“Alright, well, thanks then.”
“Have a good night.” The kid musters one last smile before he turns and takes off.
I swing the door shut and make it two steps before I stop again, undecided about where to go next. Back to bed sounds tempting, but the stiffness in my neck and the tension over my scalp suggest my body has had enough of lying down, so the kitchen it is.
“I’m not even hungry,” I tell Harriet when she shows up at my feet, curiosity having won out over the comforts of bed. “I don’t know why he thinks he needs to be so—” What exactly is Jovi being? Kind? Caring? Nurturing?Gross.“Obnoxious. That’s what he’s being. Obnoxious.”
I shake my head at her, growing increasingly annoyed.
“And I’m going to tell him,” I announce. “As soon as I find my phone.”
Then I catch a whiff of something in the bag. It’s faintly familiar and my stomach growls deeply in response like an angry bear has taken up residence inside me.
“Maybe I’ll see what’s in here first,” I amend my former statement. “And then I’ll find my phone.”
Harriet blinks at me for a second, then proceeds to make her way to her own dish. She never needs to be convinced to eat.
All it takes is one real look inside the bag before I’m back to my original mission.
Find phone.
Call Jovi.
“I hate you,” I tell him the second he answers.
“Ditto. But you didn’t need to call to tell me what has long been established.” Then he has the audacity to laugh. “Eat the damn food, Liz. It’s not a peace offering, it’s a selfish act in the interest of self-preservation. I need you alive to get through the next year.”
“You couldn’t have just sent a fucking pizza?”
He snorts. “Would you have eaten a fucking pizza?”
Out of a cardboard box? Unlikely. “I have food here. I wouldn’t have died,” I change course instead.
Jovi huffs out a noisy breath, sounding annoyed. “I’m going to go now.”
“Fine,” I snap. “I’ll go eat the damn food you sent.”
“And drink the damn water.”
I roll my eyes despite knowing he can’t see it. “And you go get some damn sleep.”
He lets out a laugh, like I’ve caught him off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Think you’re the only one around here who notices shit?” I mumble, finally starting to unpack my dinner. “It's obvious you’re not sleeping. So, I’m going to go fucking eat, and you're going to go fucking sleep, so we can both stay alive long enough to do the fucking thing Lena and Trent asked us to fucking do.”
Then I hang up on him before I’m tempted to tell him how haggard he’s been looking, or how bloodshot his eyes were when he drove me to the airport. Or worse, how I was actually worried about him when I saw him standing at the kitchen counter the other night, too zoned out to manage taking a bite of his lo mein without dropping half of it along the way.
Years of accumulated knowledge learned by default, and the sudden prospect of being thrust together into a partnership neither of us wants but neither wants to fuck up either, is making things weird between us.
“Meatball sub,” I mutter, unwrapping the sandwich. It’s double-wrapped to hold the heat as well as the mess. “Fucking Jovi.”
After my mom left, we ate a lot of takeout for a lot of years. Wasn’t until I got old enough to start cooking for us that Dadstopped making his daily stops for dinner around town. Monday night wings. Tuesday night tacos. Yes, he followed the specials.
Wednesdays, without fail, we had spaghetti from Maria’s Little Italy while Thursdays were dedicated to Fish and Chips from McCarthy’s. Pizzas were delivered on Saturdays. They were always cold and always tasted more like the box they came in than anything else. Hence, why I don’t eat takeout pizza anymore. Though, I never would have pegged Jovi observant enough to be aware of any of it.
I was mistaken. The meal before me is proof of that.
The only takeout we never gave up was the Friday night meatball sub from Darby’s Sub Shop on the corner of Main Street, smack in the center of downtown. All throughout our childhood and into my college years, no matter who was around—and Trent and Jovi were arounda lot—our family's order remained the same. One footlong sub to share between the three of us, a small Caesar salad and an extra-large order of Darby’s signature onion rings.
