“I didn’t mean it like that,” she sighs.
“You meant something,” I push. “You said it like you knew something I don’t.”
She sighs again, long and heavy. “Let it go, Giovanna. I was just asking if she was sleeping with Tommy currently.”
“Mom,” I snap, my throat tightening.
There’s movement on her end, static like she’s covering the phone, and her voice muffled like she’s talking to someone else.
When she speaks again, her tone is sharp. “Look, all I’m saying is I wouldn’t put it past that woman to fuck Tommy. She’s the type.”
I rub my temple. “Shemight be, but Tommy isn’t. But I do think they engaged in…other things when Tommy and I were broken up. And she’s so fucking smug about it, I just want to—”
“Wouldn’t he? Do you really think that Tommy wouldn’t have sex with her?”
I swallow. “No, he wouldn’t sleep with her. But…he might have known she was fucking Antonio.”
She inhales sharply. “She didwhat?”
I close my eyes. “Antonio. They were dating for a while while he and I were living together.”
“Jesus Christ,” my mother snaps. “That fucking whore.” There’s a scrape of a chair, and her voice rises. “I’m going to ruin that cunt.”
“Mom, wait—”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone, the room suddenly quiet around me. Well, I guess she didn’t know about Antonio and Una.
That conversation helped me not at all. I don’t know why I thought it might.
I press my hand to my stomach, trying to steady my breathing, and close my eyes. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
41
Tommy
The house is quiet when I get back, the kind of quiet that has a weight to it. The lights are low, the TV off. I drop my keys on the kitchen counter and scan the living room.
“Gi?”
I hear footsteps in the hallway, and Gi emerges wrapped in a blanket, her hair tied back. She startles when she sees me, freezes for a beat, then heads straight to the kitchen, walking past me like I’m invisible.
She yanks the fridge door open, the light spilling across her face. She grabs a leftover container and slams the door closed with her hip, jerking the lid off the container in a single motion. Standing at the counter, she uses her fingers and shoves cold ravioli from the container into her mouth like she’s ravenous.
I grin, leaning against the doorway, watching her. “Hungry?”
She doesn’t look at me.
“Starving.” Her voice is clipped, and I don’t miss the irritation underneath it.
She lost so much weight when she was gone, and she’s making progress on gaining it back. Seeing her eat should make me feel better, and it does, but there’s a charge in the air between us that makes me uncomfortable.
Her eyes flick up to meet mine, sharp and guarded. “Why are you here?”
I arch a brow. “I live here.”
She shoves a ravioli into her mouth, then speaks around it. “Thought you’d be at your girlfriend’s.”
