer jams, and a crowd has been filtering in all afternoon.
The sun is low on the horizon now.
I stride out onto the roof, pulling in a long breath of air.
“Holy fuck, can you chill?” Noah says. “You’re the only person I know who can get a bullet wound and then hop onto a roof two weeks later.”
“I’m fine,” I say, waving him off. “And quit telling people I have a bullet wound. I was grazed by a bullet.”
Noah glares at me as he steps forward on the flat shingles. “A wound is a fucking wound. I don’t care how deep it went, it scared the fuck out of me and I spent half that day at the hospital thinking you were going to bleed out.”
I puff out a laugh and stride over toward him, leaning in to give him a little bite on the cheek.
“So worried about me,” I tell him. “What would you do without me?”
Noah’s arm is in a brace. He got a hairline fracture but the doctors said it was in a spot that can heal well if he gives it rest.
But he’s been downplaying his own injury and hyping mine up, as if I got my entire leg blown off.
“Stay on this side of the roof. It’s flatter.”
“It’s almost completely flat,” I tell him. “We are fine. Trust me.”
We walk down to the edge of the roof, which even has a little, short iron rail for extra protection.
“Wow,” Noah says. “The block party looks fucking awesome from up here.”
“It looks like we’re watching a living painting.”
Oliver insisted on putting string lights and a bunch of glowing paper lanterns between dozens of the trees along Red Row. Now, they’re all lit in different colors, warm little dots of pink and red and yellow and orange, all along the street.
Weston also set up a bunch of little games, and Noah helped as much as he could with his broken wrist. There’s a giant Jenga game, cornhole, and even a mini putt-putt golf area that Sevan insisted we put in.
Later on there will be a charity tug-of-war where people who come to the party can battle different groups within the three societies, too.
“Look at Roman,” Noah murmurs, pointing over toward the grills down in the front yard, where Roman’s cooking up burgers, hot dogs, and veggies. “He’s smiling for the first time in days. He needed this.”
“He needed it badly.”
Roman wasn’t close to his cousin Kuzma. But even watching a distant member of his family betray him before being shot by a Maletti has to have been fucking with his mind.
“He’s been seeing more of his family than usual this week. For Roman, this whole situation just made him double down about how loyal he really is.”
“No one is going to fuck with the Petrov family for a very long time.”
Noah nods. “Roman said the man who died in the driver’s seat was someone new to the Maletti family, but Antonio Maletti was their kingpin. He’s in jail now for a very, very fucking long time.”
“That’s what happens when you shoot someone in full view of the police,” I mutter.
Noah’s gazing out toward the sunset filtering through the trees, now, and I hate seeing his expression drop again.
He glances over at me, giving me a sad smile.
“I can’t believe it’s over. We can just… exist now.”
I put my arm around him, tugging him close against my side. “We can.”
“Oh, shit,” Noah says softly. “I forgot to cut up the pineapple slices for Roman to grill up for you. I should go down and do that.”
“You’re doing the thing again,” I tell him. “Quit worrying about me.”
“I’m not worried about you. You just enjoy pineapple. So sue me if I want to make sure you have some.”
I can hardly stand the way he’s looking at me.
The way I can tell that it’s so important to him, this tiny little preference that he learned I had for a certain fruit.
I’ve slept in his bed every night since the car chase.
We haven’t really talked about anything too serious, because we were both too shellshocked, and I was on painkillers for the entire first week, anyway.
He took care of me.
Because… of course.
It’s the way Noah is about everything, really. He remembers the littlest things about the people he cares about, and always makes sure to take them into consideration. So when I ended up with a bullet wound, he waited on me like I was the lord of a manor.
I pull in a long breath of air.
Today is the first day in a while that almost feels normal.
And suddenly I feel like I’m in unfamiliar territory again.
As if being thrown into danger, witnessing murder, and seeing mafia kidnappers get thrown in jail is a billion times easier than talking about…
This.
What I feel.
The nagging feeling I have every time I’m near Noah, now.
“Noah,” I say softly.
“What?”
“You’re still being so nice to me.”
His eyes are so open, so pure. “Would you rather I try to fight you again? I know we weren’t always on good terms, but something about seeing you nearly die definitely made me realize I didn’t want that, so—”
“My point is that you don’t need me anymore.”
He furrows his brow. “Meaning?”
“Your life isn’t in danger now. You don’t need me to protect you anymore, and you’re still doing it. Being nice to me.”
Slowly, Noah’s expression shifts as he holds my gaze, like he’s putting puzzle pieces together behind his eyes.
“Oh,” he says, and I see those pink slashes land on his cheeks. “I get it.”
“And now suddenly you’re giving me your puppy-dog face again.”
He swallows, and the sun finally dips fully below the horizon, the light on his face changing from radiant orange to pink.
“Torin, if you’re worried that I’m catching feelings for you, just forget about it,” he says, stating every word carefully, like he’s afraid to say too much. “I’ve gotten about a thousand crushes in my life, and they always pass.”
Hearing him say the word crushes makes my heart lurch in my chest.
That was a bad, bad word to me, for so long.
A knee-jerk reaction would stoke inside me, telling me to abort mission, do not continue, and setting off so many internal alarms.
But the feeling inside me now is different.
I look out at the sunset for a moment, then look back at Noah’s face, and I swear he almost looks like he did when the doctor was pressing on his wrist to test for pain points.
Like he’s trying to suppress a sea of fuck, fuck, fuck behind a calm exterior.
“Do you think it’ll pass?” I ask him.
My voice is soft.
The sound of an old classic rock song filters up from the street, along with the laughter and chatter of everyone down there.
Noah just shrugs.
He doesn’t look me in the eye when he finally speaks.
“Regardless of what you think of me, I don’t actually always have to get what I want, Torin.”
It feels like there’s something reaching inside me, physically tugging at my heart.
“Does that mean there’s something you do want?” I ask him. “Something you might want really fucking badly, even though it’s the last thing in the world that you should?”
He still can’t look at me.
My chest aches, and I feel that magnet between me and Noah like it’s strong enough to lift up this whole house, this campus, the whole goddamn planet.
I lean over against him, bringing my hand to the back of his head.
I rake my fingers through his soft hair, getting a whiff of clean laundry scent.
I turn toward him, just a little, enough that I can kiss his temple.
I kiss against his cheek afterward, right along the place where his rosy blush is finally starting to fade.
And then I press my lips to his, softly. Slowly.
People downstairs are starting to light sparklers, and their fizzy little popping sound floats up to fill the air.
When I pull back, he finally looks at me.
His eyes are like two deep, clear pools, holding the enormity of his emotions right there on the surface.
“Why do you keep doing this to me?” he asks in a low voice. “You just like to torture me?”
“Because I would do anything for you, Noah.”
He exhales, turning away from me in an instant. “I don’t understand,” he tells me, his tone a little firmer. “You’re over here asking me why I still care, when I should be asking that of you. Why do you still care?”
“Because I’m hopeless, Noah.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
My throat tightens. “It means I’m fucking obsessed with you.”
“Fuck, don’t say that.”
“Why the hell not?”
His head whips back around, and there’s alarm in his eyes. “Because it’s going to make me fall for you.”
My heart drops, like I’m jumping from a plane.
“Then fall,” I tell him. “Because I’m falling with you.”
“Torin,” he whispers.
I catch him in a kiss before he can say anything else.
I kiss him deeply, opening fully to him, as I feel that free falling sensation in every part of my body.