Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,77
He’s back. He’s made contact and he’s gonna—
Another alert. This time it’s a text. I fish my phone out of my purse and read the message flashing across the home screen.
Come outside.
I can’t see anything through the peephole, so I stand there for several seconds debating internally. What if it’s not Nick? What if it is Nick? Am I ready to see him again? What does he want?
I hear Merc’s voice in my head. Just open the door, you little brat. You’re a trained killer. They are more afraid of you than you are of them.
Which is most likely true in this case. I’m not afraid of Nick. He would never hurt me. So I punch in the security code and swing the door open.
“Took you long enough.”
A hooded figure is sitting on the second stair of the front porch. His hands are stretched out behind him, palms down, and his legs are kicked out in front. He hasn’t got a care in the world, that pose says.
I take a deep breath and let it out. “I’m mad at you.”
“I know.”
“Why are you here?”
He turns his head a little and I catch a bit of his face under that hood in the lights coming from City Park across Mountain Avenue. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac, so there are no cars, and the park is empty in the winter, so it’s just us. “I was in the neighborhood.”
I smile, recalling our first conversation at the antiques mall in Cheyenne back when we were still kids. I asked him what he was doing in Cheyenne all dressed up like a surfer.
“It’s a nice neighborhood,” I reply, changing the answer from the past when I told him he could do better.
“You deserve it, Sash. You really do.” He pats a hand on the stoop and says, “Come sit next to me. Let’s catch up.”
I reach back inside and grab my coat off the hook near the door, then shrug it on before slowly walking towards the steps. My heart is beating so fast, I put one hand over it and feel the thumping. I take a deep breath when I get to the steps and then sit down. “I missed you.”
He turns to me, fully illuminated now. And none of the photographs back at that safe house can prepare me for what I see.
The scar on his cheek that looked small and superficial is… not. It’s thick and speaks volumes about the life he’s been leading. The tattoos on his neck are so realistic, I have to take a second look to make sure the chains are not real.
“Nick.”
He looks me in the eyes, his brown ones meeting my blue ones, then shakes his head. “No. Nick’s been gone a long, long time. They call me Santino now.” He talks with an accent and that kills me almost as much as the scar. “How have you been?” He manages a smile, but I can tell it’s forced.
“OK.” I search his eyes for a moment, but then he turns his head and he’s hidden in the shadows of the hoodie again. “I want to know how you are too—but I’m afraid to ask.”
“You don’t want to know.” It’s not sarcasm. It’s truth. He doesn’t want to talk about his life because he’s got nothing good to say about it. I put a hand on his shoulder and he reaches up and gives it a squeeze. “I loved you. I just needed to tell you that. I’ve been practicing this speech for ten years and I had so much planned. But”—he sighs—”the only thing that matters is that I loved you.”
I feel the tears, but I’ve locked them away for so long, I squeeze them back out of habit. “I would’ve gone with you, ya know.”
“I know. That’s why I was mean to you that night. I knew you’d do anything to stay with me and it was wrong, Sasha. I’m not sorry for the way it ended between us that night.” He stops to swallow down his sadness and then he turns his head again and looks me straight on. “I’m not sorry. You’d have grown up in hell if you came with me.”
“You planned it, didn’t you? You always knew I’d go to Matias for help.”
“I knew.” He smiles at me then and I find the old Nick in that grin. It comes back easy. I see him as a teenager when we first met. How golden he looked to