Chapter 20 #2
“And then he didn’t come home. And I felt...” He stops. Swallows. “I felt relieved. And then guilty for feeling relieved. And then angry at him for making me feel guilty for being relieved he was dead.”
“That’s a lot for a fifteen-year-old.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look at me. Eyes locked on the screen like Vin Diesel has the answers.
“The family took care of us after. My mother, my sister. Gave us money. Made sure we were okay. And I thought, this is what loyalty looks like. These people who barely knew my father, they’re taking care of his family because that’s what you do. ”
“So you joined.”
“So I joined.” His voice is flat. “And I was good at it. The violence. The hurting. Turns out, all those years of being scared of my father taught me exactly how to make other people scared.”
He finally looks at me. His eyes are dark. Unguarded in a way I’ve never seen.
“I became him,” he says quietly. “The thing I hated most. I became it because I didn’t know how to be anything else.”
Nothing I could say would be enough.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
I reach out. Take his hand. Lace my fingers through his.
He looks at our joined hands. Then at me.
“You’re not him,” I say softly. “You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he hurt people who didn’t deserve it. People he was supposed to protect.” I squeeze his hand. “And you’re sitting on my couch, eating cold lo mein, checking on me every day to make sure I’m okay. That’s not the same thing.”
“I’ve hurt people, Stevie. A lot of people.”
“I know.” I hold his gaze. “And maybe I’m a complete idiot for not caring. But you’re trying to be better. That’s more than most people ever do.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
Then he lifts our joined hands. Presses his lips to my knuckles. Soft. Brief. The gentlest thing I’ve ever seen him do.
“You make me want to be better,” he says against my skin. “You know that? You make me want to be someone worth...”
He doesn’t finish.
But my heart is not okay. It’s doing flips. It’s building him a shrine out of soy sauce packets, cookie dough, and unsupervised emotions.
We stay like that. Holding hands on my couch. His past between us, but not separating us.
And I realize I’m falling for him. Not the dramatic cliff-dive I did with Dario. Not the slow inevitable pull of Saul’s steadiness.
This is different. Quieter. Like walking into your house and realizing someone’s been there, rearranging furniture, and somehow everything fits better now.
Terrifying.
Perfect.
Mine.
Day fourteen, I tell him about being invisible.
We’re in the kitchen, which has finally recovered from the Tuesday Night Butter Massacre. I’m baking solo now. He’s been officially banned from batter until he stops whisking like it’s a hate crime.
He sits at the counter like a bouncer at a very sensual bake sale. Watching me.
“I used to think I was broken,” I say, measuring vanilla with shaking hands like I’m auditioning for the role of tragically repressed housewife #4. “Like maybe there was some secret ingredient I missed out on. The one that makes people notice you. Remember you. Give a shit.”
Enzo doesn’t say anything. Just listens.
“I was the human equivalent of a chair,” I say.
“Teachers forgot I existed. Group projects? I could die and they’d just divide my part between Becky and Josh.
And boyfriends?” I crack an egg with unnecessary force.
“Looked through me like I was a coat rack. Just something nearby they could hang their ego on.”
I crack another egg.
“So I started watching,” I say. “Like some weirdo background cryptid. If I couldn’t make people see me, at least I could see them. Every habit. Every nervous tic. It made me feel like I existed. Even if I was basically invisible, at least I was paying attention.”
“That’s why you watched Dario.”
“That’s why I watch everyone.” I stir the batter. “It’s not stalking. I mean it is, but it’s also survival. It’s how I connect. How I anchor. I know it’s weird. I know I sound like the raccoon behind the 7-Eleven whispering about secrets, but it’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel real.”
“I pay attention.”
My head snaps up like someone just called my full government name.
He’s watching me with that intensity he gets. The one that makes me feel pinned.
“I notice when you hum while you bake. When you talk to yourself like the cookies are listening. When you’re nervous, you count everything. Ceiling tiles. Steps. How many times you stir. It’s like watching your brain try to stay in one piece.”
His voice lowers. “You’ve never been invisible to me, Stevie. You’ve been blinding. Since the second I saw you.”
I want to climb inside those words and live there.
The batter is forgotten. The kitchen is too small. He’s too close and too far away at the same time.
“Enzo...”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “Don’t say anything. I just needed you to know.”
But I’m already moving. Rounding the counter. Closing the distance between us.
I stop in front of his stool. He’s sitting, so we’re almost the same height for once. Eye to eye. Breath to breath.
“What if I want to say something?” I ask.
“Then say it.”
“I see you too.” I reach up. Touch his face. His jaw tenses under my fingers. “Just Enzo, who likes his coffee black and can’t bake to save his life and is oddly judgmental about The Princess Bride even though he absolutely cried during the sword fight and then lied about it.”
“Stevie.”
“I see you,” I repeat. “And I don’t want to stop.”
He makes a sound. Low. Almost pained.
And then he’s kissing me.
Not like before, desperate and scared and crashing together.
This is slower. Deeper. His hands cradle my face like I’m something precious. His mouth moves against mine like we have all the time in the world.
I melt into him.
My hands find his chest, his shoulders, the back of his neck. He pulls me closer until I’m standing between his knees, pressed against him, fitting into the space he’s made for me.
“Tell me to stop,” he says against my lips. “If you want me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“Stevie.” My name like a prayer. “I don’t know how to do this. Be gentle. Be... what you deserve.”
“You’re already doing it.” I kiss the corner of his mouth. His jaw. The scar on his cheekbone. “You’re already everything.”
He shudders. Pulls back just enough to look at me.
“Stay tonight,” I whisper before I can lose my nerve. “Stay with me.”
His eyes search my face. Looking for doubt. Hesitation.
He won’t find any.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I thread my fingers through his hair. “I want you. I want this.”
He kisses me again.
Harder this time. Hungrier.
I make a sound against his mouth. Desperate. Needy.
He groans. The sound vibrates through my chest, lights up every nerve ending I’ve been ignoring for two weeks.
Two weeks of sitting three feet apart. Of not touching. Of pretending we weren’t both thinking about this exact moment every single second.
His hands slide down my sides, grip my hips, lift me like I weigh nothing. I wrap my legs around him instinctively, gasping against his mouth.
“Bedroom,” I manage. “Down the hall.”
He carries me like gravity works differently when I’m in his arms.
Like I’m not a problem. Not a burden.
I’m wanted.
And when he lays me down on my bed, the bed that’s never felt like mine until right now and looks at me like I’m the only real thing in his world, I know this is the tipping point.
The moment we can’t come back from.
And I don’t want to come back.
I want to fall with him.
Into whatever this is becoming.