“No.” I sighed. “It doesn’t. But it will.”
She said nothing for a minute or two. She refused to meet my eye.
“Scarlett.”
“Hm?” She looked up, finally acknowledging me.
“Tell me where home is, baby.”
A few heartbeats went by before she answered.
“Wherever we are together.”
“Together, we make our world whatever we want it to be. You are my world. For better or for worse—” I repeated our vows.
She bit her lip and nodded. “And you’re mine.” Then she repeated the same vows back to me.
Rushing into my arms, she buried her face in my chest, and I held her tight.
The kids came in a few minutes later, followed by the dogs. Two guards stood by the door, watching. Scarlett and I held together, facing our family.
“I guess I better start dinner,” Scarlett said, attempting to pull away from me, but I refused to let her go.
“Tonight’s Friday,” I said. “No cooking.”
Everyone but Marciano and the dogs gave me a curious look. Marciano was too busy taking his sister’s hand and slapping himself in the head with it.
“Friday?” Scarlett looked up at me, the look still on her face.
“Wash up,” I said in Italian, waving a hand toward the bathrooms. Then I switched to English. “We’re going out to eat at the diner.”
* * *
The diner provedto be an experience for the entire family.
Even more so for the diners around us.
Our children were used to speaking in Italian, among other languages, and their hand gestures alone had most eyes on us.
Matteo was the quietest of our table, brooding over his cheeseburger and fries, picking at them like they were too lowly for him to eat. Though he did. Even though Luca had what he had, he never allowed food to be wasted. He said it was a sin, since so many people went without.
A few people we knew from town stopped to talk, mostly asking if we were home to stay. Each time we answered “indefinitely,” Matteo made a face like we had slapped him across it.
The most notable moment of the evening came when the sheriff walked in with his wife and children. The sheriff and Jane—I’d never forget a name or fuck it up when the person it belonged to tried to have my wife killed—had been busy in our absence. They had built a family too. Four children, around the same ages as our children.
The oldest, a red-haired girl with freckles, seemed to be around the same age as Mia. The rest were boys. The first two boys seemed to have more of an age difference than ours, but the younger two seemed closer.
All of them were stout with fire-red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Jane’s father had been in prison with Luca, and if he was not aware, he had four doppelgängers walking the earth. His grandchildren. Judging by the swell of Jane’s stomach, another Stone would be making his/her way into the world soon.
The sheriff nodded at me, and I nodded back.
The children eyed each other as children do. Matteo, not finding anything particularly striking about the family, went back to shoving his fries around with his other fry. I didn’t miss the fire in my wife’s eyes, though, every time Jane glanced at our table.
Our last visit had gone down in the history books, and more strife between my family and the Stones had been inked in blood for generations to come to read about.
To prove this point, right before I paid the check and we left, the Stones rose to leave. Holding his youngest son—mine sat on my lap—the sheriff stopped at our table.
Scarlett squeezed my thigh on the sly, her meaning clear.Tread lightly.
