What was I supposed to do with this information?
Was it Ben that brought back feelings of his brother that made me feel so…different?
Or was it the fact that Aniello had been here, and there was nothing that stood between us but an open door? It was as if the law that would kill us both if either of us crossed the line didn’t exist.
Why was I even taking Aniello into consideration? Because he’d said my name? He hardly looked at me. Spoke to me. But the crush I had on him was strong, and I couldn’t deny the pull when he was around. That was all it had to be with him. A crush. A strong attraction. My body wanted to know how his tasted. It was just a desire made stronger by the fact that he was forbidden.
That was what people said, right? You always want what you can’t have?
Cilla laughed when the woman being chased by the killer with a knife fell. “They always fall. It’s cliché. Someone needs to give these chicks sensible shoes and see how that works out for them. Plot twist!” Then she shook her head when the killer plunged the blade into the woman’s heart. “Yeah, men know the spot. Right in the ticker. What did I tell you, though? Dead chick.”
I closed my eyes to all the blood. “Maybe we should watch a romantic comedy,” I said. “All of this blood is making me weak.”
“Agreed,” she said, and I opened my eyes when the voices from the movie stopped. Cilla had the remote pointed at the television, searching through more movies, back to the romantic comedy section. “We’d do better watching a chick flick, because horror is only a reminder of the real ‘love’ stories we get in this life. Even fairytales are tainted with death.”
She held up her ice cream carton, and I grabbed mine, setting it next to hers.
“Here’s to sweet love stories we’ll never experience,amica, and hoping we don’t end up like the chicks with insensible shoes who never see the bloody end coming.”
7
Rosalia
It had been a week since I’d heard from Ben Dalton. Call me traditional, but I felt the guy should make the first move, especially after he said he would.
It had been the same amount of time since I’d seen Aniello. When he’d showed up at my place to let me know no visitors were allowed. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be gone for long stretches of time, but this time, it seemed like the days dragged without him. Like I only went to work because I wanted to see him. And at the end of my shift, when he hadn’t walked through the doors, my heart sank and never seemed to recover. I felt hollowed out to my core.
It was almost insufferable, being around all those women, going on and on about the summer charity event that Club D was planning. It was a front for the business to make money, but for the women bosses, like me, it was an excuse to choose a theme, with Big Bismo’s approval, and plan an extravagant party.
What irritated me the most, though, was what Cilla had brought up to me the night we’d stayed up and watched movies. My moods, and I started noticing them.
She was right.
Most of the time, I didn’t say much and kept my head down. I existed, whereas it seemed like the entire world around me was living. Because if I set the night that I felt…breathless, excited, alive…against the rest of my life, it was like setting hot pink next to a dull color.
It couldn’t be ignored.
Call me fucking selfish, but I wanted to feel that surge of life again, outside of a place that always felt like it entombed me. I was sick of the disease and ready for the cure. So when Ben finally called and asked me to meet him at a traveling festival that was in town for the summer, I agreed.
On my days off, I usually volunteered at the local animal shelter, but I figured I could make it up on my second day off. I thought it would be fun for Cilla too. It would be something different for us to do.
Cilla had started to come with me to the shelter not long after she settled in, but after she found a weekend market where vendors set up booths to sell whatever they made, she started going there instead. Maybe a change in our routine, in scenery, would help us both.
Her voice carried throughout the condo, and I knew after she got off the phone that she was going to be in a bad mood, which made the festival seem like an even better idea. Talking to her mom about wedding plans always made her upset. It always seemed like her mom did all the talking, while she sat on the other line, a pencil in her hand and a notebook in front of her, doodling. She only said things like, “It doesn’t matter,” “I really don’t care,” “Whatever you want,” “My groom can go—” and that was usually when the conversation ended.
She’d marked up an entire page by the time I met her in the kitchen and the call had ended. “Fuck The Organization” was in bold on the page, and she’d colored it in red. She’d drawn a hand giving the finger next to it. What seemed like blood smears were here and there.
“I think you should stick with shows,” I said, nodding toward the page. “Your hand looks like five turkey feathers.”
She didn’t say anything. She just kept drawing.
I sighed and went to the fridge. I made us each a chicken salad sandwich and pulled out two cans of a blood-orange flavored Italian sparkling drink. I slid her plate and drink toward her, since she was sitting at the bar, and stood across from her on the kitchen side. Bambina sat by my feet, looking up at me, waiting for something to fall.
Cilla picked at her sandwich while I ate mine. After a few minutes of brooding silence, she looked at me.
“How am I supposed to marry someone I hate?”
I set the can down. “Is he that bad?”
