Page 99 of Tony

“Hmm. That’s why you were on the porch yesterday?”

“Yup.”

“But you’re not always on the porch waiting for me.”

“No. Most of the time I work on my bike or fuck around in the garage until I hear you leave your apartment. Then I go inside and watch you from the family room window.”

I almost snort. “But… why?”

He shrugs. “I worry about you. You’ve always been this girl with lots of secrets. And in the early days I always had the feeling that those secrets were trying to eat you away from the inside out. So I liked seeing you in the mornings. It made me feel better.” He pauses and waits for my reaction. “Does it creep you out?”

I picture a seventeen-year-old Vann paying such close attention to me. Worrying about me. Caring about me. “No,” I finally say. “No. It actually… well. It’s kinda touching. To know that you were so invested. Because, honestly, after my mom and I were separated, I just accepted the fact that no one was invested in me anymore. My one true champion was gone. And I wish I had known this, Vann. I wish I had paid attention to all the ways you loved me.”

He smiles. And it’s a broad, full smile. “That’s not why I did it.” He shakes his head but the smile is still big and wide. “It didn’t matter if you knew. It only mattered that I was there. Just in case, ya know? That’s all. I just wanted to be there. In case you ever needed me.”

Suddenly I can’t breathe. It’s like my lungs forgot how. And then… then… my eyes are filling up with tears.

“Oh, shit,” Vann says. “Are you gonna cry?”

“No,” I say, hastily wiping my eyes. “No. I do not cry.” I sniffle. And wipe my eyes again.

“Then… what are you doing?”

“Just…” I remember how to breathe and take a deep breath and place a hand over my heart. “That’s the sweetest, nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Done for me!”

He chuckles. “Please. It was nothing. The Dumas family saved your life, got you a new identity, and sent your mom to a sweet beach town to start over with a paid-off bed-and-breakfast. I have to admit, I felt a little inadequate when I found all that out.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Tony and Alonzo. They set you up. That’s not an example of not caring, Belinda.”

I shake my head. “That’s not why they did it! They did it to save their own asses and banished me to Colorado!”

“Banished you?” He makes a face. “Come on. You love it here.”

“I do. But that’s not the point.”

“Why isn’t it the point?”

“Because they didn’t ask if I wanted to leave! They made me!”

“Yeah, but it worked out, right? Is that why you’re so closed off?”

“What? How did this get turned around on me? I’m not closed off! I’m… perky! And peppy! I’m cute and adorable!”

“You are,” he says, pointing his finger at me. “All of that. Yes. But Belinda, it took you eight years to give in to me. And I’m not saying that you should’ve taken less time. I was playing a long game. And I wasn’t jealous when you dated all kinds of other random men. Anyone but me. Practically everyone but me.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying, I didn’t care. I was waiting for my moment. And it paid off. So what I’m telling you right now isn’t about the wait. OK?”

“What are you telling me right now? Because I don’t get it.”

“I’m telling you that you were incredibly unhappy for all those eight years. And you only got happy when you went home. And Tara and I had this moment back in Key West. After Johnny Boston showed up to spell shit out for us. She said you weren’t going to come back here. That Key West was your home. And I told her that was bullshit. This place, Belinda—this town—this is your home now. And I was right. Because you came back here, even though Tara stayed down in Key West. You made a deliberate, conscious choice to return.”

“And you think I chose that because of you?”

He shrugs. “Maybe? I don’t know about that. I think you chose to come back because you belong here now. That’s all. This is home now. It’s as simple as that. And I think that Tony showing up made you so angry because he was a reminder of that old life. And those old times. And that old stuff. And look, I’m not claiming to be an expert in starting over. You have definitely cornered the market on that shit. My grandpa won this house in a poker game a million years ago, back when you could look at his tattoos without wincing at the wrinkles. I’ve lived in this house, in this town my whole life. I will work in the Sick Boyz tattoo shop until I’m as old as my grandpa. I will die inking words on skin. So I’m no expert, Belinda. But I know it has to have been hard.”