My old man sighed. “Said there wasn’t anything he could do about love indigestion. I had to cure that one myself.”
I grinned and popped one in my mouth. “That’s fucking terrible.” I shook my head. “Tastes like I just took a bite out of chalk.”
“You get used to it,” my old man said, and then his eyes softened when he scanned his property.
The house on Snow was his pride and joy. He’d bought it for mamma when they were much younger. She was still in high school. He fixed it up with his own two hands and worked offshore to keep it. He’d refused money from the Fausti family, demanding to stand on his own two feet before he’d even step foot on one of their properties. By the time my sister, me, and my brothers came along, our parents had been sucked into that life. They made the best of it though.
My old man stood to his full height and nodded toward a tree. “Star magnolia, or Magnolia stellata. One of mamma’s favorite trees when it blooms.” He used his arm to wipe a bead of sweat from his head. “Besides roses, she’s always loved magnolias. Gardenias too. She loves the smell of them. Says the heat seduces them to smell like that.”
Whenever my old man talked about mamma, he always looked so in love and so proud. She was the honor of his life. It made me proud to call him father. All my life, he raised me to be a man. And Stella made me into one when she took her place next to me. I clasped my old man on the shoulder, and his eyes found mine. He gave me a subtle nod and then turned his face away.
We all turned in the direction of the driveway when a car pulled onto the gravel, then another.ZioRomeo andZiaJuliette. They had a house not far from my parents. Riding their tail was Gramps, mamma’s father. His Doberman had its head out of the window of his expensive truck.
ZioRomeo’s car was louder than the gravel. The entire car thumped. He didn’t even turn the car off when he pulled up. Heopened the door, stepped away from it, and opened his arms. “Tell me, we are doing this or not?”
“Yeah, unc!” Mariano gave awhoop!“That sound is…” He whistled.
ZioRomeo was blasting a country song but giving it some heavy bass.
Gramps shook his head as he passedZioRomeo. He lifted a box with cigars, Gurkha’s Her Majesty’s Reserve stuffed with eighteen-year-old tobacco and marinated in five-hundred-dollar—a bottle—Louis XIII de Rémy Martin cognac, his drink of choice, and an actual bottle of cognac. “Thought since I’m not going, we could start the night early. Maestro offered to drive me back. Said he’d hang with me and Pnina tonight.”
Gramps climbed the steps, his dog right behind him.ZioRomeo andZiaJuliette were right behind them. While Gramps handed out the cigars,ZiaJuliette ran inside and got us each a glass. Gramps poured while we all settled into the balmy night, smoking cigars and taking sips of the cognac.
Everett Poésy, Gramps, was known for his expensive taste in women and things. He’d had affairs on my grandmother almost their entire marriage. His hair was entirely white, except for a few red strands on the side of his head, and I wasn’t sure whether, in his old age, he regretted any of it. His transgressions had seriously wounded my mamma when it came to trust. In her mind, she molded all men after my grandfather, and it screwed with her vision of what a man should be.
Albeit, if it wasn’t for my father being the man he was, I’d say my grandfather had prepared mamma for the real world. The Fausti men, if committed, were a breed of their own. Nonno said we were the last of a dying species, and we would be responsible for keeping it alive for as long as the world kept turning.
Fucking right.
My father taught his sons how to be romantic and ruthless. He taught us that, in a world where a man’s word is no longer valued, we would put a price on it. High enough to extract our blood if we went back on it. We respected women. We respected ourselves. We were gentlemen. We wore suits and respected the dining table. We didn’t slam doors. We were honest. And we weren’t fucking afraid to keep all these things alive when the world tried to change us.
That thought brought me to another, though. I had no fucking clue the true reason my wife acted the way she had the night we had dinner with shark bait. She started a fight with me over glass that she admitted was a good idea the next day, and even tried to keep her skin from me.
Yeah, I know, skin, but if I didn’t touch her every other minute, it was like holding my breath until my lungs would collapse. I could breathe when I felt her soft skin against mine.
My old man nudged me. Chucked his chin toward his younger brother. “What the fuck is he wearing?”
A grin I couldn’t control came to my face.ZioRomeo was decked out for a night of country dancing in a tight-ass T-shirt, jeans that were just as tight, a belt with an oversized square buckle, and smooth boots on his feet.
“He has to match the vibe.” I blew a ring of smoke out of my mouth.
My old man shook his head. “Fucking glad he’s over his hair-o-pause, or whatever mamma called it. One gray fucking strand, and it was the end of the world.”
While the men started discussing boxing matches and shit like that, the door opened, and I knew it would a second before it did. My old man turned to the door. He had a radar on my mamma. His eyes devoured her as she walked out, like he hadn’t seen her in years, and he went to her.
She was in an old band t-shirt, probably something from the ’90s, and a jean skirt that might get him in trouble later. Mamma was a stunner. Mia came out next, channeling our grandmother, Grazia. Saverio said something in her ear, then pulled her onto his lap.ZiaJuliette came out with Violet. Violet was going to ride with mamma and papà to meet Mitch, her husband, at the bar. A minute later, I turned back, deciding if my wife didn’t come out in the next few minutes, I was going in.
It felt like someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned half a second before Stella walked out.
“Fuck me,” I muttered to myself. She wore a black tank top and short jean skirt. Her tits were full, her waist tiny, and those thighs… “Pericolosa.” But not nearly as dangerous as that heartbreaking face. Her eyes were almost neon in the dimming light. She was wearing the necklace I’d given her with a pair of star earrings I’d given her in Los Angeles.
“Ready.” She barely gave me a smile.
I wrapped my arms around her, leaning close to her ear. “I might fucking die tonight.”
Her eyes flew to mine.
“You,” I said.
