“I think I will miss the stage, yeah. But I think I’m more nervous than anything else.”
“Nervous about what?”
“What’s next, I guess.”
“Seems like Milo thinks you’re heading up to Navesink Bank with him.”
He’d hinted as much to me.
But we hadn’t had a lot of alone time to talk since everything went down. There’d been constant interruptions. We’d barely been able to cover up before someone came into the room to talk to Milo.
“We haven’t really discussed it yet.”
“You will. This was just a meeting that had to happen ASAP. Once this is over, things will calm down for Milo.”
“But not for you guys?”
“We all knew when we moved here that this was going to be a five-to-ten-year plan before we would be able to breathe. Lucky for us, we all kind of thrive on this shit.”
“I can’t imagine,” I said, shaking my head.
“Don’t worry. Mob wives don’t usually have to worry about actually living through things like you’ve been through. They’re very protected.”
Wife.
My belly flipped.
Not out of fear.
But because it sounded so right.
“I think I would spend a lot of time worried about Milo in that case.”
“To be fair, how things are here aren’t the way they are in Navesink Bank. That’s an old, very established organization. It almost sounds boring up that way,” he added, giving me a smile. “Come on. Let’s watch something stupid and get your mind off of things.”
We did just that: picked something stupid and stared at the screen. But I was relatively sure neither of us actually watched it. We were both miles away. If he was anything like me, he was racked with worries.
I kept glancing down at both our phones that sat face-up on the table. But the screens stayed stubbornly blank.
Another hour passed.
Two.
The credits of one movie rolled before another one automatically started to play.
Neither of us moved to change it.
Both of our shoulders started to inch up.
Santino drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch.
I picked at my cuticles.
Both of us coiled tighter and tighter with each passing moment. So much so that when the door opened, we both nearly jumped out of our skin.
But there were Milo and Remo.
The latter had a bottle of champagne raised over his head.
