Page 76 of At The End Of The Day

Chapter 31

Vincent da Silva

The lights blared off the side of my house when I pulled under the roof of the carport and cut them off. Getting out, I shut the door and lingered, staring through the glass panes into the dining room and kitchen inside. The cricket chirps fell in tandem with the frogs croaking, the sounds of a typical, fall night in Alabama. Tight with anxiety, my insides quaking, I thumbed my nose and coughed, reluctantly going inside. When I’d left hours earlier, I’d left wearing only jeans. No shoes, underwear, socks, shirt, nothing. Nothing to bind my ribs, just jeans, and it was uncomfortable.

Right away, I felt the shift in the atmosphere. I knew something was different. My heart pounding on my ribs, I dropped the keys on the dining room table and lunged forward, my lungs refusing to work. Not feeling any pain, anywhere, the panic was overwhelming, numbing all my senses. I shoved open the bedroom door and stumbled, hyperventilating.

It was empty. Dash wasn’t there.

“No, no, no, no,” I chanted, spinning on my toes and racing for the stairs. Bounding them as fast as I could, sweat was dripping into my eyes, burning my sight. At the landing, I jogged down the long hallway to the far back bedroom, accidentally bursting through that door, as well.

Empty.

“Oh, shit,” I croaked, backing into the wall. My strength giving out, I slid down to the floor, my elbows on my knees, and covered my face. All the emotions I’d gone through the last few hours coming to a head, the pressure snapped and a sob burst forth.

They were gone. I lost Billy and Dash and Piera, all within a matter of hours. Violetta and the kids were in Tennessee, starting a whole new life with Tyler Warren. I was all alone. I had no one, nothing. Solitude.

My feet slipping across the floor, my ankles crossed, as did my arms, hugging my broken ribs. My head banging to the wall, I peered down the length of my nose at the bed where Piera had been sleeping every night for the last two weeks. Now it was empty, leaving behind just a small teddy bear I’d bought her when they first moved in.

I snorted and coughed, swiping my cheeks dry. I used to buy a teddy bear for Violetta every year on her birthday, not ending that tradition until she became a mother and asked me to stop treating her like a child. She had been so ready to be a grown-up, but she’d kept every single bear I’d given her, tucking them on a shelf in her closet. Had those found their way to Tennessee, as well? Or had they been stashed in one of the boxes that went to storage?

When I purchased the small, pink stuffed animal with a heart shaped nose for Piera, I hadn’t even realized I was repeating the pattern until now. Though my head had been constantly reminding me I was fooling myself, my heart had been invested, hoping for the miracle that would make this living arrangement permanent.

Sniffing and rubbing my nose, I rose to my feet, surprisingly with little discomfort. Striding across the room, I plucked the bear from the pillow still dented for her tiny little head. Studying its features, my thumb stroked over the silky fur, the pain now throbbing in my soul, not my wounds.

My chin on my chest, I continued to stare at it while slowly walking back down the hallway. Descending the stairs, I went to the master suite and laid down. Not where Dash had been sleeping, but the other side. I curled on my side, setting the stuffed animal where his head should be.

“I love you,” I whispered to the silent isolation. Heaving a sigh, I closed my eyelids and splayed my palm out where he should be, pretending I could feel his heart beating against my palm. Reality crashing into me of everything I’d lost today, my arms curled into my chest, my face turned to the pillow, and I huffed, having never felt so goddamn dismal in my entire life.

Dario “Dash" Mangiacavallo

Sunday 09.29.2019

Hobbling with a cane, it clicked on the hardwood floor, my irritation level skyrocketing the more the unwelcomed guest punched that goddamn doorbell. Over and over and over!

“Goddammit, stop!” I bellowed, hissing at the pain in my guts.

The floors switching to brick in the foyer, I snatched the door open and roared, “What, motherfucker?” just to deflate and turn hollow at the sight of Vincent.

No shirt on, he was full blown blubbering, tears pouring off his face, his eyes sunken. Trembling so severely, his teeth were rattling, he shoved past me into the house and stomped into the living room.

Fear lacing my blood, I closed the door and staggered after him as quickly as I could, my palm sweating on the brass head of the cane. He was pacing like a wild, caged animal, his shoulders heaving, foam building in the corners of his mouth. Okay, I knew he’d be upset when I snuck out of his house a few days ago and refused all his calls, but this was a bit excessive.

“Vin?” I asked cautiously, approaching slowly.

A sob shook his frame, and he came to a sudden halt, hunching forward to press the heels of his palms to his eyes. It was then I noticed the pistol gripped tightly in his left hand.

The floor falling out from beneath me, all the air zapped from my lungs. Holding my free palm out, I stammered, “Now hold on, brother. What’s…” I gulped, my mouth running dry with flashbacks from Georgia. “What’s going on, Vinny?”

“He did it,” he croaked, sounding like a lost little boy. Turning swollen, bloodshot eyes toward me, his brows shot up and I cringed at the absolute devastation shining in his hazel irises. Usually a bright gold, they were dull, almost empty.

“What? I-I don’t…Who did what?”

“Billy,” he whispered with a crack to his tone. He gulped and shuddered, turning ghostly pale.

Billy, his lover. The one I heard him break up with the day I left his home. The man he had devoted himself to for most of his life. The reason he refused to let anything truly happen between us and why he kept falling back whenever anything did. The man I was insanely jealous over, the main reason I left.

“Okay, I’m gonna need some more deets here, Vin, cuz you’re freaking me the fuck out. I don’t understand. What did he do?”