Page 21 of Edge of Temptation (The Saints of Westmont U #1)

EPILOGUE

A Time Later

I watched his bruises fade away.

I watched the cuts heal.

The doctor pulled out the stitches, leaving a fine line over Easton’s cheek as a reminder of his misguided bravery and his infuriating trust in me.

From that first night on, we sat together in the small apartment on West Chestnut Street, Easton holding a mug of tea between his hands, me with my cigarette, and we talked. We really talked. It was as though we had crossed mountains and seas, hellfire and snake nests, and were finally in a place where saying things no longer scared us.

Easton told me about the fire. Again and again. He told me about it from every angle, assuring himself each time that I didn’t hold it against him, not even if some small part of him wanted me to pay the price, not even if he’d tried to burn out his feelings for me.

We took our past by the throat and looked into its eyes. Then, we turned away from it. After looking it over this way and that, after facing all it had done to us, we put it down and walked away.

What was it like to grow up without a home? What was it like to never belong? The scars we bore weren’t visible to the naked eye, but they ached nonetheless. They ran deep under the surface of the skin.

For so long, the pure need to survive the ruthlessness of the world had placed these problems somewhere on the back burner. They slow-cooked, waiting for a moment where our survival wouldn’t be threatened before they could be served to us.

It was not an appetizing dish, but it was one we had to eat.

“What do we do?” Easton asked me once when we found ourselves sitting hopelessly and looking at the walls, the floors, the ceilings of this place that simply wasn’t yet a home.

“We try harder,” I told him.

When you don’t have the vaguest idea of what a home is, not even a blueprint of someone else’s, you need to think about it from the very ground up. The foundation was Easton, so long as he was mine. He was the tether that kept us together. And if you asked him, I was the very same thing.

A home needed walls to keep the warmth in. It needed a roof to protect us from the night. Yet we didn’t know where else to turn but to one another. And that was enough. It was enough to reassure me, in every moment of doubt, that we were in the right place.

We needed to try harder.

The Harpers hadn’t taught us how to find peace within ourselves. They hadn’t learned that lesson in their lives. For them, never again reaching out to Easton was all the peace they would find. But for us, it wasn’t as easy as that.

Easton toyed with the idea of seeking help, although it filled me with cold dread to sit with some careless, uninterested therapist who nodded and walked me through the loops and over the bars like a showroom dog. He didn’t hate me for resisting, and I didn’t resent him bringing it up every once in a while.

We healed one another in less conventional ways. We fed off one another’s strength and took away each other’s pains. We masked them with pleasures and minimized them with dares.

In January, we stood on a pier, watching the frozen surface of Lake Michigan in the bay. The winds lashed us and made the lake sway, the blocks of ice floated violently on the tide, and flurries of snow lifted and descended and swirled around us.

The incredible force of nature, the tempest that ravaged the world around us, made me feel good. My hands were deep inside the pockets of my black bomber jacket, and Easton stood tall and strong in his nice black coat as we gazed out at the storm. A few eager photographers dotted the pier, trying to capture the terror laid upon the lake.

It didn’t frighten me. It reminded me that all the troubles and all the wounds I felt were nothing compared to how vast and incredible this world was.

I looked at Easton, his cheeks pink, the scarf lifted to his mouth, and I rediscovered—as I did every day—the profound depth of love I felt for him. Standing there in the flurry of snow, he looked like an impenetrable tower, frowning against the wind.

At that moment, I would have given my life for him.

I walked toward him and offered him my hand, bare and pink with cold.

Easton hesitated for only a moment, glancing beyond me as if he had a reason to hide who he was. The impulse flared to life now and again, but Easton thrust his hand into mine, and we stood shoulder by shoulder, facing the great lake.

When we returned to the apartment, Easton covered me with hungry kisses. The snowstorm raged outside for another two days, making it more and more impossible to leave the apartment. So we sat together, Easton playing the piano. I pondered the choices I had made and the crossroads that could have taken me further away from him rather than bringing me closer. Facing these small, insignificant moments in time filled me with greater terror than a storm ever could.

And when the winter weather finally broke, Easton renewed the lease for the apartment with my name added to his. “It’s only fair,” he said. “You pay the rent.”

