A small part of my mind protests that I shouldn’t be so easily accepting of his… shall we say…extracurricularactivities. He’s never exactly been a Boy Scout — but there’s a difference between breaking into our neighbor’s guesthouse as a reckless teenager and tracking down thugs to teach them the meaning of the wordpain.
It should scare me, right?
I should want to change him, tame him, make him into someone with softer edges — like a wild hawk with a broken wing you slowly nurse back to health, hoping someday he’ll stop snapping at you for daring to come close.
But loving someone isn’t about wanting them to evolve into someone better. My mom taught me that.
Real love is saying: here, take my still-beating heart and hold it in your hands and please, please, please, promise not to squeeze too tight or drop it on the pavement. Love is being naked and afraid, but refusing to flinch.
It’s not asking that person to change; it’s trusting them enough not to. And it’s not even about needing them to love you back equally; it’s just about loving them for who they are.
And I do, I realize.I love him.
Despite all my attempts to push him out of my thoughts, to convince myself all I felt was lust or hate or a burning need for revenge…
I love him.
Even if he never loves me back.
Even if it only leads to heartbreak.
So, I make peace with the thought of Nate going up against the entire Irish mob for me. And I do the only thing I can think of that’ll let me feel like I’ve got even the slightest bit of control over my own life.
I make cookies.
***
I blink awake suddenly.
I don’t know why, exactly. There’s no noise, no sudden light, no alarm pulling me out of my dreams. But something causes me to stir.
My eyes flutter open and I find I’ve passed out with my face on the kitchen island. It’s a miracle I didn’t fall off the stool and crack open my head. I’d been battling exhaustion all day; looks like exhaustion won.
My cheek is resting on the sticky butcher block, inches away from the empty bowl of cookie dough. Turns outmaking cookiesturned intoeating half the batch rawbefore baking a single tray of them. Oops.
The kitchen is a war zone of bowls and utensils and greased baking sheets. I was surprised to find Nate had all the ingredients I needed — sugar and flour and baking powder and even vanilla extract. I’d pegged him for a takeout-menu connoisseur, but I suppose his cooking skills must’ve advanced some since the days he’d make me burned macaroni and cheese after school.
I lift my head, groaning at the crick in my neck. I catch sight of him all at once, appearing out of nowhere like a ghost in my peripherals.
He’s so still, you’d think he was a shadow if you looked too quickly. His face is silhouetted; the dim shafts of twilight leaking through the loft windows barely illuminate him. I’m thrown back in time to the night he showed up at my brownstone and scared me half to death in the dark. If someone had told me then that a few weeks later I’d be here, in Nate’s loft, wearing one of his t-shirts and considering the repercussions of kissing him, I would’ve smacked them upside the head.
“Hey,” I murmur sleepily, wiping cookie dough off my cheek with the back of one hand. My long brown bangs are dusty with flour.
“Hey,” he returns, stepping into the light. His eyes are careful as he looks at me.
“Must’ve passed out between batches. Sugar coma, and all.” I slide off my barstool and grimace as I take in the disaster site that was once his kitchen. “Sorry about the mess. I’ll clean it up.”
“We’ll get it tomorrow.” He steps closer, still watching me.
I swallow. “How was hunting? Catch anything?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. O’Pry is smart enough to go to ground, for the time being, but he can’t stay gone forever. I’ll keep looking.” He exhales sharply. “I’m going to find them before…”
“Before they find me?” I finish softly.
A dark look crosses his face. “That’s never going to happen. I told you I won’t let them touch you again. Don’t you believe me?”
I nod and try not to shiver when he closes a bit more of the distance between us, until there’s only a foot or so dividing his chest from mine.