“Yes, she did,” Roz said as she walked further into the gym. “And you deserve it. I told you about stringing those little girls along.”
“How was I stringing her along? I told that girl from day one I didn’t like her like that.”
Roz folded her arms and stared at her son as he continued to walk on the treadmill. “And why don’t you like her like that?” she asked him.
“Because she think she’s all that. And because I’m not trying to have no girlfriend right now when I don’t even have a job yet. What I look like trying to support a girl when I can’t even support myself yet?”
“You could support yourself if you come to work for me, or for your father’s corporation.”
“Not again, Ma,” Duke said as he leaned his head back. “I’m not trying to do no corporate. How many times I got to tell y’all that?”
“Then what are your plans, Duke?”
Duke hesitated. “I don’t know yet.”
Roz knew he was lying to her. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He just knew she wasn’t going to allow it. “If you don’t like that young lady like that,” she said, “then don’t try to be her friend. Those fast-tail little white girls from that bougie high school Mick put y’all in aren’t looking for no friend.”
“Oh I know they aren’t. They’re looking for me to put a baby in them so they can have control over on me for eighteen years. Which will not happen. Dad taught me that much.”
Roz was surprised. “Your father told you about the birds and the bees?”
“The who and the who?” Then Duke smiled. “We had a man-to-man, yes ma’am.”
That was welcomed news to her. Or was it? “What did he tell you?”
“He told me about all his baby mamas and all he went through trying to juggle them. He told me not to be like he was. Besides,” Duke added with that mischievous grin that let Roz see why those girls loved him so much, “them girls I went to high school with don’t do it for me. I prefer dark meat.”
“According to Jackie, that’s not all you prefer.”
Duke looked at her. “What else I prefer?”
“Olderdark meat. Like that older woman you’re fooling around with now.”
Duke continued to walk. But he didn’t deny it.
“Is she wrong?”
Duke still said nothing.
“Don’t you think she’s a little too old for you, Duke?”
“Daddy’s older than you.”
Roz frowned. “Your smart behind has an answer for everything except how you can get your ass a job.”
“I got some things in the works, Ma, dang. Things that don’t involve working for my parents. At least not in no corporation.”
When he slipped and made that statement, he and Roz shared a glance. He could never speak to her about his true ambitions because he knew she would go ballistic on him. She could never bring it up because it was one of her worse fears.
“I’m formulating my life plan,” he continued. “I’m just getting started here. Give me two minutes to get myself together and I’ll outdo everybody in the family. But what are you doing back here anyway? You don’t never come back here.”
“I can’t say hello to my child?”
“You can, but you don’t usually come all the way back here to say hey to your child. You usually go upstairs and go to bed. You don’t be thinking about your child. I could be back here dead for all you know.”
Roz smiled and stared at her son. She knew she shouldn’t have favorites, but he was her favorite hands down. Jackie had her shit together. She was going to be just fine. But Duke was her heartbeat. Her baby. Even though she knew he wasn’t a baby anymore with his bare chest revealing just how buff he’d become. He looked like a beautiful, muscular Adonis as he strolled on that treadmill shirtless in those biker shorts. Although he favored his father through and through, he still had a lot of Roz in him too. Which, in her eyes, made him the most attractive young man in the family with looks that could arguably rival Tommy Gabrini’s. Arguably.
But Roz saw his potential, and that was what worried her most. Of all the young people in the family, Duke was the guy. Even the family treated him like he was the one that was going to follow in the footsteps of the Sinatra and Gabrini men closer than anybody else. Even Teddy. Although Mick would argue that Carmine was the man. Which, given that Carmine was a genius nerd and not a mobster, was nuts to Roz. But Mick apparently saw something in Carmine she couldn’t see.
