by Eden Butler
“Well,” Vi said, coming into the kitchen, carrying a freshly bathed Mateo in her arms. She watched as I closed the door, nodding a thanks to the delivery guy and moved them to the table, head shaking, then she nodded me over to help her dress my son. “If this is Mrs. Carelli again, why is she sending them here?”
“I’m not sure she knows we’re living together,” I said, my gaze shooting from the naked baby to the flowers on the kitchen table, then to the half-empty boxes that I’d only half-heartedly packed. “If that’s what you would call it.”
“Well, yeah, kid. You do have to pack your things and actually move them the few blocks to your fella’s place if you intend on living with him.” Vi pulled out a diaper, tossing it to me.
“Yeah. I suppose I do.” Mateo squirmed, donning just his diaper and squealed when I grabbed the small tube of lotion from his bag and began rubbing it over his chubby legs. “I’ve got my room almost done and all of my bathroom finished.” I waved my hand, shrugging like those two small feats were something to be proud of.
“Sounds to me like you’re hesitating. Or maybe not real excited about leaving.” Vi helped me tug Mateo’s shirt over his head, fighting with my boy as he struggled against us.
“I’m crazy about him,” I said, glancing again at the flowers, ignoring that small voice in my head that reminded me Smoke didn’t do romantic gestures like flowers thanks to Miss Gimmee. “It’s just…a little strained right now.”
Vi watched me, that small, knowing smile she liked to wear shaking the corner of her mouth. When I tilted my head at her, she shrugged, throwing her arms up like I’d accused her of something. “What?” she asked.
“I know you wanna say something. Spill it.”
She waited, handing Mateo his sippy cup when the boy dropped it on the floor. “Okay, fine,” she said, stretching an arm along the back of the sofa. “I think you’re trying to wreck your own happiness.” She held up her finger when I opened my mouth, ready to argue. “And,” she continued, not letting me interrupt, “despite what a wonderful roommate and friend I am, there is really no reason for you to drag your feet about living with him. The man loves you. He loves your boy. What the hell are you waiting for?”
“Vi…he’s…dangerous.”
“He can protect you,” she went on, “from that asshole ex of yours and his nosey business partner. Not to mention the fact that Smoke Carelli is a gorgeous, sweet man who happens to think you are amazing and beautiful, so much so that he spent three days spoon-feeding you chicken broth, risking infecting himself with strep throat while he put up your best friend and son in his own apartment, so you could get some rest.”
I looked away, feeling guilty and smug at how right she was. I picked up Mateo’s dirty towel, ignoring the flowers and Vi’s dead-on assessment of how much Smoke loved me as I moved into the laundry room beyond the small kitchen.
“And,” Vi went on, “what kind of man takes time out of his busy schedule to get all dirty and gross teaching a woman how to change her oil and takes her and her boy to the lake with his family and changes that kid’s shitty diapers—diapers of a kid he did not make!” When I didn’t answer, too busy separating the dirty clothes, Vi continued. “A man head over heels in love with the baby’s mama, that’s who!”
“Vivian, that’s enough!” I slammed the washing machine lid down and the sound rattled against the white tile surrounding me.
“I’m just sayin’…”
“Well, stop,” I told her, moving back into the living room. The flowers taunted me, teased me when I glanced at them and I didn’t miss Vi’s snicker. “He’s…dangerous.” I nodded at Mateo, looking out the window until the knot in my throat cleared. “It scares me…the world he lives in and how he protects the people he cares about…” Mateo reached for me and I picked him up, kissing his forehead. “It’s one thing for Smoke to watch the baby for a couple of hours but living with him, being part of his life…if anything were to happen to us because of Smoke’s business...”
Vi’s expression shifted from doubt, to worry, then straight into pity. That one I hated the most, but it gave my friend a kinder, gentler cast to her features. She exhaled, moving from the sofa to stand in front of the elaborate bouquet.
“Seems a shame,” she said, bending to inhale the fragrant flowers. “A man with that much good taste and his bank account and you’re thinking he’s too dangerous.” She pulled the small white card from the center of the flowers, opening it when I nodded my permission. “And then these flowers. Like the first ones. Someone is trying to impress you.”
Vivian’s impressed, kind smile shifted as her gaze moved over the card. Then, she dropped her mouth open and gripped the chair in front of her, her fingers instantly beginning to shake.
“What?” I said, adjusting Mateo as I stood next to Vi. “What is it?”
But Vi didn’t answer. She was too shaken by whatever it was she read on that card. Instead of answering, she handed it over, reaching for Mateo, curling him to her chest like she needed his warmth, his scent to reassure her. Like she was petrified it would be the last chance she’d have to take in his sweet smell. When I read the card, I understood why.
Mami,
I’m coming for you.
I’m coming for my boy.
I won’t be long.
—Alejandro
12
Smoke
“What’s the problem?”
My kid brother’s hair flew into his eyes as he leaned against my Audi, his arms curled tight, mouth pinched, jaw clenched like he hadn’t gotten laid in months. I knew better, still the asshole had dragged me out to the park to have a conversation about the same damn thing that he’d been bitching about for weeks. What else? The fucking redhead. I needed him to get a grip but knew that would be harder than him just sucking up his nerves and getting to business.
