Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“What?” he snapped at Sal. “What is it now?”
Salvatore gestured with a finger at the empty seats, and the one filled by Big Mike who remained quiet during the exchange. “Not one other man at this table would get away with that, Giorgio. Not one of them, but Marco’s best friend...oh, that’s a different story.”
“You know, I’ve had about enough of you lately.”
“You know,” Salvatore returned in kind, standing from the chair, “same, boss. Nice seeing you, Mike. I’m glad Nico’s working out.”
“Working out?” Big Mike laughed. “Sal, he’s moving up.”
•••
There were too many goddamn boxes in his foyer. It didn’t matter how big the foyer was, it became much smaller when filled with crap. Salvatore did his best not to glare at the delivery man taking his sweet time using a dolly to bring in a load of something in long rectangular boxes.
“Silk,” the man said, “for the tapestries.”
Fuck.
Salvatore went on the hunt for his wife.
Or Sissy.
Someone.
“Carina! Sissy! Hello, is there not a better place to put that fucking mess?” he shouted out.
“Oh, here we go,” came a mutter from the kitchen area.
Salvatore headed that way fast. “Carina, I know I said you had full control over the graduation stuff, but we have a fucking garage for a reason. We have a foyer for an entirely different reason.”
He found his wife sitting at the large kitchen island, flipping through a magazine. Sissy stood at the other side, drumming her fingernails on the marble top and ignoring his presence altogether.
“The decorator is coming tomorrow with her team to get a start on the bigger rooms, Sal,” Carina said, never looking up from the glossy pages. “Anyway, I think you should say yes, Sissy. Larkin doesn’t have a life. You don’t have a life. You can not have a life together, that’s all I’m saying. What’s it going to hurt?”
Sissy finally glanced Salvatore’s way. Just the look on his face had her saying, “Yeah, I’m going to go...let the dog out.”
“Wise choice.” Salvatore walked closer to Carina who continued flipping pages. “Did you get my text earlier?”
“About talking to your daughter?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah. Birth control. Get her on it.”
“They’re not having sex,” Sissy said over her shoulder.
Salvatore scoffed low. “Please, they’re eighteen and nineteen. If they’re practically spending the night together, and they’re not having sex, I’ll eat my fucking shoes. They’re having sex.”
“They’re not,” Sissy called back.
Then, she left the kitchen entirely.
“Carina, I am serious about the mess in the foyer.”
Throwing her head back slightly, his wife groaned. “Fine, Sal. Whatever, tomorrow, they’ll be gone. Or at least, in the area they need to be. The rest will go to the garage so we can walk them a damn mile to get them where they need to go.”
“And the birth control conversation?”
At that, she turned on the stool to stare at him. “Why don’t you talk to her about that?”
He spluttered, trying to come up with an acceptable response. The longer he struggled, the more sardonic her smile turned.
“What’s the old saying? If you’re not old enough to talk about sex, you shouldn’t be having it?”
“I don’t think this is the same,” he deadpanned. “She’s my daughter.”
“Even better reason to have a conversation with her if you’re concerned. But frankly, it’s a waste of time. She’s eighteen and knows about birth control. Christ, I put her on the pill when she turned fourteen. Whether she still is, well, that’s another matter. Again, talk to her, not to me.”
His blood pressure spiked dangerously.
“What?”
Carina’s expression turned passive. “Stop it.”
“You can’t just tell me something like that and not expect me to react, Carina. Why the hell would my daughter be on the pill at fourteen?”
“Because I took her to the doctor and put her on it.”
“Why?”
“See, you keep doing that. You keep raising your voice like that. And when I do it back, you’re not gonna like it, Sal.”
“Yeah, well—”
“The girl was bleeding into her mattress every month for three days, and then still bleeding heavy for another seven days after. If you can’t separate female reproductive health and pregnancy prevention, that is not my problem.”
“Right,” he returned bitingly, “because you would know all about preventing pregnancies, wouldn’t you?”
Her mouth popped open, and when her gasp hit his ears, he immediately regretted what just came out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, I swear to God.”
“You sonofabitch!”
“Carina...”
“You prick,” she snarled, standing from the stool and taking a step his way.
Yeah, that had been bad. Way over the line.
“I’m sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just been a shitty, long day, and that’s not me trying to justify it, but I’m not thinking clearly right now.”
“Clearly? Obviously. Did you hit your fucking head again or something?”
“Carina, come on, don’t be like that.”
“I can’t believe you,” she screamed at him, throwing her arms wide as if to make her point. “And what’s crazy—fucking insane, Salvatore—is that I’ve been waiting for you to get home all day! All day, it’s wild. Because I’ve had something to tell you and there’s literally no one else for me to tell except you. And how ironic that you would say such a thing to me, not even knowing what I do right now.”