It was a point of friction between us. Easton tracked how much rent I paid with my winnings and the money from other hustles. He worked a weekend gig at the local rink, giving hockey lessons to small groups of interested kids whose parents needed that little break. It didn’t pay much, but Easton was the only one who was bothered by it.

I could make enough money for both of us. I never said it was good or right, but I could do it. Ivan the Generous made his gratitude work beyond simple words. He connected me to the right people, letting me stay behind the lines I had drawn in the sand, letting me stay within my codes while helping me make some cash.

Things would turn eventually. Easton had a bright future. My own would be just fine so long as Easton was a part of it. I didn’t want to be a lowly scammer all my life, but I needed to make sure there was a life for me before climbing that dreaded ladder.

As our sleeves shortened and shorts replaced our pants, life seemed to rush like a bullet train. Easton was torn to shreds between classes, competitions, and his part-time gigs. I used the time to milk the cash cows in the smoke-filled basements, planning my exit. I didn’t hunger for money or respect. I didn’t thirst for the risks this thing involved. All I wanted was to breathe deeply in and out and know Easton and I were safe.

A lifetime of not knowing when the next blow would land did something to you. You stayed alert. And when times seemed safe and quiet, you were scared the most. Was not pain well overdue? The enforcer was on his way, wasn’t he? Collect the debt, one way or the other.

Yet the knock never came. Things were, as they never had been before, good. When heat came and threatened to pull us apart, we locked eyes and enforced a truce. Easton would stalk away from me, and I would follow, my hand reaching to his throat, holding him as he gazed at me. “Have me, Jace,” his eyes would beg. “Put me back in my place.” And I would.

He reined me in at times. It was his nature to counter my forces and return the universe to its balance. I loved him for it. I loved the strength with which he could hold the leash. I loved the firmness with which he held me back, tethered me to the ground, stopped me from flying away in moments of rage or desperation.

“Please, Jace,” he would tell me later. “Just think about it.”

But I wouldn’t. It felt too foreign, too intrusive. I didn’t want someone’s fingers all over me. “Aren’t we enough?” I would ask.

“We are,” Easton would assure me. “We always will be.”

And it would put the debate to rest. For a time, at least.

Spring melted the snow away and brought a new promise of life. The dreadful, gray coffin opened up to let in the sunlight and the blue sky. Summer followed soon, bringing us near an impossible milestone. Just a few lazy, relaxed months and we would mark a year of this crazy, wild thing.

Loving him no longer felt like a dare, like a risk. It wasn’t a whirlwind of infatuation—or it wasn’t only that. It was a solid love. It was as palpable as an obelisk. It towered over everything, always visible on the horizon, and I never lost its sight. Storms came and went, floods and droughts. In brightness and in gloom, in light or night, I could look into the distance, down the far line of the life ahead of myself, and I could see it, unwavering, indestructible, wonderful.

And when I put my hands on his broad chest and pushed him back to land on the mattress, Easton’s eyes turned glassy with lust, and he huffed shortly before holding his breath. My hands wrapped around his wrists and trapped them above his head, and I kissed him the way he deserved to be kissed. Those devastating, life-altering kisses filled me with power and light until my skin glowed with heat.

When I had him, his body belonged to me, but there was more to it than that. He surrendered his soul with it. He gave himself to me and to the pleasures I could give us both. He let go of his consciousness and his reservations. His eyes rolled back, and he let himself transform into a being made of impulses and urges, of yearnings and curiosity. He would take all he was given and beg for more.

And after, he would curl up against me and tell me how much he loved me.

On that first terrible night when I had nearly left him for good, I wasn’t sure if I believed him. I knew that he thought he loved me, even then, but I didn’t think it could last. I would do something, sooner or later, to prove him wrong. He would see how wrong he had been to bet on me. After all, nobody loved me. There had to be a reason for it. And while I was more than happy to stand in conflict with the whole wide world and God himself, I was smart enough to know I couldn’t be right when everyone else disagreed. There had to be some truth in it all.

But I never slipped up. Even when I thought I did, Easton crossed his arms, looked at me furiously, and said, “You are an asshole, Jace. I love you, but you are an asshole.” And I began to believe him. Time after time, I would think it was coming. I would see his patience thinning, and I would know he was about to see what everyone else seemed to know by heart. Then, he would take my hand and kiss each fingertip in turn, telling me that it was alright.

