Filed to story: The Mafia Boss’s Regret (Ava & Dante)
“You did?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t so bad. He’s a little rude, but I don’t hate him.”
I focused on the movie because I didn’t know what to say. I was glad for my sister, that she found something to talk about with him… However, my chest tightened in a strange way.
“Ava?” she said softly, grabbing something off the nightstand.
“Yeah?”
She handed her cell phone to me without looking. “Please send it. I can’t.”
I took the phone and read the text already typed out to Samantha-well, that was the codename for Ryan. A simple “Goodbye” was all it said.
My throat constricted, but I pushed the little button that could change lives and break hearts with nothing but an electronic word. I did it for Ryan’s sake, and wished I could go back and do the same for another’s.
“Done,” I whispered.
We lay side by side and watched a girl fall in love.
One of us already had, and the other knew she never would.
I sat at the kitchen table, legs crisscrossed on the chair, watching a raindrop make its way down the windowpane.
“No, no, no!” Mamma tossed the wooden spoon on the island, having just tasted the red sauce Lydia had prepared. Mamma’s sweatsuit was purple today, and her hair was half-up like it always was. “Now you’ve gone and killed him.”
Lydia sighed, her expression tightening with frustration. “How have I killed him again already?”
“That sauce is so bitter he would keel over.”
Amusement filled me. The last pot of sauce, Lydia had taken too long and poor Dante died of starvation.
Mamma shook her head. “
Incredibile. I don’t know how you went on this long not knowing how to cook una semplice salsa di spagetti. I should pull you from those classes you take and make you spend the time in the kitchen.”
Lydia leaned against the counter. A white apron covered her Hamlet t-shirt that was longer than her shorts, and a yellow bandana kept her hair back from her face. “Ava isn’t a good cook either.”
I frowned.
“Ava is not getting married in two weeks!”
The soft patter of rain hitting the windows filled the room, a quiet discomfort replacing any words. The need to ease the tension rushed over me. It was what I was good for, after all.
“I doubt she will kill the man, Mamma. If he can survive being shot a number of times like I’m sure he has, then he should outlive Lydia’s cooking.”
“Three times,” Lydia piped up.
My brows knitted. “What?”
“He’s been shot three times.”
“Mamma mia,” Mamma scolded. “Do not talk of such things.”
A certain interest ran over me, and, ignoring Mamma, I asked, “How do you know that?”
My sister’s sparkling gaze came my way. “I asked him last night.”
“You what? Lydia!”
I sat forward in my chair. “And he told you?”
“Well… not exactly. I asked him, and he only looked down on me like I was annoying him. But then Gianna, who was overhearing the conversation, told me three times.”
“Do you have a brain in your head? Why would you ask him something like that?”
Neither of us looked in Mamma’s direction. A smile pulled on our lips. We were now playing a popular game to see who could shock Mamma enough she’d storm from the room, berating us in Italian. It usually began with ignoring her a few times.
“Is Gianna his sister?” I asked, though I was 99 percent sure he was an only child. She could have been a cousin, but somehow, I knew she wasn’t.
Lydia laughed. “No. Stepmother.”
My jaw dropped. “She’s younger than him!”
“A year,” Lydia confirmed.
“My God. Can you imagine sleeping with a man more than twice your age?”
“Ava!”
Lydia’s gaze widened. “You think she had sex with his papà?”
“Stop with this talk.”
I pursed my lips. “Well, they were married. They at least had missionary-“
“Basta!” Mamma headed for the door, tossed her apron on the counter, and spewed Italian about her heathen daughters the whole way.
Our laughter filled the kitchen.
“I can’t believe she’s his stepmother,” I said, before adding, “Or, was.”
“I know.” Lydia stuck her finger in the sauce and tasted it, grimacing. “But I don’t think they have a mother-son relationship.”
“No,” I said, “more like the other way around.”
Lydia shook her head. “No, not like that either.”