Page 7 of Vigilante
“It’s a really good thing.”
His eyes are locked with mine, and I feel myself pulled to him. The chaos of the game fades into the background. All that exists is him and I.
He leans forward, and I have the urge to tug his mask down and kiss him. My eyes track to where it sits on his face, and he inhales sharply. Electricity crackles between us the closer he gets to me.
Suddenly, he turns and aims at one of the girls that have snuck up on us, hitting her square in the chest. It flashes red.
“Good aim,” I say, rushing behind a half wall. A patter of feet rumbles the ground beneath us. They’re closing in on our location.
He spins, looking like something out of a video game, and takes out each of the girls, shot after shot.
Holy shit.
I stand mouth agape, watching them fall one by one as he racks up the points.
One of the girls angrily points her gun at me, and I know I’m toast.
But before she can hit me, he grabs me by the waist and spins, shielding me from the assault. His vest flashes blue with the hit, and the mask covering his face hangs off one of his ears, letting me see his full smile.
A loud buzzer chimes throughout the room, and the lights slowly turn on.
Game over.
CHAPTER 4
Maximo
Yep.I’m fucking screwed.
Not a single part of me is on the right path, and the reason for that...is Julia. Her special place, laser tag. Completely unexpected but also utterly her. And even though this is the second time I’ve seen her, it feels like she’s been in my life forever, as though there has been no time between us at all.
It’s irritating the life out of me because even though it’s clear that she genuinely believes me to be visiting, I’m not. When my mother met my father on holiday to Sicily with her friends, they fell in love, and even though it was two weeks, he couldn’t bear to let her go. In the end, he packed everything up and came home with her. After a few short months, she became pregnant with me, they got married, and the rest is history. Or so my angelic mother tells me.
I spent half of my childhood living here. My friends, school, first job, everything was here, and when my father got a job in Chicago, we up and left. Leaving everything behind to build a new life, a better life for all of us. But she doesn’t need to know that.
When she told me about losing her mother to MS, an ache swept through me in a way that I couldn’t decipher. To her or to myself. I genuinely believed that seeing her today would confirm that it was nothing but a simple lapse in judgment on my part, and what I felt with her in that fucking coffee shop was nothing more than a fleeting moment.
Something that most people have once in their life, but that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Except it wasn’t. The feeling deep within my gut doesn’t even come close to it. I could walk away now, never lay eyes on her again, do what I must do, and then head back to my home country. Sicily. Where my mother and the rest of my family are now.She’s moved in with my aunts after my father’s passing, as they’ve accepted her as one of their own. A part of the family. And family always looks out for each other, at least ours does.
I haven’t seen her in a year, and I miss all of them dearly. But I had to do this. There was no other way to rid my mind, body, and soul of the hatred of what my father suffered and what we all suffer continuously to this day.
“Max?”
Her sultry voice brings me back to the present, and I turn to face her. “Sorry,Bella, what did you say?”
Shit, was I daydreaming again?
A sweet-sounding giggle leaves her lips, and I’m overcome by a need to feel its vibration against my own. “I asked if you had fun.”
“I did,” I smile beneath my khaki mask. “You?”
Her bright smile warms my heart, and fuck, I want to kiss her so badly. I was willing to kiss her during the game, but that group of girls found us and there just wasn’t enough time to do it.
“I always have fun there. My parents used to take me when I was little. But when I reached eight, it stopped.” She shrugs.
“Why?”
She rakes her teeth over her plump bottom lip, and I groan internally.Fuuuck.
