“Your ego has definitely gotten bigger.”
“It’s an appropriate size,” he replies defensively. “To accommodate my many talents and skills.”
“You forgot about your looks.”
“Never.”
I shake my head at him. “You are unbelievable.”
“Why, thank you for noticing.”
I laugh again. How is he managing to wrench these sounds out of me? I thought I’d lost them forever.
I thought that, once you’d experienced certain levels of pain, there was no going back. No feeling anything remotely like joy.
And yet somehow, in the midst of this cold night, he’s making me feel warm.
Light.
Carefree.
“You haven’t answered my question, though,” I point out. “Why did you come back?”
“Well, that year I spent with Diego and Carla, my body was broken. My mind very nearly was, too. I spent a lot of time in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the fuck my purpose in life was.”
“And you had an epiphany?”
“All the shit I’d buried the day I left for Los Angeles… Well, let’s just say I couldn’t keep it buried any longer. I’d allowed myself to be chased off when I should have stayed and fought. Not just for my place in the family, but for my right to choose my own path.”
“You were eighteen,” I point out. “So young.”
“So?” he asks. “People use age like a fucking shield. Youth doesn’t rob you of your senses. It doesn’t rob you of your intellect. Sure, people make stupid choices sometimes, but that’s not restricted to teenagers.”
I smile. “You’re right about that.”
“I knew how I felt at eighteen. Those feelings were real. They were valid. They still are.”
His voice is fierce and undeniable. I shiver at everything it implies. Everything it means—for him. For me.
For us.
“It was time for me to come home,” he continues. “Time for me to stand up to the bastards who chased me off.”
“Does that include your father?” I ask.
He gives me a curious look.
I blush. “Sorry.”
“No,” he laughs. “Don’t be. My father is one of those bastards, probably… but I think he’s the bastard who taught me the most.”
“How’d the reunion go?”
He takes a deep breath. “Well, we made it an hour in without strangling each other. Then the Irish secret police stormed the mansion, took my parents hostage, broke my brother’s leg, and left. So… pretty well, all things considered, I suppose.”
I blanch as my stomach drops. “Jesus,” I breathe. “They broke your brother’s leg?”
“They thought he was me.”