He was still shaking off Rikers and I was starting to doubt he’d ever be completely rid of it. The man had the look of a captain—the suit was good, though now it was wrinkled, and the hair on point, despite being windblown. He’d cleaned up, gotten his shit together enough that he didn’t look like he’d spook easy if that redhead gave him shit about not complying with our rules. The woman had only been back for a few weeks and already she was back to disrupting the small peace in our town.
But the confidence I used to see from him, the Dario whose swagger had women biting their lips when he shot winks at them?
That shit was gone.
“The problem is the woman isn’t budging and with you fucking around with your bullshit…” He waved a hand, his thumb shooting over his shoulder, toward the center of town where our folks’ restaurant was, where my business and…Maggie’s old apartment was, “…I’m fucking treading water.” My brother’s jaw tightened, and he sat on the hood of my car, hand on the back of his neck like he was about to lose his shit.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?”
He shot a look at me, eyebrows wrinkling together. “Dimitri…”
“No, I wanna know, little brother.” I looked down at him, unbuttoning my jacket, pulling it off before I tossed it on my hood. “Because I’ve had a shitty fucking day and if you’re looking for a tussle, I gotta tell you, I’m down for it.”
“Man…” He started to walk away, waving his hand behind him as he went, then turned around, pulling out of the grip I had on his arm. “Dimitri, back the fuck up.”
I let him push me.
Once.
A little spark fired in his eyes, like a flash had been lit. Something wild and flickering.
It was fucking beautiful.
I missed seeing that shit from the man.
“There you go,” I told him, getting in his face. His gaze shot to my hands as I rolled up my sleeves, to the black ink on my forearms. He’d been out months and still hadn’t asked when I’d gotten tatted. He’d missed a hell of a lot being on the inside. “Seems to me we’re due for a few rounds.”
“I can’t t
ake you.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Back in the day, I’d been the New York Golden Gloves champion. Not like I’d let myself go soft. That wouldn’t stand being the man I was, doing the shifty shit I did.
Dario wouldn’t last two rounds.
Still, I’d never done a day at Rikers. I hadn’t spent the past five years looking over my shoulder, waiting for some asshole to ice me because of shit my little brother had pulled.
“I’ll go easy on you, baby bro.” I moved my chin, giving him the mean smirk I knew he’d hate, bringing my fists up. “Unless you got something you wanna tell me. Maybe shit really did change on the inside.” I lowered my fists, when my brother’s jaw tensed so that his bottom lip curved at the side.
Good. This shit was working.
“Maybe…that place did you in and maybe there is no Dario Carelli left anymore.” He flared his nostrils, and I slipped a glance at his fists, spotting them closed and shaking. “Maybe all that’s left of you now is some mama’s boy pussy.”
“Fuck you!” he shouted, taking a swing, his face red, breath shooting out in a heavy wheeze as he came right at me.
It was fucking glorious, seeing all that fire shooting from the man, hearing the raging scream lifting from his mouth.
He pivoted, inhaling, pissed when I blocked him, full of fire and venom when I tapped him on the chin. “You son of a…”
“Watch what you say about…” I jabbed, he ducked, then I caught him on the side of the cheek, “our folks.”
“Fuck you, asshole!” Dario took another sloppy swing, using too much of his upper body, not enough of his lower body.
He was off balance and I took advantage, catching him with a body shot that brought my kid brother right to his knees.
“Shit!” He curled over, holding his stomach, waving me off when I knelt in front of him. “Get off me.”
“Stop bitching and let me see your face,” I said, moving him off the ground to lean against my car.
He didn’t fight me, but kept his stomach covered, taking deep breaths, keeping his eyes squinted like the pain was getting worse.
There was a cut on his lower lip and a purple bruise already forming below his eye.
Not too bad for ten years out of the ring.
“Here.” It took Dario a few long breaths before he opened his eyes and took the handkerchief I offered him. He rubbed his lip, not slapping my hand away when I turned his face toward me, giving him a once over. “You’ll do. Ice that lip when you get home.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah, I am.”
He watched me, not speaking, like he expected me to elaborate. He wanted a reason for the little exorcism I’d just forced him into. Dario wasn’t thick. He was a smart guy, but so much time away from us had clouded who he was. His head was muddled with how his life had been. He needed reminding that things on the outside weren’t the same.
“Dimitri,” he started, but went quiet when I glared at him.
I inhaled, scratching at the stubble on my chin as I looked toward town, wondering how long I’d have to wait to get my brother back, hoping that this shook some sense into all the fucking fog in his head. “I am an asshole because I have to be.” I glanced at him, eyes narrowed. “Pop is out. Johnny…he wants out too.”
“What’s our cousin got to do with…”
When I tilted my head, letting loose one humorless laugh, Dario dropped his mouth open, his eyes rounding.
“No. Fuck that. You can’t take over for him. Ma would lose her shit.”
