“You cook?”
“Occasionally, I try to insist that Maria have a life outside of this house. She doesn’t spend enough time with her children or her grandchildren, for that matter.” I turn back to the sauce, adjusting the heat. It’s my mother’s recipe— ground beef, pig's feet, tomato paste, and a few other secret ingredients. “My mother taught me. She was determined that no son of hers would be helpless in the kitchen.”
The memory is bittersweet. She’s been gone for five years now, but I can still hear her voice scolding me for adding too much salt.
“What are you making?” She asks as she peers over my shoulder.
“Spaghetti.” I gesture to the counter beside the stove, then move more directly. “It’s comfort food. Come, keep my company.”
I reach for her, hands on her waist, and lift her onto the counter’s edge. She makes a small squeak of surprise that goes straight to my groin.
“There,” I say, forcing myself to step back and focus on the pasta. “Where’s Emmanuel?”
“He’s asleep. Exhausted from swimming all afternoon.”
I taste the sauce — it needs more seasoning. “Let him sleep until dinner’s done.”
She stays, perched on my counter like some kind of domestic fantasy I didn’t know I had. Barefoot in the kitchen, watching me cook, her legs swinging slightly as she gets more comfortable.
I feel myself relax as she watches. For the first time in twenty-four hours, I find that I’m at ease. I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s interrogation all day. Dimitri’s words haunt me. My hands are still bruised from beating him bloody because he dared to mention her.
My thoughts wander back to the blanket fort, her falling asleep on my chest, and about how right it felt to hold her like that.
“I need to thank you.” The words come out rougher than I intend.
“For what?” She asks with genuine surprise.
“For being right.” I focus on draining the pasta, unable to look at her while admitting this. “About Emmanuel. He needed someone familiar to feel safe and stable, even coming back to his home, and I was too angry to see it. Too focused on getting him back to consider what he would actually need when he got here.”
We’re both silent for a long moment. When I risk a glance at her, she’s watching me with an expression I can’t read.
“You were scared,” she says finally. “Any good parent would have been in your position.”
“Scared, that’s one word for it.” The word feels foreign on my tongue. Dons aren’t supposed to get scared. But with her, I don’t feel like I have to pretend. “I was terrified. And I took it out on you.”
“That’s putting it mildly. You put a gun to my head.”
I wince.Ya, I did.The memory of that night at the orphanage makes my stomach turn. The fear I’d seen in her eyes as I’d pressed the barrel to her skull. The way she’d still stood her ground.
“I’m not proud of that.”
“Why not? It was macho, very intimidating. Isn’t that sort of your thing?”
There’s a teasing note in her voice that catches me off guard. She’s smiling slightly when I look at her, and I realize she’s trying to lighten the mood.
“I was an ass when I should have been grateful.” The words are out before I can stop them.
Her smile fades a little. “It’s in the past, Basili. Can we just move past that?”
I nod. Refocusing on stirring the sauce, it’s hard for me to swallow how forgiving she’s being right now. “Sure.”
“What does that look like?” She asks, “Moving forward?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
Liar.I know exactly what I want it to look like. Around her. In her. With her. But admitting that would be like jumping off a cliff, knowing there’s no water to catch me below.
I turn off the heat and put a lid over the sauce. Then move to the cabinet to pull out pasta now that the second pot, the one filled with water, is boiling.
