Oh My Gangster
Part Fourteen
Luca
"Luca, you're not dead yet...you lucky fucker?" He laughed. Eddie’s smooth, confident voice drifted from the air behind me and I felt relief overcome me, Josh on the other hand stood tall, stoic and stubborn.
"So, this is your last resort, your back up side boyfriend?" A half smile rises briefly to my lips at the use of the phrase ‘last resort’ It sounds like a holiday destination for people too broke to afford a real trip abroad, like Benidorm for the dejected, or Mallorca for the clinically depressed. "Where's the other one?" Asked Josh looking in Eddies direction. Of course Eddie being Eddie he just grins at him and I saw the fear in Josh's eyes. Silence is extremely scary.
"I'm here." I held my breath as I held myself. Mile's
His smell.
His Voice.
His broken voice.
The feeling of terror went through me. Knowing I probably made Mile's cry, yet had to have the strength of a man to deal with what I had done to him this morning, leaving him alone, making the wrong choice, when I should've been keeping us both breathing.
The whole thing was so ridiculous I just wanted to laugh. Or cry. Well, okay, maybe not the crying thing because I’d learned a long time ago that tears never got you anywhere. If anything, they just gave people more power over you. Yet I cried in front of Mile's, he let me be real and I let him down.
"Here's the bitch…" I’d let the white-hot anger inside me off its leash and I’d punched the son of a bitch as hard as I could. If that hadn’t been bad enough, I’d actually forgotten how the game was played and I’d let the fucker see what he’d done to me. "Fuck!" He screamed holding his face. "I...I'm gonna scream for the others, then you're fucked!" Mile's walked past me and stood over Josh. The silence deafening. He just stood there, looking down at him. I turned and looked at Eddie, he smiled at me and nodded towards Josh and Miles. "What!" Josh started. Mile's didn't budge.
"Josh," Miles spoke quietly. "You were my friend, but now...you're nothing and do you know what happens when you become nothing?"
"Fuck you!" He spat.
"Nothing becomes dust. Your dust, Josh. Filthy nasty dust," I watched Mile's lean in a little closer. My beautiful guy had become a real man right in front of my eyes and I knew, I knew I no longer needed to worry. "If you ever….fucking come near me or Luca, you won't get a second chance...do you understand?" Josh must have seen something in Miles' eyes because fear rocked him and he scuttled backwards until his back hit a wall. "The guy's, are gone Josh. You are now truly alone," Miles laughs and looks over at me then back to Josh. "Enjoy your life." And he walked away from him towards me. Confidence flowed off him in waves. "Hey, idiot." The cocky brat is still there though.
"I'm sorry."
"Let's just go, come on Eddie." He said. When the fuck did Miles become our boss. I chuckled, although my jaw was on fire, my hand too. I couldn't help but find the humor in the moment. "We need to get you fixed up, right?" I closed my eyes, forgetting the pain and saw Miles. He became my hero. No, that's wrong. He's always been my hero.
Oh My Gangster
I finally found the courage to speak to my father about who I am and where I want to be. He took it rather well and for a moment during the meeting I was waiting for that bullet, I was waiting for him to say I'm joking you faggot, now die. But he didn't, he stood up from his desk and walked around to where I was sitting and tapped my shoulder, then said something I thought a man of his caliber would never say. "You're my son, all I ever wanted was to see you happy and smiling, like your mother did." And he left. I walked out of his office and I said goodbye, for the last time because I was never coming back, I had someone waiting for me.
"Luca, how good does this feel?" Asked Mile's sipping at his rather colorful cocktail. "Perfect." He turns to look at me from his beach lounger.
"You okay?" I nod and hold up my drink, he turns away. "Hey, look at the sun." I did. "If we keep following that sun we will see even more wonderful things."
"Then let's keep following it."
"Yeah." I stared at the sun setting down for the night and snorted a little. I’d walked away from everything, declaring myself the victor before anyone else could. I reached up to run my hand through my hair but caught myself at the last second. Instead, I dropped it and ran my fingers over the bruised knuckles that were now a dark, ugly-looking purple color, a reminder of my stupidity, but a reminder that Mile's came and saved my ass. I smiled to myself as I realized how big mine and Miles' world had grown in the weeks since I’d encountered a terrified young man afraid to dream too big. If I had my way, and I would have my way, that would be a feeling he’d never know again. I was pretending to be at the top of everything while he was struggling at the bottom. Never again will I ever let him feel hopeless or not know where his next day may take him or if he will survive it at all.
"Hey big boy, what cha thinking?" I couldn’t contain my laugh. I noticed Mile's giggling too, and I turned to smile at him. He gestured for me to be next to him, and I wasted no time in crawling over towards him. "Better." he said, tucking himself up against my side and leaning his head on my chest.
"Much better." It went silent, both sticky from the day's heat, that had started to drop as night set in and the sky fill with billions of stars. Finally, no hiding. Finally, no worrying. Finally, just me and him being as free as we can both be. Leaving behind the lives we tried so hard to keep a tight grip on, lives that simply didn't fit us, but this life, laying on a tropical beach, fits us perfectly. I wouldn't ever change a damn thing.
The End.
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