46. Ten years after I gave him my life
Ten years after I gave him my life
At nearly forty, I’d grown older, lonelier, and angrier. Death’s trail had long gone cold; I barely even searched anymore. My empire was vast. My name alone carried terror and power throughout the city. Whatever I wanted, I could have. I longed for nothing.
Almost nothing.
“How many?” Rook asked in my living room, the lights of the city twinkling through the window as he undressed me. He hadn’t even said hello.
“Three.”
“Jesus fuck, what have you been doing for the last year?” he choked. We’d been apart too long after our last fight.
“I have everything,” I said, as his fingers skimmed the muscles of my chest. “Therefore, newer, younger idiots want to try to take it from me.”
“Are you sure they’re not doing a good job?” he asked, tracing my collarbones with his tongue.
“It’s fine. I have a handle on it.” I wondered if he heard that one second of tremor in my voice.
With every year that passed, it felt like we were running out of time with no destination in mind. I hated him, and I loved him so much it made me question every decision I’d made in the last decade.
“Do you ever think we’re being stupid?” I asked.
“Yes.” He licked the pulse point at my throat and sighed. Rook had amassed a small fortune with his club. With our combined wealth, we could both retire in our thirties and live well for the rest of our lives, but then what?
“What would we do,” I asked, “if we just quit and stayed together?”
“Lounge around on a beach drinking cocktails until we die,” he said, stepping back to see my face.
“I hate the sun.”
He huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Of course you do, you cold bastard. Where would you want to go?”
“England? Home.”
“Where it rains all the time and all the food tastes like cardboard? No thanks.”
I swatted his chest lightly. “It does not taste like cardboard! You’re just stupid because you’ve never tried fish and chips. It would change your mind.”
But the answer was like everything between us—disagreeable.
We would be a terrible couple, even if we finally let ourselves have each other.
He was too blase and I was too uptight. He liked spontaneity and chaos; I liked routine.
We’d be an absolute mess, and then one day he’d die—likely before me—and all I would be left with was the pain.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “you’re still mine.”
“And I love you.”