SURRENDER - Mafia Romance

• CHAPTER 20 •

I woke up that day because of the air knocking on the windows of my room and the bright sun finding its way to my closed eyes. When I opened my eyes I saw the color of the tree started to change and some of the leaves were falling. I smiled. Fall was my favorite season. The colors and the weather are all magical. It was a time of warmness and quietness, as if the universe is warning us to appreciate it before it's gone. Or maybe my happiness created by yesterday reflected on my overjoy of fall.

I got out of bed, wanting to find Ace, wishing that he doesn't repeat the awkwardness after the kiss again. When I saw his room door still closed, I knocked on it.

"Come in," I heard him yell.

I opened the door to face his bare back. I gasped as soon as my eyes met his bare skin, realizing that it wasn't only his back that was naked. I quickly turned my eyes away but the image was stuck in my head. I bit my lip to not show my smile, hearing him laugh.

"What? You haven't seen boys naked before or what?"

I could hear him walk around the room, slow and steady.

"Sorry, I didn't know you're – uh," my voice became my enemy and showed exactly how the view affected me. "Why did you tell me to come in if you're..." I sighed.

"You can enjoy the view, love, I will pretend I don't notice you looking."

My heart skipped a beat and my throat got clogged. I wasn't sure what to say or do. I shook my head and got out. I went back to my room and sat in bed, trying to ease the embarrassment I just caused myself and ease the image that my brain can't let go of.

"I will wait for you downstairs, Ace." I shook my head and closed the door behind me. I stood there for a couple of seconds, trying to collect my thoughts on what had happened. I blinked a couple of times, shook my head and walked downstairs. The image of him standing there spinned my head.

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost, you know." Joe's voice brought me back on earth.

I chuckled, "I've seen worse." He took a seat next to me. "Ace is such a weird mix."

"What do you mean?"

I looked around making sure no one was listening, "we kissed yesterday."

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a yellow smile and shook his head.

"What? What is that smile?"

"No, nothing, it's just that it's weird, you know."

"What's weird? That we kissed?"

"Whatever he is doing."

"You don't think he wanted to kiss me, right?"

He stayed silent so I looked away.

"It's not that he didn't want to kiss you, but he isn't thinking the same way you are, you know? Like the kiss that you are so happy about is something he does on a daily basis."

I turned to Joe, angry at him but unable to say anything. Maybe because I was scared that he would prove it to me or maybe because I couldn't say anything because I knew the reality but didn't want to admit it.

"Talia," Ace called, "come to my office."

Joe looked back at me, shook his head, got up and walked away. I went to Ace's office and shut the door behind me. He was standing in front of his desk, putting some papers together. He didn't even look up at me.

"Didn't you want a job?"

I smiled, "you found me a job?"

"Sort of," he started to put the papers inside a document, ordering them, "I'm starting to get busy and sometimes, I can't keep up with what I have to do." He finally shut the document and looked up at me, killing every drop of excitement I had.