“I am,” I confirm. “And I will. Forever. Fucking. Take care of you. That is, if you’ll let me. Will you?”
“Yes,” she says breathlessly.
We come together hard, and I spin her to face me. Her hair is stuck to her temples, sweaty and beautiful. She’s every ambition I’ve ever had.
I love her like a slave, I kneel in front of her like a subject, I crawl back to her at night like a drunk and I worship her like a believer.
She’s my truth, my lie, my storm and my peace.
Prescott Burlington-Smyth turned Tanaka Cockburn soon-to-be Tanaka Delaware has created a dystopian chaos only she rules, but I’m happy to be her soldier.
Godfrey.
Sebastian.
The Aryan Brothers.
And Camden, who tragically died in a lethal car accident on the outskirts of London, on his way to a vacation in York three weeks after we left the UK.
I didn’t quail. Godfrey was right—I’m not a killer, I’m a murderer. But with her, I don’t have any hard limits. And I will take my own fucking life to put a smile on those pinks. We’re going to be all right. We’re going to stick around in a place where no one knows us and no one cares. We’re going to make French babies together.
Wherever we’re going, we’re going there together.
“I love you,” she tells me, tears in her eyes. I kiss them away. She’s such a big fucking softie.
The dust has settled over the blood we’ve shed. Our previous lives are behind us.
The future is bright.
And clean.
And most importantly—it is ours.
Time.
A wise, vile dead man once told me that it moves differently according to circumstances. Sometimes it’s slow. But sometimes. . .it moves exactly as it should.
I don’t want to pause, and definitely not to rewind. If anything, a part of me wants to press fast forward.
To life without stress balls.
To domestic bliss.
To babies.
To growing old next to this man who occupies every inch of my soul.
All you need to know about life is that it’s just like an hourglass. Sometimes you’re down, and sometimes, up.
And right now, I’m up, baby. So. Flipping. High.