One thing I knew for fucking certain, though. When they looked past her, they would see me. And as the world kept spinning, we would spin into each other, so deeply embedded that we would turn into one. The world wouldn’t see either of us unless they saw us together.
I’d shoved away from the bar and went to her, taking her in my arms. A slow song began to play, and we swayed to the sound of it, our eyes locked. Her hands felt as soft as silk against the thin t-shirt I wore. In this part of the world, we didn’t have to dress as we did in Italy. T-shirt, jeans, boots…that was the uniform. She kept running her palms over my chest, her cool fingers toying with my shirt, before she moved to my neck, stroking over my pulse.
“I don’t even know what to call this between us,” I whispered in her ear. “It’s consumed me. Fucking consumed me. Always isn’t even enough.”
Before she could utter a word, I leaned down and consumed her mouth. She tasted sweet, like sweet tea and almond cake with a hint of apple.
“My Annie,” I breathed against her mouth as she pulled away to catch her breath. My lips rested on her forehead as we swayed.
“Sing to me,” she had barely got out. Her nails barely scratched up and down my arms, causing goosebumps to rise. Viola had painted her nails a color that reminded me of the gem peridot, and they were almost neon in the dim bar.
So fucking small in comparison to me, but so fucking powerful. She could easily stick her hand through the steel walls of my chest and rip out my heart, when a man triple her size would die before he fucking touched me.
I quietly sang the song to her, leaning close to her ear. The song lamenting about fire and brimstone and hell without the woman he loved by his side.
Bomp. Bomp. Bomp.
My eyes opened to reality.
The sound of a car honking at me.
The sun. The humidity. My saturated clothes. The racing of my heart.
I shook my head, droplets of sweat flying in all different directions. I had been obsessing over my wife—she was a fatal fucking fantasy.
Our local preacher waved at me.
The tension eating me up inside.
I lifted my hand and forced my feet forward. The restaurant where my wife enjoyed her day with the women was along the Cane River, and even though my feet demanded to go back, I forced them to move me deeper into town, where mamma andBabicaboth had businesses. Mamma owned the ballet studio, andBabicahad a boutique where she sold her designs.
I sped past the area, flying to the other side of downtown. Music floated out of a garage, its industrial-style doors opened, allowing sunshine through. I could smell the scents of fresh and old oil, along with diesel fuel, from down the street.
Mitch.
He was a mechanic and had opened his own shop years back. I had spent a lot of time in his garage restoring my old truck. I had left it behind with my wife at the restaurant. She loved it. She loved how it bounced when I took her out to the cabins Gramps had in a more rural area of Louisiana. She loved how the radio was old and had knobs that turn. The windows too.
My old man had given each of his sons a certain amount of money when we were still in middle school—close to reaching high school age. He told us we needed to find transportation. It wasn’t a lot of money. Just enough to buy some old fucking beater.
We all came home with trucks.
We worked on them together.
He had an old car that he fucking loved. He and Mamma still drove around in the growling monster.
All his sons still had their trucks.
There were times when I had brought my truck to Mitch’s garage and worked on it, separate from my old man and brothers. My old man took it in stride, but looking back, it had wounded him. I had even caught him eyeing Mitch with murderous intent on his face. He never made a move on him, but it had felt close.
Between a remark Mitch had made about my old man and mamma causing too much trouble together, to Brando Fausti’s son preferring to spend time with his ex-best friend, it was too fucking much. I didn’t want to see Mitch get hurt, so I backed the fuck off.
Still, back then, it pleased me that something I’d done had hurt Brando Fausti.
He and my mamma had hurt me.
When Mamma had been taken by Olivier Nemours, and he’d crashed the car he’d stolen with her in it, she was a breath away from death. My old man shared her breath.
My old man and mamma were going to leave my sister and brothers, me, as orphans. Husband refused to live without wife, and wife refused to live without husband.
