“My old man did the cooking, the dishes, the grocery shopping, even paid the bills. Mamma told me once that if she spent the money for things they needed, he’d try to work for it when he was a kid. Sometimes mamma’s parents helped them out, since my old man and my uncle, mamma’s brother, were tight. It was easier when my old man got older and could work.”
“Magpie told me she couldn’t read until your mom taught her.”
He nodded. “Magpie didn’t have an easy life, and she had my old man young, and she didn’t seem to grow up, some, until she and Nonno got back together.”
“So, you didn’t learn this from your mom then?”
“Nah, my old man instilled this in us. We help around the house, no matter what needs to be done.”
“If things are so equal between us, then why do you refuse to let me bring groceries in or pick up anything heavy?” I lifted my brow at him, but secretly, I loved that he did all those things for me.
“You won’t touch a trashcan a day in your life, either, if I can fucking help it.” He gave the counter a wipe with a dishtowel he spritzed with some lavender-scented cleaner, then lifted me off my feet, carrying me to our bedroom.
He set me down on the counter in our bathroom and started running water in the tub. We sank into the warm, fragrant watertogether a few minutes later, and after the water had turned cold, we switched to the shower, and we washed each other.
It took me longer to do what needed to be done in the bathroom after, and when I walked into our bedroom, he was sitting on our bed, only in sweatpants, staring down at his left hand.
“Damn,” I breathed. His hair was still wet, dripping water on the floor, and so was his upper body. He smelled…I couldn’t even describe it. But it made me feel ravenous in a part of my body that had nothing to do with my stomach.
“Stella,” he whispered.
“Yeah?” I whispered.
“I can’t change my past.”
That threw me for a second. What was he—oh, what I’d word-vomited up before Scarlett helped me purge myself of haunting ghosts. His past was a ghost, and I couldn’t be honest and say,oh, I was just speaking out of…destituteness when I said that to you.Because then I’d be a liar, and wanting to be more like him, I wanted to be honest. Being honest meant that I wasn’t afraid of him, or what lived between us. I wasn’t afraid to be honest with my feelings because he might run.
“If you could?” I asked.
His eye rose to meet mine, and the intensity in it almost made me take a step back. But I held my ground. I was learning how to do that more and more with him.
“I don’t harbor regrets,” he said, as honest as ever. “I control my steps, even if fate changes the signs occasionally. But if my past hurts you, it’s killing me. I can’t fucking change it.”
“Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Okay,” he said, repeating me and my tone.
“What else do you want me to say, Matteo? That I’m okay with it? I can’t. I’m not okay with it. I can’t help how it makes me feel when I think about it.”
“Don’t fucking think about it. I’ve forgotten every touch but yours. None of it exists.”
“Except in my head.”
“You’re giving life to something that’s dead and buried then.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
He nodded. “You keep thinking about it, and maybe you might start to get ideas.”
“Like what? That I can’t live withyourpast?”
His open eye turned then. Focused. Hard. And I could see the challenge in it.I’ll give you a head start, then game on.
“There’s no place you can run from me,” he said. “We made vows. You aremyvow. I’ll keep it, nourish it, protect it for as long as I live,mywife.”
“I know, but who said I’m going to run? Stella without Matteo makes no sense—not even to Stella. I’ll find a way to let it go. I’ll find a way to make it all make sense, since we were made for each other, and you with anyone but me makes no sense. But right now, it doesn’t feel all that great.”
He stood, rising to his full height, and even though I said I’d stand my ground, the force of his nature had me taking steps back, back, back, until my back hit the wall, and he was crowding me. His arms were like bars, keeping me in, but I knew what a prison felt like. This wasn’t it.
