Not when I’d loved and admired King in almost the same way I’d loved Dane, ’cause he was a good man through to his fuckin’ bones, and he’d never done any body wrong unless he’d had to.
“Likin’ the kiss doesn’t mean anythin’,” I muttered.
“Oh, Nova, honey,” she breathed, teardrops poolin’ on the lower trough of her lids. “It means everything.”
“You love King ’cause he’s worthy of that kinda love. He earned it ’cause he was whip-smart, kind to everyone, and he had a way with words that put everyone else to fuckin’ shame.” I smiled at her, but it felt misshapen, like plastic held too close to a flame. “You think I don’t know that I have to nothin’ offer someone? You think that doesn’t factor into the fact I don’t have an Old Lady and don’t have a plan to ever?”
Cress reared back as if I’d slapped her then instantly bent forward to touch her cold hand to my cheek. I leaned into it unconsciously.
“Nova,” she whispered, cryin’ now, soft, silent tears like drops of mornin’ dew tricklin’ down her cheeks. “Who taught you that you have nothing to offer? Who lied to you so horribly?”
I smiled again, pressin’ my lips into her hand to kiss it before I rolled closer and reached for my sketchbook on her lap, flippin’ it open to a page I knew would change the topic for good.
“Here,” I said, tappin’ the page with my knuckles. “The design I did up for King. All the brothers, we’re gonna get it inked somewhere.”
The tears moved faster, and her breath stuttered. She was beautiful even in her grief, even waxy with exhaustion and wane with hopelessness. Tragic and so lovely it made my heart throb like an open wound.
Fuck me, what I wouldn’t do to take the pain away from this woman.
“It’s exquisite,” she whispered through her tears, delicately touchin’ the pen strokes with the edge of her chewed down fingernail. “Perfect.”
I’d worked on it for hours, hunched over my draft table upstairs in my apartment until my hand cramped, my back ached, and my sight had gone to shit.
But she was right.
It was exquisite.
Nothin’ less for my fallen brother.
I’d watched the kid grow into a bookish preteen, to an arrogant, swaggerin’ young man with a crush on his teacher, to the dynamic leader and all-round fuckin’ hero he’d been before he died.
He died for us.
To get his dad, Zeus, outta jail when the Venturas and the ex-Staff Sergeant had framed him for murder.
To keep his brothers, their women, and all their families safe.
I had two tatts for fallen brothers now. Dane and Mute.
Soon I’d add King’s, making it three.
Three too many.
But each of them were my best work.
And King’s would take the cake.
A heavily shaded skull bearin’ a tilted crown with the serpent from King’s favourite book, Paradise Lost, comin’ through one eye, curlin’ down to the text that read, ‘The price of freedom.’
“Nova,” Cress called to me, pullin’ my gaze up to hers. “Just so you know, there is no way someone unworthy could ever have created such beauty. I’m not sure what happened to make you think so poorly of yourself, but I’m telling you, through all we’ve been through in the past five years, you are constant light and goodness. My life would be a very dark place without you. Trust me, I’m in a place now to know just how much that’s true.”
I blinked hard to stop the burn at the backs of my eyes then cleared my throat as I moved to my station to ready the stencil. “Thought you could be the first one to get the ink.”
“You thought right,” she agreed after a moment of disappointed silence, thankfully lettin’ it go. “One last thing, and then I’ll shut up, okay?”
“Shoot,” I grunted as I collected the stencil I’d already prepped with the thermal fax, rollin’ back to her side.
“Your pretty face could fade or scar, and you’d still be the handsomest man I know now,” she said, her face stripped of artifice, so naked and vulnerable I almost couldn’t stand the sound of her.
’Cause I knew what Cress didn’t.
I wasn’t worthy.
I’d learned that in therapy a long, long time ago, and it wasn’t somethin’ I’d soon fuckin’ forget.
So I smiled at the mournin’ widow, helped her roll her Great Gatsby tee up over her ribs, and stenciled the lasting reminder of her soulmate’s greatness onto the side of her torso opposite a poem he’d once written for her.
I knew what greatness was, and I knew my own limitations.
Yeah, kissin’ Lila had rocked my fuckin’ world.
Lila was the kinda woman I’d always wanted to be with when I grew up. Only, I was thirty-five and no closer to bein’ the kinda man worthy of a woman like her.
LILA
Irina Ventura ran a surprisingly tight ship.