Page 72 of Mafia King
The window seat is coated in fresh white paint, and the walls are a gender neutral butter color. It’s bare as a bone, but the crib goes on the shared wall with the master suite, and the changing table is opposite. I look at the ceiling and see a small hook. There was a mobile there to occupy the baby while they were changed.
“Forzetta,” Santino murmurs, putting his hand on my shoulder with two fingers on the bare skin of my neck. “You want to sleep in the guest room?”
“This isn’t the guest room.”
I open the closet. A little window on the facing end lights the walk-in space. A few wire hangers dangle from the rods on either side, and the walls are marred by strips of white paper and shards of exposed plaster. Stickers were pulled off. A cartoon character or flowers. Vestiges of the last occupant.
“It’s a nursery,” I say.
He shrugs. “We could need a nursery some day, no?”
I should tell him I’m late. He deserves to know. But I’d so much rather be sure.
You can’t always have what you’d rather.
“Yes.” I go to the window and look down. Just below, there’s a crystalline pool for Santino to slice into. He’ll push me against the edge of it and kiss me until I’m as liquid as the water. “We probably will.”
I don’t say when. I’m not ready to even insinuate a maybe. There’s no coming back from those conversations.
I hear Bosco enter the room, but Santino holds his hand out to stop the agent from interrupting us.
“Bigger then?” my husband offers.
Another square foot won’t change a thing, but I don’t know what will, because I’m not sure what changes I need.
“What’s wrong with the house you have?” I ask.
“I thought you’d like this one. The location.” He indicates the window.
The tower seems close enough to touch. He isn’t offering me a view out a closet window. He’s offering school without a commute.
“This type of house,” he continues. “It’s better for having people around.”
“It’s so far from everyone though.”
“There are these things called…come si dice…” He snaps his fingers by his ear like a guy trying to lure a memory out of the dark. “Ah!” He points. “Cars! They can come in their cars.”
It’s hard not to smile when he reveals his sense of humor.
“Maybe,” I say, looking at the school’s brick tower that signaled I had to change busses. Every morning, it meant I was coming closer to where I belonged. “Maybe.”
But now I belong to him.
Tell him tell him tell him.
And I’m still a little mad about it.
And there’s still so much I don’t know, but I haven’t planned an escape in a long time, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to want to leave him.
Tell him tell him tell him.
From his pocket, his phone rings. He hesitates.
“Get it,” I say. “I’ll let Bosco show me around.”
He kisses me and answers the phone. I leave Santino in the baby’s closet so the realtor can show me the brick barbecue.
* * *
