Page 66 of The Saint

I wanted Jael to think of me every moment she was in his presence. I wanted her to feel me every time she moved. I’d bruised her thighs with my tight grip as I pounded into her every fucking chance I got, but she never once complained.

Today was the worst. She’d allowed me to come with her every time she’d gone to see Alvarez in the past. But there was no reason for my continued presence. No reason, beyond my extreme jealousy. My need to have her right there, to take her body the moment I had her alone.

Today, though, I’d finally relented and stayed behind. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t trust her. That I didn’t know she could handle Alvarez and whatever else might come at her if I wasn’t there. She needed to do this on her own, and my need to be close to her was only holding her back.

Besides, there were other things I needed to do.

“She’s very beautiful,” Penny said, her voice barely above a whisper. While we were trying to be quiet to allow Mrs. T her nap, this went beyond that.

I pulled my gaze from the picture and found Penny watching me with a look I couldn’t decipher. “She is.”

“Is this what you’ve been doing?” There was no animosity in her voice, only curiosity. And it was that curiosity, and our years-old friendship, that kept me from pushing her away like I always had.

“Yes.” It came out a rasp. A confession. It felt wrong and, at the same time, freeing.

“What’s wrong, Rolly?” Penny’s hand covered mine, and my eyes dropped to her narrow fingers as they curled around my own.

“It’s… terrifying,” I told her, my voice just a whisper, and her grip tightened as if that alone could ease my fears. “I’m in love with her. I have been since we were kids, and I don’t want to even think about my life without her in it.”

“She left you before.”

I couldn’t cover my flinch, her words hitting me like a whip, wrapping around my heart and squeezing until I thought it might split in two.

But I could tell she didn’t mean to hurt me.

She only spoke the truth.

With a nod, I looked up. Found her watching me carefully, like she could tell I was moments away from breaking. Her eyes suddenly widened.

“You’re worried she’ll leave you again.”

My chest squeezed, my breath locked away, unable to come out, unable to let more air in.

Penny lifted my hand from the table, bringing her other up to hold mine in both hers. “Will you tell me now?”

Friends or not, I’d never let Penny in. The same way I never let anyone in. Even when we’d tried to take our friendship further, when we’d both given in to a need for something physical, it was impossible to allow her into the rest of my life.

“My family…” I started, hesitating, because this was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. “They aren’t… They aren’t who’d you expect.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice was gentle, but when I reached up to cover the bullet wound in my chest, every part of her stiffened, her grip on my hand tightening to the point of pain. “Oh. That’s…”

“I can’t get into it,” I told her, tugging my hand away from hers and wrapping it around my cup of tea. “And that’s why I never told you. I learned it from my mother. All my life, she kept each part of hers separate. Family was different than work, was different from friends. But Jael…”

Her gaze dropped to my sketch, and when mine followed, I got lost in that look in Jael’s eyes.

“She’s different.”

“How?” There was a plea there. A plea to be let in, to understand this part of me that I’d never shared. In Jael’s absence, Penny had become one of my best friends. She and her son and grandmother were as close as family to me. And I owed this to her, for being what I’d needed the past few years.

“She’s a part of the family.” I lifted my gaze, and Penny seemed to understand the guarded look I gave her. “But she’s met my friends, the guys at the park. And she went behind my back, to my mom.”

“About what?”

“She saw my paintings and drawings and got the harebrained idea that my mom could help get me a show somewhere.”

“Rolly—”

I held my hand up, stopping her before she could start. “They did it.”