Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

I pick up my lychee martini and clink it gently against hers, looking her dead in the eyes. “I’m sorry. Honestly.”

She takes a sip as I take mine. “It’s fine. I’m just teasing you. You’re getting the D you’ve always needed. Hey, I get it.”

I nearly choke on the drink. If only she knew what kind of dick I was actually getting. Sex with Vicente is about as wild, adventurous and dirty as it gets.

I give her a look. “No, you definitely don’t get it.”

“You’re right,” she says. “I’m pretending. But I can and will tell you that Vicente is a fine looking man. Even I turned into a heart-eyed emoji when I saw him.”

I roll my eyes. “You were borderline rude, Ginny.”

She shrugs. “Whatever. You were keeping me in the dark, after all that talk about getting you laid.” She scans the stage. “Where’s my girl at?”

We’re at a cabaret turned open mic show in the Castro. Normally I find these shows delightfully colorful yet a little too loud for my ears. But Ginny’s girlfriend Tamara is the MC and so I’m here for support.

And yeah, I’ve been a shitty friend. Ever since I met Vicente I’ve ignored Ginny and everything else around me, including school. I’m way behind in everything and the terrifying thing is…

I don’t care.

It’s been two weeks since I met Vicente and the hold he has on me is only growing stronger. I can’t get enough of him. He occupies my thoughts, my body, my heartbeat.

The sex, that dirty crazy sex, has been amazing.

Incredible.

And constant.

I’m actually a bit afraid.

The edge is in sight, clear as day, and I can see myself going over it.

Maybe just to see what it’s like to fly.

But like my fears of walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, the fall scares me. Those moments of life flashing past you, knowing it’s all going to end.

Because that’s what happens in these kinds of relationships, right?

It has to end.

Only the lucky keep going.

As rock god Josh Homme once said, it’s called falling in love because you hit the ground.

“So, are you in love yet?” Ginny asks, hammering the nail on the head, like I’m so easy to read.

Love.

Just the sound of the word is terrifying.

I try and swallow but my throat feels too thick.

I can only shake my head.

No. Not love.

It’s too soon. Those are the rules.

But the truth is, as much it scares me, I’m desperate for it.

I want to fall in love. Roll around it. Wrap it up and wear it until it’s tattered and torn. I want to be reckless with it and baby it and let it define me.

I’m mad.

This is madness.

Utter chaos of the heart.

A herd of horses in the soul.

Ever since he said I should run away with him, leave my family behind and all the lies and nonsense, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. And the crazy thing is, I think going with him might be the right thing to do.

I mean, it’s the wrong thing to do…my parents paid a lot for my school and as much as I’m not concentrating on it right now and as much as I kind of hate them at the moment, I don’t want to do that to them. It would be the epitome of being ungrateful and I’m truly not.

But the little voice inside my head, like a chirping bird calling and calling and calling for something, that voice won’t go away. I just want to be with Vicente. I just want to shut ourselves away in a place where we’re the only thing that exists.

“No, huh? Mmmm, you just wait,” Ginny says, her eyes glued to the stage as Tamara, in a sparkling blue jumpsuit that sets off her black skin, introduces the next performer. “You’ll be unable to stop thinking the word. Then you’ll make excuses for it. Either way, you’re doomed. Once love starts, it’s impossible to stop. You’ll make them your whole world.” Her voice drifts off, nearly disappearing in the raucous cries of the crowd. “Your whole fucking world.”

I wish I didn’t relate. My heart is so much more sensitive than it should be. How can I trust that what I feel is real? How do I know it’s not just me pulling a Violet, being hyper-sensitive? For crying out loud, my heart fucking cries and bleeds when I accidently kill a bee.

There are no answers. I have no past to navigate by. The boyfriends I had I thought I loved at the time, but in comparison to Vicente, I realize that they were just comfort and crushes. There was none of that tear your hair out, tear your clothes off, I have to be with you now and all the time and always. That just didn’t exist before him.

It was a whole other life before him.

One where I was drowning and didn’t even know it.

Vicente’s mouth against mine is a lungful of oxygen, his body a life raft. He might be the only thing saving me lately.

Ben still hasn’t confronted our parents. To be fair, it’s been a week since he found out about Sophia Madano and he’s been at school in Santa Cruz. I haven’t seen him or talked to him since – my texts have gone unanswered, which isn’t unusual when I know he has exams.

I’ve just been trying to get by, trying to ignore it. Without talking to Ben, there’s only so much I can do, so much I can think. I don’t want my imagination to run away on me without knowing all the facts, the facts that either he or my parents should provide. Until then though, there’s that perturbed feeling of knowing nothing at all.

And then there’s Vicente himself.

I want to chalk it up to paranoia, but I swear he’s pulling away, just a bit.

It’s nothing he’s done or said to me. Just what I’m observing when he thinks I’m not looking. The way his eyes drift off into space, the flashes of pain in them, some inner torment that he has to face. How in the middle of the night he’ll wake up from nightmares he won’t tell me about. Nightmares that have him saying “Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento” over and over again.

He’s sorry about something. Whatever it is, I want to know about it so I can take it away from him. Set him free.

Maybe it will set us both free.