She nods. “Do you like eggs?”
“I like pussy, Benedetta. That’s what I like. Though I can’t seem to get any now that I’m married and my wife is sleeping in the spare bedroom. Why aren’t you sleeping in our bedroom?”
The dog lays his massive head on my shoulder, and I hug the poor big thing, patting him on the back.
“I wasn’t sure if that’s what you wanted.”
“You’re my wife. You sleep in my bedroom. Unless you don’t want to.”
“We got married, and you left the next day.”
“I had a prior arrangement. I explained, and you understood. What changed?”
She smiles. “Nothing changed.”
I frown. “Point taken.” We’re still strangers.
She clears her throat. “You didn’t call.”
“Did you want me to call?”
She shrugs. “I don’t want to inconvenience you. I know you paid for me. I know about Morisseti asking for me. I’m not a real wife to you, so whatever. It’s a nice home with nice people, and I have a dog.”
“What about me?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “Well, you don’t have to come home if you don’t want to. Maybe you want to get a full-time mistress or something like that.”
“Is this your vision of our marriage?”
She shrugs again. “There’s nothing to our marriage, sir. You don’t have to pretend you like me or want me.”
Jesus. I put the dog on the floor and wash my hands. I open a cupboard looking for pans. See plates. Open another one. Close it. “No idea where the pans are,” I announce. “Can you feed me?”
Benedetta smiles again. “I can.” She walks to the other end of the kitchen and finds pans, spatula, eggs, and whatever else, and all in record time. Looks to me like the lady knows her kitchen better than she knows her husband. Good for the kitchen. Not so good for the marriage. But I’m working on it.
Benedetta looks up and opens her mouth.
“Scrambled,” I say.
“Me too,” she says. And would you look at that. We do have something in common. Scrambled eggs. I’ll take it. One hour at a time.
3
“Delicious,” I compliment her eggs and bacon and fresh-cut tomato and mozzarella breakfast she put together in the time it would take me to find a pan.
Benedetta lifts her gaze from her plate and waits to chew and swallow before speaking while dog drool drips on my shoe. He’s already feeling me, and I’m feeling him, and the dog and I will be friends. I fed him half my eggs. Good thing Benedetta made me eight eggs, though I’m not sure if she’s trying to tell me I look like I can eat eight eggs.
I was born broader than both my brothers, more like my uncle, John, who got me into playing football. In college, after I tore my ACL, I quit and shifted my mind to business school so I could run my own company someday.
Turns out Dad had plans for the three of us, and now we run our own things under one umbrella, Hellway Corp.
“It’s in the mixing,” Benedetta says.
“How so?” I wipe my mouth and put down the utensils.
“I beat the eggs a lot so they’re fluffy.”
“Is that why they’re perfectly yellow? No white in sight.”
