it was my discomfort that wanted to snap, not really him. He was so young he just didn't have the skills to deal with me being shot at yet. Hell, some men decades older than Sin couldn't deal with my job.
"I'd rather let you sleep."
"Wake me," and now his voice sounded older, an echo of what it would be in a few years, maybe. There was demand in those two words, almost like an order. I fought off my knee-jerk reaction to that, too. I was the grown-up; I'd behave like it.
"Fine," I said.
"Now you're mad," he said, and he sounded sullen, and on the edge of anger himself.
"I don't want to fight, Cynric - Sin - but I have to go."
"I love you, Anita," he said.
And there it was, so bold, so out there, so... Fuck. "I love you, too," I said, but I wasn't sure it was true; in fact, I knew it wasn't. I cared for him, but I didn't love him the way I loved Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel, or... But I said the words, because when someone says they love you, you're supposed to say it back. Or maybe I was just too cowardly to let the silence fill up; when Sin said he loved me, I said the only thing I could: "I love you, too, Sin, but I have to go."
It was Micah on the phone, though. "It's okay, Anita, go; I'll take care of things here."
"Shit, Micah, I have to have my head in the game here, I can't... Is he all right?"
"Solve the crime, catch the bad guys, do your job; Nathaniel and I will take care of Sin."
"I love you," I said, and this time I meant it.
I could see the smile that went with the tone of his voice as he said, "I know, and I love you more."
I smiled. "I love you most."
Nathaniel's voice came on the phone as if Micah were holding it out to him: "I love you mostest."
I got off the phone in tears. I loved Nathaniel and Micah, so much. There was no guilt there. We made each other happy. Cynric should have been with someone who loved him the way I loved them. The way I loved Jean-Claude. Hell, the way I loved Asher, or Nicky, or even Jason. He shouldn't have had to compromise for a relationship that got him great sex, and even love of a kind, but I didn't think I'd ever be in love with Cynric. He deserved someone who would feel for him what he seemed to feel for me, didn't he? Didn't everyone? I wasn't sure I could give that to him, and the fact that he'd stood there and heard the three of us say our cute little trio of I love you, I love you more, I love you most, I love you mostest, which was just ours, made my chest tight and my eyes hot with unshed tears. I had crimes to solve, more rogue vampires to find; I couldn't afford to be distracted like this, not by an eighteen-year-old kid who happened to love me more than I loved him. And that was the thought that made me wipe the tears away with the back of my hands, that was the thought that cut the deepest. He loved me, was in love with me, and I didn't feel the same. If he hadn't been metaphysically bound to me, I could have broken up with him, sent him home, but once some preternatural bonds happen, they can't be undone. We were trapped, Cynric and I, and there was no way to undo it. Fuck.
Chapter Nine
SMITH SAW ME come out of the alley. "Your boyfriend making you feel guilty, too?"
"Something like that," I said, wiping one last time at my face. I was glad all over again that I didn't wear makeup to crime scenes.
"I think my girlfriend is going to dump my ass; she can't deal with the job."
"At least she can dump you," I said.
"What?" Smith asked.
I waved it away and we went back to work - to our job, the job - and left the shambles of our personal lives for later. The job came first, because if we failed at that, people died. If we failed at our personal lives, only emotions died, but there are moments when it feels like a broken heart is a kind of death, and you'd trade a little less crime busting for a way