Stephen (Tainted Love #1)

Part 2|Chapter 3| STEPHEN

Alessa

As promised, Stephen almost spends the entire day with me. For the last 2 weeks, he's been picking me up from my house and drops me off at my college. He's also been trying to be comfortable and friendly with Xavier. Not because he wants to, but because I told him to be comfortable around the people I am friends with. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud when Stephen and Xavier first met. Stephen is never that kinda guy who would want to be close with a college going student. He was so embarrassed and hesitate to talk. On the other hand, Xavier tried to lighten up the mood. I told Xavier about Stephen beforehand, leaving the part that Stephen is a mafia boss who's Job is to kill people and broaden his territory. I just lied that he used to be my boyfriend and we broke up and now he's trying to make it up to me.

Though Stephen doesn't really like talking, they've been enough close these days. They've exchanged their numbers and sometimes Stephen picks up Xavier before he comes to pick me up so that we three could spend enough time together.

Two days ago, we went to an amusement park which is not so big but enough for this small town. Xavier and I spend lots of time in different rides. Stephen didn't join us in those. He just stood there and babysit me and Xavier the entire time. Xavier practically grabbed Stephen and dragged him to ride the fairy wheel with us. Stephen looked at me for help with pleading eyes. All I did was stick my tongue out and laughed at their childish behaviour. Seeing no other way left, Stephen rolled his eyes, sighed and joined us at the end.

The entire time we were on fairy wheel, Xavier and me enjoyed the view of the little town as much as possible. Xavier showed me the little details of the town from the height, where he grew up, when he used to play with his friends when he was young.

When I looked at Stephen, most of the time he was busy on his phone, his eyebrows frowned. He looked stressed out but still tried to spend enough time with us.

I understood. He has left his mafia business behind to spend time with me. His job considers tremendous amount of work with less freedom than one might expect. Which makes it worse for him because he is in a position where it requires a great deal of skill and responsibility. The skill being both killing people and charming a person at a moment’s notice.

I insisted him to go back to his place, that it's not easy for me to forgive him, not at this point though now I doubt myself.

But Stephen made sure that he not only wants my forgiveness, but also he wants to spend enough time with me. He said he wants to get to know me and wants me to know him more closely.

He told me about his business, how he handles all his men, how he had to be aware 24/7 and be ready for war with opposition territory anytime. He told me how less he slept at night when he was at his home and that being in this town makes it a little vacation for him. He mentioned that he always wanted to go on vacations where he didn't have to worry about anything, he wanted to forget everything for once and live his life like any normal human being. But it's impossible for him. He said how he was so uninterested in becoming a mafia boss but he was forced by his father to do stuff like that. Though he wasn't really open about his past.

And I never forced him to talk about his life either. He spoke and I listened. I've seen a lot of change in Stephen. He looks so normal now. He's not moody anymore. I'm sure no one can see the darkness around him the way I still see it. Maybe because I've seen the worse of him. I've seen his hands and clothes flooded with blood, sometimes his own blood, sometimes with others. But no one saw it, they don't know what Stephen is hiding behind. He's really good at hiding. I wonder what more he's been hiding from me.

Now, I'm walking down the road. It's almost 8 pm. And Stephen is silently walking beside me. He agreed to accompany me to the library today. I was silently reading there, meanwhile Stephen was busy on his phone, sometimes he walked around the place, going through the books and girls stared at his ass the entire time. I could tell Stephen knew what he was doing to the girls. I narrowed my eyes at him, silently scolding him for distracting people but he just laughed without noise, shrugged, silently telling me "It is not my fault that I was born this beautiful." Arrogant ass. Though it's true. But I don't tell him.