Page 122 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
When I finally get close enough, I cup her face in my hands. “Are you really real, Mina? Are you really here right now?”
“Yes, Brian. I’m here. I’m so sorry. I was afraid if I did anything else, we’d both end up dead.”
I press a kiss to her forehead, smearing the blood from the old man. “No, you did the right thing. Smart. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
I pepper kisses over her face as I tell her over and over the words I should have told her a long time ago, the words I thought I wouldn’t have the chance to say. The only real deep feeling for anyone I can feel.
Her corset has the hooks in the front, and I carefully unhook it, to reveal the Kevlar and the embedded and flattened bullet. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“I think I have a bruise,” she says.
“Where did this come from?”
“The Kevlar factory,” she snarks.
“You know what I mean.”
“You told me to pack extra vests. Remember?”
I don’t remember, but that sounds like me. I don’t bother telling her that I’m not actually wearing Kevlar right now. She’d fucking kill me. And I try not to let my mind spiral… to think about how careless I was with my own life when I thought she was gone. What if I, unprotected and stupid, had died and left her here to mourn me?
But I just hold her in my arms as we sway back and forth. “I love you,” I sigh into her hair.
“Hey…” she finally says.
“Yeah?”
“You know what we need to do right now?”
“What’s that?”
“I mean… if youreallylove me…”
“Mina…” I growl, already not liking where this is headed.
She pulls out of my arms and crosses the diner. She bends over right next to the jukebox, giving me a delightful view of her leather-clad ass, and then she picks up the quarter from the floor and slides it into the coin slot.
Against all odds, the machine actually lights up. She flips through the selections until she’s finally found what she’s looking for. And I know exactly what she’s looking for.
A moment later Frank Sinatra’s voice begins to croon outMy Funny Valentine. Mina crooks a finger at me. “You have to…”
I let out a long, slow sigh. This diner is completely destroyed, littered with shattered glass, weapons, blood, and dead bodies. She’s right. We have to. I cross to her and take her in my arms and we slow dance.
“I love you,” I say again.
“I love you, too,” she says.
And then we kiss under the giant pink and red paper hearts riddled with bullet holes.
epilogue
MINA
Six days later.
I just killed Brian Sloan. He lies sprawled in a pool of blood, holding his still beating heart. Okay, it’s not actually still beating, and it came out of a guy we just killed lying a few feet away.
“That camera angle will never work. And you’re standing in your own light,” Brian says.
