Page 23 of Mine to Keep (Bloody Desires #10)

fourteen

seeing the sights

“Come on, Tal,” Javier whines as Talon snaps another picture of some of the buildings in downtown Toronto. “We’ll miss our train!”

“Let him take pictures, baby boy. How often will you two come to Canada? You said he doesn’t vacation a lot. Let him enjoy himself,” I say, snaking my arm around his shoulder.

He glares at his best friend with obvious affection. “Yeah, you’re right. But dang. He has, like, four hundred pictures in his phone from, like, four days. He’ll just end up deleting them.”

Talon smiles, leaning over to plant a quick kiss on Javi’s lips. Javier sighs, a soft smile on his face. “If you’re a hater, just say that,” Talon says.

Javier’s booming laugh washes over me, further relaxing the knot that’s grown in my chest for the past ten years.

“Not a hater. I just want to take the tour.” He looks up at me with a shy smile.

“Thank you again for bringing us. And spending all this money on us. I promise we’ll pay you back when we get home. ”

“Don’t sweat it. I want to do the bus tour too.”

We plan to go to the museum and, maybe, wine tasting later today, but my boys were so excited when they saw the Hop on Hop off Bus Tour being offered. I didn’t allow Javier to pay, due to their limited funds.

It’s been so long since I’ve spent money on anything other than my normal bills. It’s nice spoil my boys. They deserve it for making me feel human again.

After Talon gets the photos he wants, thanking me with a smile and a quick kiss, we hustle to the location for the bus tour. We board the bus and the guys drag me to the top of the double-decker, snapping pictures before they even take a seat.

While they’re getting comfortable, Talon starts chatting with an older couple from Nigeria, while Javier smiles over at them. I look around at everyone boarding the bus, as well as the people on the street.

Over the past ten years, I’ve learned to look without looking, clocking who is around me. Everyone that boards and those lining the streets look harmless, but they could be like me. They could be after me.

I still haven’t shaken the couple that I saw in the pub two days ago. Something about them was…off. Maybe because they reminded me of myself in my early days—sloppy, slow, and unable to blend into their surroundings to avoid being spotted.

If they’re after me, I need to keep my eyes open, while also making sure Javier and Talon don’t suspect anything.

It’s already hard—watching my back and theirs—but I wouldn’t trade it.

They can’t leave me. I need them. I need them to make my heart beat like a normal person’s, not off-kilter like someone expecting a bullet to their brain.

My attention is on the people milling about on the sidewalk.

It’s not difficult to walk past a crowded bus and take out your target in any number of ways.

I know—I’ve done it before. One well-placed bullet or a properly thrown knife, and someone is dead.

I can’t have that. Not while my boys are with me.

“This is our boyfriend, Knox,” Talon says, pointing to me as he talks to the older couple.

Huh? Boyfriend? Our boyfriend?

I don’t have time to respond before the tour guide climbs the stairs and calls our attention to the front. Talon slides closer to me, mischief dancing in his eyes.

Grinning, I lean into him and say, “You’ll pay for that.”

He giggles. “So you say.”

“Brats get spankings,” I whisper back to him. He laughs and kisses me, then we turn our attention to the tour guide.

At least I pretend to. A shock of red hair in my periphery has me glancing to my right.

The woman from the pub is standing on the sidewalk, her body angled away from me, talking to a man.

Judging from his height and hair color, I’m almost positive it’s the man she was with when I first laid eyes on her in that pub.

I can tell by how she’s talking, her body relaxed and her gestures wild as if telling a story, that she hasn’t seen me.

It could be a coincidence, but the city of Toronto is too big for me to see the same couple that I saw in a random pub then again on the streets when I’m going on a city tour. It’s not uncommon for tourists to visit the same locations, but at the same time?

Not buying it.

My hand drifts to the knife that I have holstered under my arm, ready to pull it if I have to.

But the bus drives off without incident. It’s not until the tour guide starts telling everyone to pull their cameras out that I realize I didn’t snap a picture of the couple for Peggy.

I curse myself, but pull out my phone anyway, shooting a quick text to my handler.

Me: Just saw a couple that looks suspicious. In front of the Toronto City Bus Tour. Turner Street facing south ten minutes ago.

She doesn’t answer right away, so I pocket my phone. She’ll know I need her to check the CCTV cameras to find them. It could be nothing. They could be a couple of tourists that are here enjoying the sights.

