“I’m still me,” she whispered, feline eyes rising to meet mine in the mirror. “I’m still the woman who belongs next to you.”
“Are you sure about that,bella?”
Her cheeks turned red, and she shook her head. “Rosaria Caffi calls mebella,” she said as way of an explanation.
I nodded once and said nothing more.
Two weeks passed with an intensity that bordered on insane, but some hours seemed never ending, when I couldn’t seem to put two and two together. Before I was ready, it was time to go.
She sat on the bed, staring down at her hands.
I stood by the door, bags ready.
“No unnecessary chances, Fausti,” she whispered.
“Scarlett.”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“You’re the only reason I break the surface.”
She nodded once and I picked up my bags and left.
* * *
I started to feel like an animal locked in a cage. The rig seemed too confining, the workers closing in everywhere I went. Not even under the water did I feel free.
The only time I felt an ounce of release was when I was working out, sweating to the point that afterwards I looked like I had taken a hot bath. But even that brought only temporary relief. It wasn’t much of an outlet for me, but it kept the rest of the world safe.
Mitch found me breathing heavy, sweat dripping from my head like a sieve. He picked up the exercise ball and flung it at my stomach. It hit me and bounced back to him.
“Yo, yo, yo, put down the weight, Italian Marky Mark,” he laughed. “I need a word. Besides. You need to chill out. You're making the rest of us look pathetic.”
I wiped my head and neck down with a towel. I took a gulp of room temperature water. “I need to keep up appearances. I have a famous wife.”
“Why do I detect a bit of snarl in that comment? What the fuck is going on with you, Fausti?”
He followed me around until we finally settled in a quiet area outside. He wasn’t going to leave me alone. He was either going to try to coax it out of me or egg me toward a fight. I didn’t know which I wanted more. But I couldn’t fight him, not then. There was too much aggression inside of me and he wasn’t an even competitor.
I wasn’t a man wired to share. Only one person was allowed inside of my mind and my heart, and I wasn't even positive that I had given her permission. She slipped in somehow, finding a chink in my armor. The thought of sharing with Mitch rubbed me the wrong way, but the outlet was there, and I considered taking it before my top exploded.
The sun was starting to rise over the water, flaming red and gold mixed in with navy blue. The Gulf was still dark, and the red that shimmered over it looked like a mermaid’s tail.
“You’ve been pissy to everyone and you hardly say a word. Is it that time of the month?”
I took a longer drink of water. He handed me a mandarin and opened up a bag of sunflower seeds. He put one in his mouth and then spit the shell over the railing. I threw the orange peel over and the wind took it before it disappeared.
“You can trust me, Fausti.” He spit out another shell. “Yeah. All right. I know what’s between Mick and me. I’m not denying that. But it’s different, even if you refuse to believe me.I loved her first. Me.” He pointed to his chest, and then sighed. “I’m not Elliott, and I’ll never try to be. You two were as thick as thieves. But hey, I’ve been around just as long. I’d take a bullet for you.”
“Yeah,” I said, the tang of the fruit touching my tongue. A seed came with it and I flipped it around for a minute before spitting it out. “I know you would.”
“Then let’s be straight. You need to tell me why in the FUCK,” he shouted, “you keep going to see him.”
“You know about that.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the swish and sway of the water. It was becoming almost hypnotic.
“It’s hard not to. You’re not you after. But it started before then—after you got back from Italy.”
I finished off the last of the mandarin. I slipped a picture out of my pocket and handed it to him. He studied it for a moment.