If I needed time to believe the sincerity of his love, there was a flip side to it. I knew how powerful my love for him was in return. I never doubted my resolve and the promises we made. I never questioned the fact that Easton was the brightest star in my universe and the finest hour in my day.

Part of me was sure we were healing. Another far smaller but infinitely more ominous part of me whispered that we were only pretending. Our first year together was filled with difficulties and defined by delights. It was a mixture of struggles and rewards. Ramming two vastly different universes into one was hard work, but neither of us was afraid of rolling up our sleeves and doing what needed to be done.

And when I thought we had built the bridges everywhere where chasms split the ground between us, when I thought we were finally out of the storm, the nightmares came.

I kept losing him, night after night. They beat him until his face was pulpy with blood and bones. Or he walked out to buy an ingredient I had stupidly forgotten I would need, only for the police to knock on the door two hours later and deliver the news. A terrible war broke out, and he was drafted, but some heart murmur eliminated my application to voluntarily accompany him and keep him safe. Six months later, he returned with the flag over his coffin. The nightmares came, each worse than the one before, but I persisted.

“Jace,” he said sternly, waking me up. “Are you alright? You’re sweating.”

My body was covered in cold sweat, my hair matted and my tattoos glistening black and moist in the light of the lamp Easton had turned on. “Fine,” I said, my mouth dry. Tears came on their own when I looked at him, so perfect and safe in the bed where nothing could touch him. I hugged him tightly, not a bone broken in his body, not a hair missing from his beautiful head, and Easton didn’t protest despite the sweat smearing between us.

I refused to sleep again, shutting my eyes and pretending until Easton drifted deep asleep. After, I would sit up and watch over him.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked me some nights later as I feigned falling asleep.

“No,” I muttered.

“Yes, you do,” Easton accused.

I opened one eye and looked at him, then rolled over and put my hand around him. “I think you’re hot.”

He slapped my chest lightly. “None of that, Jace.”

I scoffed and sank back into the pillow. Tiredness of not sleeping—or, to be honest, of catching a few minutes of sleep at a time—was weighing me down like an anvil tied around my ankles and thrown into the depths of the sea.

“You’re not sleeping anymore,” Easton said gravely.

I didn’t insult him by lying.

“We can’t keep doing this, Jace,” Easton said, sitting up, his back resting against the bed’s headboard, his knees bent a little and spread, his torso bare and beautiful. I wanted to forget about all that kept me awake and explore him with my lips. “It’s not healthy.”

“I’m dealing with it,” I told him in what I thought was a tone of complete conviction.

Easton tossed his legs over the edge of the bed and turned his back to me. My tone had stung him, judging by the tension in the muscles of his back.

“I am,” I said, my voice rising, losing me the last of my legitimacy.

“Jace, you’re shivering at night,” Easton said darkly. “You kick and cry and wake up in tears. I am terrified for you.”

My heart sank. “For me? What for?”

“Can’t you see the problems, Jace?” Easton pleaded, getting to his feet and pacing around the bedroom. He faced me, standing tall and beautiful. “You’re suffering, and I’m scared that I’m doing this to you.”

I scrambled out of the bed, the cover tangling around my legs and slowing me down. I got rid of it, standing up and facing Easton. “You?” I would have laughed if he weren’t so serious.

“Yes. Me.” Easton rubbed his face and exhaled. “I think…oh, Jace, I think I trapped you that night. You’re like that eagle, my love, and I stole the sky from you.”

I shook my head violently, embarrassed of the soaring eagle on my chest. It wasn’t a subconscious cry for freedom. How could I make him understand? “Easton, I’m alright,” I promised.

“You’re not,” he said. “And I think the reason you won’t face it is because you’re scared of what you’ll discover. What if I’m holding you back?”

I held a breath for a time, then exhaled and told him the truth. “I fear for you. I don’t know why, but I am so scared that something will happen to you. I’m scared, Easton.”

He gazed into my eyes, weighing my words and hearing the truth in them. “I’m scared, too, Jace,” he said after a time. “I’m scared of so many things that I don’t know where to begin.”

