Page 118 of Tony

And the best part? The best part is that Vic took a picture of Vann and me sitting on the front porch and it now hangs in the second-floor hallway with all the rest. I found the frame in a box in the basement. It’s not perfect. The fake gold paint is cracking and there’s no glass or anything. But I wanted a frame that belonged here. Not something brand new with no history.

That’s what I love most about our picture in the hallway.

I’m now part of their history and I spend a lot of time in the front of Sick Boyz Tattoos dreaming about how it could hang there for fifty years. And how one day, some girl dating one of my great grandchildren will stop there in the hallway and look at us.

And she might be a lost girl, like me. And she might say to herself… “I want that too.”

And maybe she is a smart-assy go-getter with pink hair like me. A girl with nothing left until she finds my future offspring who completes her and makes her feel wanted and special.

Vann winces. Because he’s still thinking about my little white lie. “Gramps really needs to hang up his apron. But you don’t have to eat it, ya know. You’re the only one who does.”

“I can’t disappoint your gramps. It’s our bonding time. I’m literally like two afternoon prune-juice breaks away from making him spill the whole story about how he got this house.”

He chuckles. “In your dreams. He’s leading you on. Trust me, we’ve all tried to get that story out of him. It’s not going to work. You’re just gonna eat prunes and oatmeal for six weeks and see way more old-man tattoos than you bargained for.”

That makes me smile and I lean in to Vann’s chest. Enjoying him. Enjoying our little break from the game that’s coming.

Because it is coming.

We know when to make a move. We’re just biding our time until everything is in place. We’re gonna clean up everyone’s money, make that trail impossible to follow, polish their reputations, and then… bam. We win.

Tony and Soshee are down in Key West right this very minute pulling it all together. And pretty soon—

“What did I just say?”

“What?” I ask.

“You’re thinking too loud. Stop it. You can’t save the world all by yourself, Belinda Baker. And you definitely can’t do it before the sun comes up. It’s practically illegal to save anything before the sun comes up.”

“Says who?”

“It’s just the law.”

I giggle. “The law, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Which one?”

“The Law of Starting Over. The Law of New Things. Pretty much all the laws of second chances state it explicitly.”

“Hmm. I don’t remember it being in those laws. And I’m a licensed expert in both starting over and second chances.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I laugh.

“No. That’s not true. This isn’t starting over. You’ve always belonged here.”

I reach up and place both my hands on either side of his face and fall into his easy gaze. Just get lost in those blue-eyes of his.

Then I kiss him. It’s a soft, slow kiss that only very familiar lovers know how to do properly. And they only happen when you’re immersed in bliss.

We haven’t been actual lovers for very long. Less than a week, actually.

But we are very familiar.

He rolls over on top of me and boxes me in with his forearms on either side of my head. So close to me, I can read the tiny circle words around the double X’s on his shoulders.