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When we park at Jamie’s, I plan to walk her to her front door. I need to make sure she’s safe and locks herself in. It’s not like she has the kind of typical Stoneview driveways that take you up to the front door. We have to park on the street because her house is a cottage up a flight of stairs. Now that Mateo’s found us, I need to be extra careful with everyone I love.
I put one foot on the ground and Nate’s voice cuts through the heavy silence.
“I don’t have time for your teenage bullshit, Jake. You leave this car, you stay here.”
I grind my teeth, my jaw already killing me and my whole body tense. I’m about to snap back but Jamie’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder.
“It’s fine. I’m fine, honestly. You go.”
Before she opens the door, she grabs my face with both hands and puts her soft lips on mine. She kisses me long and deep and my heart swells with pride and love. I don’t need to prove anything to Nate, she’s doing all the work herself, and fuck if I don’t fall deeper for her after this.
“Please be safe,” she whispers in my ear before heading out.
Jamie has flaws, she’s too shy sometimes, not very social, and stubbornly curious, but when it comes to her qualities, they shine over everything like a thousand stars. Right now, the fact that she’s one of the bravest people I know and trusts me – even though there’s so much we need to talk about – is reassuring me that I can go see Bianco without worrying about her.
Nate watches her walk to her house and as soon as she closes her front door behind her, he nods to his best friend. It kills me how much he cares for her. Sam abuses the gas pedal out of town and about twenty minutes later he stops at the edge of a forest.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I scold him.
He ignores me, being the usual quiet asshole, and gets out before leaning back on the car and lighting up a cigarette.
It’s like he loves being a cliché of himself. The typical dark, brooding gangster. Always silent, sporting his tattoos like medals, proof of a tough life. Never seen anywhere without his black jeans and a tight black tee, tight enough to show that one of his punches knocks you out cold.
He keeps to himself but, really, he loves having to prove himself, to have an occasion to get in a fight and demonstrate he shouldn’t have been provoked. He won’t do anything without reason but when he does, he revels in it. Like stopping a fight between me and Nate. He wouldn’t do it until Ozy begged him to but fuck if he wasn’t delighted to put us both down in front of her. A fucking hero in her eyes.
Nate finishes typing something on his phone and opens his own door to come out of the car too. I follow, fuming, to see my brother is opening the trunk to let the half-conscious cop out of the car.
“Are you for fucking real?” I seethe as he drags Miller out and a few steps into the forest. “You just said we have no time to waste.”
This fucker has always had every priority wrong. He’s all about imposing fear and dominance, never about doing the right thing. He would rather prove this guy he should have never defied him than go get his sister out of trouble. Even when it has anything to do with caring for one of us, he’ll make sure he goes about a psychotic way to do it.
Miller slowly comes back to reality as he watches Nate looming over him with his gun. Sam is still smoking his cigarette against the car and I slam the door before joining my brother.
“Nate, we have more pressing concerns if you don’t fucking mind.”
His face is bruised up from our fight and he hasn’t had a chance to clean his cut lip. Just like I haven’t had a chance to wipe my cheek from all the blood that splashed out when he got me right in the eyebrow. This one will leave a scar, for sure. It took hours to stop bleeding even with the tissues one of the officers gave me at the station. I might need a stitch but don’t have the time nor do I care right now.
My brother smiles wickedly at the cop and tuts at him when he whimpers and tries to crawl away.
“If you try to run away, I’m going to kill you very slowly, Miller,” he taunts.
I can’t fucking watch this. This is exactly why I don’t want to be part of this life. I don’t have the guts it takes. I don’t have Sam’s composure or Nate’s pleasure for torture. I don’t want money and domination.
I want to go to college and have a normal life that I can control. I’ve had my share of fun and fucked up situations. Now I want nothing or no one else but Jamie. Go to college with her, settle down together. Far, far from Bianco and my brother. But that’s not about to happen, is it? I’m a lightyear away from my dreams. I haven’t been given this chance.
At birth, you either get the lucky side – you get ups and downs, but overall life isn’t too bad – or you get the shit side. Downs only. The few ups only give you false hope. I’m far deep into the shit side and the older I get, the more I realize there is no bridge between the two opposite sides.
I try to look away, but Nate’s voice keeps bringing me back to the scene in front of me.
“You know what you did wrong here, my friend?” my brother asks like a teacher scolding his elementary student.
“I thought I was doing th-the right thing, sir. You said to get you out if you were ever in custody. I did…I did.”
“Not by calling Bianco, you fucking idiot.” I can hear the way he rolls his eyes from his tone. Like I or Rose would, thinking ‘I’m surrounded by idiots.’
“Please don’t kill me, Mr. White. I’ll make it right. I will…I-I–”
“What you did wrong,” Nate cuts him off, sick of the whining, “is that my sister begged you not to call Bianco and you decided her opinion wasn’t worth listening to, didn’t you?”