My love. The boy I wanted to hold for the rest of my life. The man I wanted to see every morning when I opened my eyes and feel against me every night I went to sleep. He was lost. He was as lost as me, and he needed a guide.

How had I not seen this already?

“I’m sorry, Easton,” I whispered. “I was selfish.”

His eyebrows curved into a confused frown.

“I thought we could deal with all that shit,” I said. “I still wait for Kevin to show up, to come in somehow, even though we changed the lock. I still think those assholes are waiting for you in the shadows. I still have so much hate left in me.”

Easton stepped closer. We admitted these terrible things to each other from time to time. We only trusted one another to reveal the hatefulness that never fully went out—the hatefulness that the Harpers had taught us and the world never stopped reminding us about.

Holding a breath again, I reached out, letting him take my hands into his. “I’m ready,” I whispered.

Easton said nothing. He waited for me to inevitably change my mind and tell him we were healed. He waited for me to give an impassioned speech about how strong we both were and how we only ever needed each other. It would convince him for a time or convince him to look away for a while.

“I want us to speak to someone,” I said, licking my lips nervously.

“Are you sure?” Easton asked, close to disbelief.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to be better for you. For us. That’s all that matters to me, Easton. And if it means letting someone else help us, then we’ll do that. I don’t want you to spend your life with damaged goods.”

Easton shook his head. “You’re not damaged goods, my love.”

“Neither of us is intact,” I said. “But we can be whole again. Right?”

He stepped closer, his body melting into mine, arms wrapping around me. “Of course we can.”

“I mean it, Easton,” I said, letting him hold me as hard as he liked and resting my head on his shoulder. “I want to spend my life with you.”

“You know I want it, too, Jace,” Easton said with a firmness that was unwavering. “And the next one, and the next one.”

I wrapped my arms around him, putting my hands on his upper back and feeling the heat that radiated from his body. Last year, when I had thought I was the closest to losing him, he had held me so. I had cried on his shoulder and thought that was the end of all our pain and struggle. I had thought we were healed by it.

“We will do this together,” Easton said.

I promised him that we would.

When we sealed the promise with a blazing kiss, we sat on the edge of the bed, and I held his hand. Hopeful and fearful at the same time, I looked at him. “But we are better, aren’t we? We did some good things.”

Easton nodded fervently. “Of course.”

“It’s not like we haven’t changed at all, right?” I had to know. I had to know that I hadn’t kept him in one place for this entire year.

“Not at all,” Easton agreed. “And this won’t pull us apart, baby. I won’t let it.”

“It’ll make us stronger,” I said quietly, believing the words that came from my lips. The traumas ran too deep for our love alone to tackle them. It did immense things and healed so many of the wounds, but it was unfair to put such burdens on a love as young as this.

“Let’s sleep, my love,” I said.

Easton agreed. He asked me to turn away and wrapped himself around me, holding me the very same way I had held him so many countless times.

We slept easily because tomorrow was promised to us.

And when winter snows returned, Easton and I found ourselves in a comfortable office overlooking Lake Michigan from the fourteenth floor in downtown Chicago. Nervous butterflies filled my stomach, but Easton’s hand found mine and soothed them into stillness.

A brown-haired woman of middle years and with a kindly, almost motherly face looked up from the notepad. “Should we begin?” Her voice was breathy and smooth, making me trust her at once.

But where did we begin? Where did this whole story start? Adopted by the same people, pitted against one another by the laws of nature and force of survival instinct, we had clashed and found that we loved each other despite every attempt to hate one another.

And when Easton and I looked at one another, both of us unsure how to begin, I saw the depth of love in those deep, green eyes. I saw the promises we had made to each other burning as brightly as they had on that distant day when I’d almost walked away from him.

A little pressure, his hand squeezing mine, and a ghost of a smile on Easton’s lips.

For our future and for our life together, we were ready to begin.

Did you like that? There’s more. Continue reading The Saints of Westmont U to find out what happens to Kyle and the struggle for captaincy in Elio’s book, Cost of Redemption . For a preview chapter, flip to the next page. And don’t forget to subscribe to Hayden Hall’s newsletter for timely updates, exclusive stories, and more.

The End.