Page 54 of Alfie: Part Two

Finn and I shared a dry look.

“Not from Chicago,” Finn chuckled.

Liam sat up straighter. “Uh?—”

“We’re not here to talk fuckin’ football,” Finn told him. He turned to me again and returned to the topic. “Don’t worry, we’ll get West the family discount. In the meantime, you keep working as usual until we find this fucker. Did your mom give a statement yet? Hanna’s gonna wanna see it before he goes back to collect more information.”

I went to grab my notepad.

West showed up half an hour or so later with bagels, and Finn took one look at the spread before he decided to stay.

“I appreciate it. Emilia’s making chicken salad for lunch,” he said.

“You poor man.” West humored him.

“It’s a side dish, not a main course,” Finn stated.

“It’s also a hint, cousin,” Liam said.

“Fuck you,” was Finn’s response. “I’m fine as fuck.Shewants to get healthier, and it’s still Alfie’s fault—his damn videos on Insta.”

I chuckled and helped West put out the last of the toppings on the kitchen table.

“I’mma grab a quick smoke before we eat.” Finn headed out, and Liam tagged along.

I hauled out the toaster before I pulled my man in for a hug.

“Hey.” I kissed him quick.

He smiled. “Hey back. Did you get your criminal work done?”

“Shit’s in motion.” I locked my arms around his neck, just needing a moment of peace. “Finn mentioned you talked to one of his guys about security for Mom and Dad.”

He hummed and stroked my back. “I had to do something. I woke up so angry about it all.”

I hugged him harder and kissed his neck. “I love you, you know that? What you’ve done for me the past twenty-four hours alone makes me wanna pop the question.”

He chuckled and inched back enough to nuzzle his nose with mine. “Proposing is my privilege, and it’ll happen soon enough, I assure you.”

I beamed, and he kissed me.

On a more serious note, I had to come up with something to show him how much this mattered to me. He’d annihilated countless of his own boundaries to accept all my…uh, complications…so I had to make up for it. I wanted to.

“Let’s head out to Ardmore after we’ve been to see Ma,” I murmured. “I wanna start looking at houses.”

“Oh yeah?” He lifted his gaze a few inches as he combed back my hair with his fingers. “Do you have an area in mind?”

I did. I hadn’t meant Ardmore as in,let’s go home to where we currently live. I meant that it could be our future home’slocation too. “Yeah. Do you remember the blue four-bedroom we checked out on Linwood?”

He knitted his brows together. “That’s in Ardmore.”

“It was also, according to you back then, way too close to Lancaster.”

“Where nobody in their right mind wants to live.” The Main Line snob came out to play, and I grinned.

“What about alittlecloser?” I asked. “It doesn’t have to be either-or, does it? We don’t have to live so far out that it’s basically the wilderness.”

“Spoken like a true city boy,” he chuckled.

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