Quinny mock-cringes away from me. She’s wearing her construction gear, hi-vis vest and unapologetically short blonde hair, narrowing her eyes with a vicious grin on her face. She’s awesome, too. “You’re right, it’s the zombie apocalypse. We’re doomed.”
“Ha. Ha. I need cereal. Somebody get me cereal. Stat.”
“You heard the woman!” Zora cries, grabbing the box of Cap’n Crunch and filling the bowl they’ve already prepared for me.
“Stat!” Quinny adds, as she pours the milk. “And your spoon, m’lady.”
I take the offered spoon and just about have enough energy for a mouthful. Even chewing makes me sleepy.
“Long night?” Zora asks. “Because, no offense, you look like shit.”
I smile wanly. “That makes sense. I look how I feel.”
Quinny shakes her head and grumbles, “Way to depress the shit out of me before what already promises to be a depressing as hell day, sis. Like, good job.”
I hold my hands up in defeat. “Next time you pull a twelve-hour shift, I’m gonna be waiting right here to welcome you home. Then you’ll get an idea of how few fucks I give right now.”
Zora narrows her eyes in concern. “Seriously, if you wanna talk about it …”
I shake my head. Even that makes me want to collapse into my cereal. “It’s okay. Nothing to worry about.” I stand up and drag myself toward the bedroom. “Have a good day at work, girls. I need to zombify for a few hours before my afternoon shift.”
“They’re working you like a dog, Dani,” Quinny says.
“Yep,” I agree. “But it’s bad out there. If I don’t go in, and they can’t find somebody to cover me, and someone’s sister or son is OD’ing …” I shrug. “G’night—I mean, morning.”
Zora tips an imaginary hat. “This city is forever in your service.”
I barely manage to find my bed before I collapse into it face-first, still fully clothed. The last thing I see when I close my eyes is Wyatt, smiling as he performs a back handspring, winking at me mid-leap.
3
Angelo
The next day, I’m at the hospital with Levi. I can tell that Levi is worried even if he’s trying hard not to show it as we walk down the hallway. We sign into the visitors’ list and then enter his mother’s room.
I hate hospitals, but I like his mother and I’m not about to make Levi visit here alone, even if he’d never outright ask me to come with him.
Madolina is sitting up in bed, knitting. She lays it aside and turns to us.
Her diabetes has given her hypoglycemia, which in turn made her so lightheaded this morning that she collapsed outside and laid for two hours before a pedestrian found her. She almost froze in New York’s autumn ice. It will be December soon, deep winter. If she had fallen then … Levi and I exchange a look. We don’t want to think about that.
She waves a hand, rosary beads clicking. She is thin and old and yet still pretty, with brown eyes and bronzed leathery skin. She always smells like good wine and garlic, even now. “Your worry is deafening,” she mutters.
“It’s hard not to worry, Ma,” Levi says. He adjusts his gold watch and tugs at his wispy mustache. I’ve seen him do that many times: before fights, before deals, before a date with a woman who was driving him crazy. Even as a young boy, before he grew hair there, he would tug at his upper lip anxiously. “If the mailman hadn’t found you—”
“But, grazie Dio, he did. And now I am here. I feel as fresh as I did at forty.”
Levi stops fooling around with his mustache. He sighs. The pain he feels is evident. I have seen this man face down thugs twice his size without blinking an eye, but now he can’t sit still. His hands fiddle with each other. He keeps glancing around the room, gaze unwilling to settle.
“You know what I’m going to say, Ma—”
Madolina grips her rosary beads with both hands now, her knuckles turning white. “Don’t mention the nursing home, son,” she hisses.
I’m already standing up. I have no desire to get between these two wolves. And make no mistake: Madolina may be an old woman, but she still has fangs.
“Who wants coffee?” I ask, knowing exactly where this is heading. They will start good-naturedly enough, but soon they’ll be snapping at each other. I have no interest in being involved in a domestic dispute.
“Yes,” Levi mutters.
“Grazie, Angelo,” Madolina says.
I take my time walking down the hallway. They’ll be at it for at least ten minutes, bickering back and forth. Madolina will insist she’s healthy despite her fall. Levi will argue. Madolina will win. That woman would rather die than be put in a home.
My parents will probably be the same way. My mother is every bit as stubborn as Levi’s, and my father is no better. The thought of him re-ignites the fury that had only just begun to cool in my chest. Walking these sterile halls, I realize I’m clenching my fists. My jaw is aching from where I’m biting down in irritation as I remember the dock and how Father blamed the baking powder fiasco on me.
And his plan for me? Marriage? He must see the foolishness in forcing me to do something like that. He must know that I’m not made to give myself to a woman in that way. Maybe when I’m thirty-five, or forty—or one hundred.
I think idly of the girls I’ve had this year alone. Too many to count—faceless club girls, fun in the night and gone in the morning, each as interchangeable as the last. I am Angelo De Maggio. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do wives. And I sure as fuck do not do children.
I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t see the girl until we collide.
Her body bounces off of mine and a soft “Oh!” cascades from her mouth. We separate, startled, and it takes a moment to regain my balance. In shock, we stare at each other for a moment, dumbly silent.
I notice her eyes first, a fierce blue, and then the shape of her face. Her cheekbones are high and regal and yet there’s this twist to her mouth that says something along the lines of, Back off. Her deep brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, but wisps have come loose.
“I think this is the part where you say sorry,” she snaps.
I incline my head. “I have often had strange thoughts, too.”
She almost smiles for just a second, before she reins it in and scowls once more. “So just so I’ve got this straight,” she says. “You’re gonna press me up against the wall like a perv, stare at me like a perv, and then, when you do finally back off, you’re not going to apologize? You must be a perv, then.”
I move an inch closer. She doesn’t try to stop me. Her eyes roam me up and down. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. I sense the lust in her, the same lust running through me. The hallway is quiet now. There are no eyes on us.
“It seems you are as perceptive as you are beautiful, mia signorina,” I say, putting on a purposefully corny voice. I love watching her squirm. She looks like she likes it, but also like she’s trying not to.
She rolls her eyes, but she has to fight to suppress her smile. I’m moving closer. Neither of us acknowledges it. “Gross. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. You’ve got to be kidding, right? You’re gonna try and seduce me here?”