Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
I let out a long breath. It wasn’t going to do me any good to argue because I wasn’t sad that he was in my bed. If he’d gone anywhere else, I would’ve been disappointed.
I shifted position, pulled the photo album out from under me, and handed it to him. Then I turned over and watched him as he flipped through the pages. When he got to my favorite picture of my mother, he looked up at me. “That’s your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
I closed my eyes. “Heaven.”
“I’m sorry. How long ago did she pass?”
“Eight years. I was fourteen.”
“Really? I was fourteen when my mom died.”
I turned to look at him. “You were? I’m sorry.”
He flipped to the next page. “Aww, this is a really good one.”
It was a picture of me and my mom eating dripping cones of ice cream. “She took me out for ice cream every Saturday. She always got strawberry, and I got cookie dough.”
“My brother doesn’t really like ice cream. Isn’t that crazy? I used to beg him to take me so I could get mint chocolate chip. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, it was just me. I ended up with my grandparents, but they were…cold. They paid for hockey and gave me everything I needed, but they weren’t… They didn’t….”
“Love you like your mom did.”
“Right.” I hadn’t talked to anyone about my mom in years, but somehow talking to Vito was easier than it was with most people. Maybe that was because he’d experienced loss too.
“I had my brother, Valentino,” Vito said. “He was great. He was basically mom and dad for me for years before she died.”
“What happened?”
Vito rubbed a hand across his eyes, and I realized they were wet with tears. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
He shook his head. “She had a drinking problem all my life and then she started using. Hard shit. It got bad. She passed away from an overdose.”
I wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
He closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment. “It’s been a long time since I talked about her.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He squeezed my hand. “What happened to your mom?”
“She got so weak she could barely get out of bed. She’d always been healthy, so no one knew what was wrong. After months of one doctor after another, she was finally diagnosed with congestive heart failure. She was so young, no one expected it. The doctors said it was probably a genetic predisposition. They tried their best, and she lived a few more years, but then her heart gave out.”
“Where was your father?”
“I never knew him. My mom was everything I ever needed. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. She encouraged my love of hockey from the time I was a little kid.”
“I’m so glad you had her.” Vito pulled me against him so I could rest my head on his chest. I snuggled in and held him tight.
We lay there in silence, comforting each other, and I realized how easy it was to just be with him. It felt right. Maybe there was something in this idea that we were meant to be. I could hope, couldn’t I? Just like I could hope to find a way out of the shithole I’d dug myself into.
“If you want to tell me more about your mom, you can,” I said.
“Thanks, baby. Mom had a rough life. She fell in love with my dad, and they were together off and on for years, but he never stayed with her long. His lifestyle didn’t allow for commitment.”
“Seriously?”
Vito chuckled. “My dad was a killer for hire. Sometimes he worked for the family, but he took other jobs too, so there was a lot of traveling and—”
“Stalking? Is that where you learned your techniques?”
“Fuck no. I’m nowhere near as slick as my father. You would never have known he was after you until it was too late.”
I shivered thinking about someone that skilled.
“My mom didn’t tell him about us until she was dying. She’d left town to have Val, and she made sure he wasn’t around when she got to see Pops. A few times, she just pretended he was a friend’s child. How our father could have not noticed the resemblance between them is beyond me. By the time she had me, Pops rarely came around anymore.
“She never got over it after he broke things off for good. She was already using at that point, and Pops couldn’t deal with anything that messy. Sometimes I still get angry about it, and sometimes…I don’t know, I guess I understand. She’d get clean for a little while and take better care of us, then things would go downhill again and finally, she spiraled. When she knew she wouldn’t last, she told him about us. We were on our own for a while on the streets. I don’t know why he waited. He never told us, but one day he decided to claim us, and we became Marchesis.”