Thorns & Roses

-forty two: epilogue. pt 2-

ELIAS MOORE

Valentina went to Diamonds a couple hours after I showed her the board. I walked into my office to see Nathaniel sitting at my desk with a blunt in his mouth. "Yo." He said, handing it to me. I took it and took a hit before handing it back to him.

"V and I set a date for the wedding, it's on July 8th." He smiled tiredly.

"She liked the board then?"

"She did."

"Good because you spent too damn long worrying about that whole plan to show her it." He laughed and I shook my head at him. "You know, I remember when you told us you had realise you loved her."

-

I sat at the kitchen counter with a bottle in my hand, staring off into space, just thinking about V.

"Hijo, what's wrong?" Mama asked. I look up seeing her and Nathaniel, looking at me worriedly.

"Nothing, I'm just thinking."

"Penny for your thoughts, brother?" Nathaniel said as he sat down beside me.

"For the past couple of days V has just been there for me so much. I mean I woke up and held a gun to her head-"

"You weren't yourself, hijo, you were still in a haze from your dream about your father."

"I know but that would've been enough for anyone to leave. But she didn't - she stayed and she took care of me. When I went to Mom's grave I was just talking about Valentina and I realised I love her. I love her so fucking much. What she done for me recently just made me love her even more and I didn't even realise that was possible. And-"

I turned my head up to look at Mama with her hand out and Nathaniel took out his wallet, taking out all the notes he had. He pulled out a couple hundred dollar bills and put them in her hand, making her grin widen.

"I'll give you the rest later." He mumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry, did I miss something? What are y'all doing?" I asked in confusion.

"We made a bet a week after Aurora first came here."

"And I won." Mama said happily, waving the money in Nathaniel face.

"You made a bet on me?"

"If you fell in love within ten months of her being here then Nate would have to give me $5000 but if you didn't then I would have to give it to him."

"Seriously?" They both nodded.

"I mean, it started off with $500 but Nate was so confident and started boasting, saying I should start getting his money ready because he was going to win."

"Then my dumbass said we should multiply it by ten so now I'm down $5000." I shook my head at the both of them.

"Well, Nathaniel, you better go and get Mama her money." I called out, laughing at him as I walked out.

-

"Your face when you realised you had just lost all that money to Mama was hilarious." We both laughed and sat in a comfortable silence for a while. "Hey, Nate, I have to ask you something." He froze and stood up from the seat.

"Ok, that's really weird, you never call me Nate. Why did you call me that, it's always been Nathaniel from you. Wait, did someone die, who died?" He asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, no one's dead. I do call you Nate."

"You don't, you never have. Since we were kids you've called me Nathaniel. Even when we went to Italy for Alessia and I was dying you still called me Nathaniel."