A few days later you were laying in bed, rubbing your still sore face when you heard the door open. Your stomach started to churn as your gut filled with dread. You saw the mop of curly blonde hair before you made out his face and ran across the room throwing your arms around him as tears started to pour.
Vinnie: *pulling back* “Hey, hey. What’s wrong? Wait- What happened to your face?”
You: “Please don’t leave again. I was so scared.”
Vinnie: *pointing towards the stairs* “Did he do that to your face???”
He pulled away taking off towards the exit and you felt instantly terrified of something happening that would take him away from you.
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You: “VINNIE!!”
Vinnie stopped dead in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs and spun around: “H- How do you know my name?”
It was obvious he was panicking and afraid so you approached him slowly and whispered: “The other guy called you by your name but I don’t think he realized it.”
Vinnie: “Oh god! It’s bad enough you’ve seen my face. Oh god!”
You reached up and pressed your palm to his chest and felt his heart rate slow down at your touch.
You: “I meant what I said. I will never tell anyone about any of this.”
Vinnie: “Why? Why would you protect me?”
You: “Once upon a time I really cared about someone and I wasn’t able to save them. I won’t make that mistake twice.”
Vinnie didn’t hesitate and lifted you up into his arms and pressed his lips against yours. The moment they touched yours, he started walking towards the wall. Your embrace stayed fused together as you felt the cold concrete against your back through the thin shirt you were wearing. You could feel his hands move from under your thighs to up your hips since the wall and his body were now supporting you.
The kiss grew more intense until you could hardly catch your breath. You knew you should stop him because every other time you’d gotten close to him it ended in you crying yourself to sleep, but you couldn’t help yourself. You would have given anything to make sure his hands kept digging against your skin and his lips continued to leave little burning patches of skin as they moved down sucking gently from ear to your neck.
Suddenly Chase’s face flashed into your head and you slowly slid your legs down until you were firmly on the ground. Vinnie moved to sit on the bed: “I- I’m sorry.”
You: “No no. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
You could see how overwhelmed by the emotions of the situation he was feeling and moved to sit next to him: “Remember how I told you that I lost someone I cared about?”
Vinnie nodded his head ready to really listen to whatever you had to say. You had learned in your 17 short years that THAT was a very rare trait in a man and a smile crossed your lips realizing you’d found 2 men that possessed it.
You: “He was my boyfriend. More than that… he was my first love.”
Vinnie: “Did he break your heart? Is that what you’re afraid of? Getting hurt?”
You: “He was the victim of the violence that comes with my father’s business.”
Vinnie stared blankly ahead as he realized what you meant by losing him. You hadn’t meant you’d simply broken up.
You: “Today would have been his 18th birthday…”
Vinnie reached his hand across to rub against your knee letting you know that he wanted you to talk to him.
You: “I really loved him. I thought we were going to be together forever. We were going to meet up late one night and I planned to tell him I wanted to run away with him and one of my fathers enemies showed up-”
You had been doing so well, but when you unlocked the memory of laying over his lifeless body soaked in his blood, willing him to keep breathing… you broke down into hysterical sobs. Vinnie didn’t waste a single second before pulling you into the tightest hug you’d ever felt. He caressed your hair and whispered into your ear: “Shhh… shhh. I’m right here. You’re okay.”
After he managed to calm you enough to stop the deep sobs, he laid you back onto the bed and covered you up. You still had tears streaming down your face from the incredibly traumatic memory so he reached across and gently tried wiping them away as fast as they fell. You relaxed into the numb state you’d spent the 3 weeks after losing Chase in and Vinnie started to walk towards the stairs to give you space.
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You: “Wait… Will you lay with me until I fall asleep?”
*AUTHOR'S NOTE: The two question about this story I get the most on this are how does she fall for him if she's not over Chase? Also how could someone ever feel safe with their literal kidnapper. To answer the FIRST, my favorite part of writing is diving into complex relationships whether it be siblings, friends, parents, boys, enemies, bullies, etc. Often times you fall out of love with one person before/during falling for the next. Death complicates that a lotbecausethere was never a fallingout or closure. Just it stopped existing but their memory was never tainted so while yes you may find love again it will be a process letting go. SECOND, It's important to remember the girl was born into a m9b family so her values are going to be different than what we find black and white; right and wrong. She can reconcile how doing bad thingsdoesn't equate being bad yourself more than you or I could. Look at Bryce he basically has the same role. He is a guard who has probably hurt a lot of people yet she adores him because how he cares for her like a big brother. Same with Vinnie. It's easy to fall for him because how gently in kind he acts and becausehe's just working for the person who kidnapped her keeping her guarded but has always been lovingtowards her. You or I may not have been able to separate the two but because of how she was raised it comes naturally to her. Always feel free to ask questions in comments 😘
