Page 201 of Heresy

In my life, I’ve done a damn good job avoiding most of them and think I can refine my skills to learn how to avoid them all.

When I don’t answer, she combs her fingers through my hair, her fingernails lightly scratching my skull. If she keeps that up, I might just start purring.

Everything she does feels good.

“I have to finish school, Shane. I can’t do that on the run.”

“Quit,” I offer. “We’ll do something else.”

Pulling away from the hug, her blue eyes meet mine. “Like what?”

A shrug of my shoulder. “I have money. We’ll buy a boat. Sail the Caribbean.”

“You’ll run out of money eventually.”

I grin. “Not if we become pirates and rob other ships.”

Laughter falls over her lips, and I can’t get over how beautiful the sound is, how beautiful she is, inside and out.

There’s no possible way I destroyed this woman’s halo like I threatened on the plane. She’s still as much of an angel as the day I met her.

A couple minutes of silence beat between us, her cheek resting on my shoulder, her breath brushing across my neck.

I fix my stare on the dark water of the lake. It’s another night where the surface is like glass, a perfect reflection of the sky without any light pollution to ruin it.

“Your friends will get over this. Even Luca. You had no idea whose car that was.”

While I appreciate her faith in me, I don’t think she fully understands just how far I’m willing to fall.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d known when I did it. They could have told me it was Luca’s dad, and I still would have done it.”

Pulling her head up, she catches my stare. “Why?”

“Because that’s what we do. All of us. Every friend you’ve met of mine, except possibly Priest, was raised to follow orders and do as we’re told. We were raised to hurt people. And while every one of us has a different way of doing it or a different purpose, we’re all just tools in the same damn toolbox. I’m the one who’s pulled out when they want the worst stuff done.”

“Whose toolbox?”

“Our fathers’,” I say, dropping my head down to press my forehead to hers.

Big blue eyes stare back at me. “Then stop doing it.”

I smirk at that. “Can’t. Not until we sink our families. That’s why Tanner devised a set of rules, ways we can rebel without being caught. Moralities and lines not to be crossed. As if that can clear our conscience. He tries, though. I’ll give him that.”

A sound vibrates from her chest, the pieces clicking into place as she gains some sense of understanding.

“So that’s why he’s always riding you. I don’t think there’s a line out there you won’t cross.”

“Very few,” I answer honestly. “And yeah, he rides me about that. About not doing things the way he wants them done. But mostly because he thinks I’m a fuck up. I tend to cause more chaos than is necessary, but I get the job done.”

She gets a curious look in her eyes, full lips rolling over each other in a way I only see when she’s about to get mouthy or say something I don’t like.

“Have you thought that, maybe, he’s constantly riding your ass because he worries about you the most?”

The thought has crossed my mind before, but I blew it off. If anybody should be worried about in our group, it’s Ezra and Damon. We still don’t know exactly what those two went through, but we know it was bad.

But that’s not my story to tell. If Damon and Ezra want to open up one day, that’s their decision.

“Not sure why he would.”

---