Or they could be ops that are after me. I curse again, thinking about how I’ve been going without disguises since I got off the train in Siloq. Anyone searching for me will find me.

And they’ll find my boys.

I tamp down the panic that threatens to claw up my chest. No one is after me. If they were, Peggy would have told me. I would know . After what happened with Olivia, Peggy would try to get word to me that I’m being hunted. Since she hasn’t, I need to chill.

Easier said than done. Outwardly, I’m calm, laughing with my boys and pointing out landmarks along the tour route, but internally, I’m making our exit plan.

I need to get online and find flights for the two of them, get them safely back to either North Carolina or Puerto Rico.

Then I need to make sure they don’t come looking for me.

It was selfish of me to disrupt their lives, but I wanted to be selfish for a little while. I wanted something for me.

I hope I didn’t put them in danger because of it.

An hour and a half later, we climb off the bus, Javier and Talon grinning from ear to ear as they show each other the photos they took.

“Look,” Talon says, bouncing over to me. “I got this one of you. It’s a really nice picture.”

I look at the photo he snapped. In the background is one of the large buildings with amazing architecture, the sky clear and the sun shining almost directly on me.

He snapped a picture of me while I was looking at our surroundings, and a small smile is tipping up my lips.

It was a candid picture that wasn’t faked. I look relaxed. Happy. At peace.

Fuck, I want that peace. With them. Because of them.

But I am who I am. As much as I say I want to retire, I know I would have to go underground and hide for years, maybe decades. I would live a life of watching my back. That’s not something I want for Talon and Javier.

Though I yearn to be who they think I am. A man that saved them. A man who isn’t a killer. Someone that deserves them.

Talon’s smile falters as I stare at the phone. “Do you hate it?”

“No, little one,” I say. “It’s perfect.”

He smiles, leaning into me. “I thought so too. Can I put it on my social media? I want to tell everyone I have a new boyfriend. Cole will be pissed. Oh! What about one with the three of us? Since we’re all…

you know…doing this? Right? Did I…” He looks up at me with wide eyes.

“Did I jump the gun? Javi? Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t?—”

Javier wraps his arm around Talon. “Breathe, babe.” Talon looks at him and takes a deep breath. “It’s okay. We’re…you and me, we’ll always be together. Always. But you know we need…”

“Something more, yeah, I know.”

Talon looks so sad, so forlorn that before I can swallow the words, I say, “I’m your ‘something more’, my beautiful boys.

I’m your Daddy. Okay?” His eyes are eager, though he looks guarded as he nods.

“I’m not letting you two go. We may have met randomly, but I think we were supposed to.

You, Javier, and I were meant to cross paths. You believe that?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I do. It’s kinda like a fairytale. Meeting a handsome man and linking back up days later, completely by accident. It’s like…fate or some shit.”

“Definitely fate,” Javier says, wrapping a strong arm around Talon. I take Talon’s hand in mine as we walk down the street.

Guess I don’t believe my own words. Fuck, how am I going to untangle all this?

“Maybe it was meant to be that Cole was a fucking asshole.” Javier’s voice softens as he asks, “How are you doing with the break up? You okay?”

The smile that stretches Talon’s face is beautiful and free of any hurt or pain.

“I’m perfect. I loved Cole, but he didn’t love me.

I see that now. In the past few days, I’ve felt more love from you two than I have in the past few months with him.

I thought it was because it was long distance, but I don’t think that was it.

He was pulling away and not telling me. So yeah, I’m okay. ”

We take the train to one of the many museums in Toronto and make our way inside. I don’t care about art or shit from the past—the past is better left there—but my boys want to see everything, so I grin and bear it for them.

The museum we entered is three stories and has about seventy rooms of shit to look at.

We walk past painting after painting, excitement and happiness dancing across Talon’s face, and introspection across Javier’s.

Before I can wonder what it means, Talon bumps his best friend with his hip. “Can you paint that? Your style is different, but…”

Javier looks longingly at the artwork on the wall, tracing the lines and the colors with a practiced eye. “Probably not.”

“You paint?” I ask, impressed. Javier strikes me as the type of man that works with his hands—even though he told me his family is wealthy—not the creative type. I shouldn’t judge someone because of their appearances, though.