40. Olivia #3
“Do… Do you want me to stay?” JJ whispers, looking toward the storm with his brows furrowed. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows hard, returning his golden-brown eyes to me. “I can lie on the floor. Like I used to.” He offers me a soft smile.
“You didn’t sleep on the floor before,” I snort, recalling the times he’d sneak in through my window after breaking the bars and lying beside me as a storm drifted through. Or we’d meet at the treehouse and snuggle together for protection against the storms.
“No,” JJ chuckles softly, running a hand down his face. “I slept beside you. I held you…”
“We counted together,” I murmur with a heavy heart at the memories from our times together.
There were so many good ones to outweigh the bad.
“We did,” he says, petting Waffles until he curls in a ball on the side of the bed. “It was good, right? What we had?” he asks with a hint of vulnerability.
“Yes,” I reply without thinking. “It was more than good,” I whisper softly, barely getting the words out when the realization hits me.
It was good. More than good. It was my sanity.
They were the light at the end of the tunnel.
The boys who brought me back from the brink of everything.
They poured life into me as I slowly fell apart, the second my father was relocated here.
Even as a little girl, my father was chaotic with the intent to fuck everything up around him.
My uncles thought moving him here to spy on Franco was the best idea they’d ever had.
But they sent us to our deaths.
“The best,” JJ whispers back, staring at me with hope in his eyes.
A hope to stay over? A hope to amend our situation so we can repair the broken parts of us? A hope that we’ll one day go back to the people we were before the fire came? I have no clue.
“Please stay,” I say, pulling the comforter off my body as a loud boom of thunder erupts outside, shaking the building for the millionth time.
JJ simply nods, kicks off his shoes, and takes off his pants with a grimace as they stick to his skin from the rain.
“Be a good boy,” he whispers to Waffles as he lifts his shirt over his head and throws it into the pile of his wet clothes on the ground.
His fingers brush over the tattoo sitting proudly on his ribs.
Forever. The tattoo we got together, each saying a different phrase.
“I mean this,” he says, tapping the tattoo three times.
“I will mean it for the rest of my life. We pledged ourselves to one another.” He takes a deep breath. “You still…”
Without thinking, I pull up my loose shirt, exposing the tattoo on my ribs, and run my fingers over it. “It’s still here,” I murmur, staring up at him as he takes it in.
He nods wordlessly, locking the door, then climbing in behind me and pulling the blankets over us. His arm wraps around the front of my body as he pulls my back into his front with a heavy sigh.
“Thank you for letting me stay. I’ll keep you safe. Forever,” he murmurs directly into my ear as he gently lays a kiss on my cheek.
My cheeks flush, no doubt turning bright red as I snuggle into my pillow with a sigh. Having JJ at my back should be a mistake. Someone I shouldn’t trust. But there’s a sense of security with him here at my back, too. The past engulfs me in the best comfort I could ask for.
“No funny business,” I mutter into the pillow with a huff, trying to calm down the beating of my heart.
His breath blows against my neck when he chuckles and shakes the bed. “None at all. We’re sleeping. And I’m protecting you,” he murmurs.
“Good,” I huff, closing my eyes.
“I’ve missed holding you, Spitfire,” he whispers into my neck and holds me tighter. “You were greatly missed. By all of us. I promise, I’ll prove to you more that we weren’t in town.”
The funny thing is? I fucking believe him.
JJ isn’t one to look you in the eyes and tell a lie.
He’s truthful. Blunt, sometimes. But I feel it in the way he holds me.
The way the words fall off the tip of his tongue.
JJ did miss this. Any maybe… Maybe I’m beginning to question everything that happened to me that night.
Was it them? Or people who looked like them? With the same shade of eyes.
Peeking an eye open, I turn to look JJ in the eye, leaving my body against his. “Can I have someone look at the footage? To double-check?” I search the depths of his brown eyes, but he doesn’t seem worried when he nods.
“Of course. I can forward it to you. I’ll give you anything, Livy. My heart. My soul. Everything. If it brings you back to us. If it clears our names. I’ll do it,” he whispers with conviction, holding me impossibly tighter as he says it.
“Okay.” I swallow hard as the word comes out. “Ca-can you make me a fake ID, too?”
“You give me the name you want on there, and I’ll get it done.” Just like that. No questions asked. He hasn’t even asked why I’m Oliver right now.
The look in his eyes. The promise that sits there is way too tempting for me.
So without another word, I turn my head and close my eyes, drifting off to sleep with the warmth of a protector at my back and a rightness in my chest. Of course, this complicates things more than it should.
Like why I’m here and who I’m pretending to be.
I’ve never failed at a mission. Sure, Veritas has had its issues.
They’ve fumbled. We’ve fallen. But every mission I set my sights on, I win. I take down the bad guys. Eventually.
But what if they’re no longer the bad guys? What if they’re the people I should put my trust in the most?
Only time will tell.
“Livy?” he hums, splaying his fingers over my stomach.
“Yeah?” I groggily ask.
“Why is your nose bruised? Did someone hurt you? Because I’ll fucking kill them,” he grumbles protectively.
“Oh, that?” I hum sleepily. “I sparred with Wilder at their gym.”
I’ll give JJ credit. He doesn’t immediately tense up at my words, but the soft curses falling from his lips tell me he thinks I’m in danger. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. Who the hell knows anymore? Certainly not me.
“They’re dangerous, Spitfire. You shouldn’t be alone with them.”
Well, too late for that, I want to reply, but I don’t. I keep my sexcapades to myself and don’t let it slip that I’ve already had Malic deep inside me. Oops. And that I might want to do it again. Or pretend to, so I can get my damn glasses back.
Whatever. JJ doesn’t need to know any of that information right now. Or ever.
“I’m capable,” I huff. “But thanks for the protection.”
JJ blows out a breath. “I’m trying to keep you safe, remember?
” he mutters. “Wilder and Malic are an unknown here. Their boss is unknown. They were never a threat before, but now they’re starting to come after Franco.
Be careful around them. Especially as Oliver,” he warns in a serious tone, losing the tension in his muscles.
“You know if you pledge with us, you won’t be able to go back there, right?
That’s the Shades’ gym. They’re our enemy. That’s their territory.”
AKA you’ll be ours again.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head off,” I grumble, waving a sleepy hand, earning a slight chuckle.
“Fine. But we’re going to have a long talk about why you went into a bar bathroom with Malic and came out looking satisfied,” he practically hisses the last part with possession.
My eyes pop open, the exhaustion I felt ten seconds ago vanishing. The fuck we are. I will not go into detail about how much I enjoyed my time with Malic in the bathroom. I mean, he may be slightly unhinged, but that was a private moment.
“How do you…” I trail off, scowling into the darkness.
“Surveillance cameras. I’m a hacker, remember?” he huffs, holding me tightly. “Now, go to sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
Yeah, I don’t think we will.