But there was one thing I knew for a fucking fact about myself. If I ever had kids I knew I would never lie to them, and that I would protect them from the life I’ve lived as much as possible. Yet here Alonzo Conti is, doing a hell of a lot to drag his daughter into a family that cuts its teeth on some of the darkest organized crime this side of the Mason Dixon line.
His eyes flashed to me and I barred my teeth like the rabid animal he thinks me to be when I see the unfiltered hate that resides in his eyes. I don’t care what he thinks of me, he’ll just have to fucking deal.
“I didn’t know it to be a deninite possibility, but was something I knew might come up,” he says through clenched jaws.
That earns him a look from all of his men, and I knew they’d be having a little discussion with their boss. Just by looking it looked like they might have a whole lot to dicuss amongst themselves.
I looked eyes with Tony, the one to have spent the most time with her now after sitting in on her session, and he nods his head at me. I don’t know the man at all, and a part of me wants to bristle at that nod, this easy acceptance of each other he’s handing me, but at the same time, it’s always nice to have a fiend among the potential vipers pit we could be walking into.
“Bones, you’d better get going, before she gets,” the sound of the trucks shrill horn sounds in rapid secession as she sounds her agitation, “impatient,” Cobra finishes, a small smile on his lips. I return Tony’s nod, pat Cobra on the shoulder in mock condolence of his car and jog off to the truck. My mind is quickly turned to that kiss.
I shouldn’t have kissed her like that, but fuck I’m glad I did. If she thought I’d ever just let her walk away into this new life and leave me behind she had another thing coming, and if Cobra thought he could just hand her over he was sorely mistaken.
When I get to the truck, I think about texting Angel to tell her about the confession and the kiss, but knowing Angel and her inability to not kiss and tell, she’d just end up calling me for details that I wouldn’t give her while trapped in the truck with the girl in question.
Is it weird that I know a whole lot about Angel’s girlfriends, and the occasional boyfriend? Probably, but that’s just Angel. She can’t keep her mouth shut when it comes to juicy details, and she’s always been like that. I’d accepted our nontraditional relationship a long time ago, and found that being open about it was always better than not knowing. When I didn’t know my mind would go to weird places, wondering if someone else was loving her better.
It took me a solid year to realize that it was and has never been about loving her better. I’ve met every girlfriend she’s had and two out of the three boyfriends she’s had over the three years we’ve been together, and realized it was about loving her. Each partner she’s had has loved her differently, and after the way Angel was brought up, she just needed to be loved, deserved it as far as I’m concerned.
So I stow my phone into my pocket and hop into the truck. We’ll ditch it back at Misfits and then take my SUV home.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask as I maneuver the truck on to the road.
She grabs a first full of her hair and lets out a frustrated growl. I know that most people will never get to see this side of her, she hates for people to see her upset, but I’m thankful that she lets her hair down with me. Maybe I’m an egotistical ass but it makes me feel like she trusts me to love her regardless to when she randomly lets out animal growls and banshee shrieks of frustration, but I realize it probably has more to do with the fact that I grew up with her.
“What is there to talk about? That my grandfather thought he could just bet me away? My father is as dense as a concrete block when it comes to daughters? That you kissed me like you could find your soul or spirit in my mouth?” she lets out a rush of a breath, releases her hair and looks down at Rose’s eyes, where she finds some calming force.
“For today, can we just pretend that everything Conti related is off limits? I can handle trying to figre out what to do with you, or is it us? You know what I mean. I can handle figuring out my emotions, though it’s gonna take time and,”
I resist the urge to chuckle. She reminds me of when she first got asked out by a boy after Lene had passed and came home to Cobra and I and was near a panic, over a high school crush.
“Priest, take a breath, your rambling,” I cut her off.
She looks at me, a small smile at the corner of her lips, and says, “You know what I mean.”
And I do, so I keep driving, the natural silence between us as I let her get her head around this new world shift.
When we get to Misfits, the bar is technically closed as its somewhere between seven oclock and eight o’clock in the morning, but let’s be real, this is our bar, so Sage is waiting at the back entrance.
“I’ll just stay back here with Rosary,” Priest says when I stop the car. I hand her the keys to my SUV, and nod that she’s all good to get in.
I act like I don’t notice the way she slumps her shoulders as she walks to my vehicle, Rosary looking at her much like a mother trying to figure out what to do to make her sad child smile.
If only it were that easy Rose, I can’t help but think.
In the penthouse across town Priest raids Angel and I’s fridge without any sort of reservation, and I love that she’s comfortable enough in our space to do so. She comes and visits at least twice a week, enough that Angel had gotten Rosary a dogs bed and all the doggy comforts in life, because, well that’s just the kind of woman Angel is.
Our kitchen is all white and black with accents of teal and gold, another thing of Angels doing. I let the woman have her way in just about every aspect of our lives.
Rosary is ever-present, there was no reason nor anyway that Priest was going to leave her little pup at home, so she’s curled up in a ball in a corner of the penthouse.
I’m watching all of this from my gym room on the television set to our security cameras, mostly because I want to make sure Priest isn’t going to freak out about the kiss, or her new found dad, or her new responsibilities. But I’m not some creepy ass peeping tom. One, because this is my house, and two, I told Priest I was going to do this, and explained why.
She just laughs and shakes her head.
Angel walks in from the front door, wearing very little as she is getting home from a shift at the high end burlesque lounge that Cobra invested in. I watch as Angel doesn’t look up as she walks into the penthouse, and pulls off her high heels and lets one clunk to the floor.
“Hey Ang! You hungry?” Priest calls from the kitchen, head partially in the refrigerator.
I almost drop the bare bells I’m lifting watching the expression on Angel’s face at the sound of Priest voice. The shock is evident but so is the wonder.
Angel stops and stands still for a moment and then pops her head around the corner of the little foyer, as she says, “Priest? Yeah, I'm actually starving!”
Priest pulls her head out of the fridge to respond, “Good, cause I was hoping we could hang for a bit before I head to bed?”
At that Angel’s whole face lights up, her dark blue eyes shining against her pale skin. “Yes! I've been needing some Priest and Angel time!”
Priest chuckles as Angel pauses and looks contemplative, like she’s trying to figure out what’s missing, “Wait? Where's my man?”