“He has a family now. A wife, a child and no one that he trusts. Who else will do it?” I stood, tired of the look my kid brother gave me, sick when I thought about the complaining I knew he’d start in with.
“The shit here, in this town, D, this is nothing like Johnny’s business. This is…” He waved a hand toward the small buildings and lights illuminated near the town square. “It’s a few hot shipments and slipping dock managers thick envelopes to get cheap shit for good store owners. But Johnny’s shit…that’s not…that’s…”
“It’s not that big of a leap.”
My cousin wasn’t a don.
None of us were.
But he had connections, obligations that had made him rich. If I took over for him, like he kept asking me to do, it would free up any worries about anyone working over my dock managers or shooting up my men. It would give me leverage I didn’t have here.
“You’d be a different man in the city.” Dario stood, stuffing the handkerchief in his pocket. “We…probably wouldn’t recognize you anymore.”
“Yeah,” I told him, pulling my attention away from the town and back to my brother’s bruised face. “Think I know what that’s like.”
“There’s a difference. You aren’t going to prison.”
I moved up the right side of my mouth and Dario seemed to understand what I didn’t say. There would be no guards, no warden, but taking on our cousin’s business would put me in a place I didn’t want to be. The spotlight.
Dario let out a sigh, and the split in his bottom lip opened again but didn’t bleed. “You gotta stay here.”
“I might not have a choice, man.”
Maggie’s face from the night before crawled into my skull, reminding me of how right she’d been. I had to protect them and doing that might mean losing her in the process.
“Your girl—” Dario said, like that was the simplest answer.
“She’s getting scared.”
My brother dropped his shoulders, moving to my side. “Then stop giving her a reason to be afraid, asshole.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, scrubbing my face. I waved a hand, dismissing Johnny and Maggie and the shit I didn’t need anyone’s advice on. “What I need is for you to step up.”
“I’m…trying.” Dario went back to my car, sitting on the hood again and I moved next to him. “This…all of this, is fucking with me. I spent day in and day out for five years being told what to do, where to go, when to eat and shit and work, when to sleep, when to fucking think. And now I’m here, and you say to me, ‘handle this,’ or ‘take care of this’ and I’ve got no idea how I’m supposed to do anything anymore and then you throw this redhead at me and damn, D, is she something else.”
Laughter bubbled inside my chest. I couldn’t keep it locked down.
Dario threw a glare at me, his face contorting into a scowl and I held up my hand, a weak apology he ignored.
“I’m sorry, man…I just. Fuck, I never thought I’d see the day when Dario Carelli let a woman scare him.”
That glare transformed to surprise, then moved right into disgust. “I’m not fucking scared.”
“The hell you’re not, little brother.”
“You haven’t seen her.”
“Oh, I’ve seen her plenty.” I leaned back, stretching out my legs. “She’s hot. But, I’ve done hotter.”
“Fuck you, you’ve done hotter. She’s…she’s…” My laughing shut the man up completely and he dipped his head, letting his shoulders slouch as he looked away, like he couldn’t take staring at me. “Fuck…I am a pussy.”
“Nah, man, you’re not.” I gripped his neck, tugging him close. “You’re just out of practice. But I think once you remember the game, remember who you used to be…you’ll be back to yourself again. God help the women of this town and that redhead when you are.”
I smiled, thinking about all the shit my kid brother did back in the day. All the times I had to pay off one pissed off brother or boyfriend or threaten some worked-up father for the shit his girl was happy to do with my brother.
“Shit, May Phan…”
“What a fucking tease…”
I clapped his back, grinning like an idiot. “And Bethany Ballerini.”
“Not a tease.” He smiled, nodding. “At all, thank God.”
“Oh yeah…I remember.” I crossed my arms, laughing harder when Dario jerked a look at me, moving his eyebrows up, asking a question I answered
with a slow shrug. “What can I say? You cut ties, she was nineteen, wanted to be consoled and Sofia had just dumped me.”
“You asshole…” he said, but smiled as he cursed me.
The air around us cooled and our smiles dimmed but didn’t vanish. It was good being with my brother, seeing sparks of his old self, parts that hadn’t been taken by prison and the shit that life had done to him.
When he stared off across the park, watching as two crows landed next to each other on the top row of the monkey bars, I glanced at Dario, forgetting for a second that what I needed from him would put me farther away from the people I loved.
Just then, he was eight again, asking me to show him how to land a punch and not get knocked out by the bag.
“Tell me what you need,” he said, not looking at me at first. Then, he straightened his shoulders, cutting his eyes right to me and that eight-year-old was gone. “Whatever you need, I promise, I’ll do it.”
I watched him, my chest a little tight, full of what I thought might be regret before I squashed the sentiment down. “The woman?”
He nodded, schooling his expression like he didn’t want me to know what he really thought of her, but that much I’d gotten from him already. No matter what Rikers had done to my brother, I still knew him. I knew when he wanted someone, and that bastard wanted the redhead.
“What about her?”
“She’s not a threat, but she’s got secrets, that much I know.”
He looked away from me, nodding. “She’s definitely connected to Shane. But she keeps everything close to her chest.”
“That’s not good for us.”
The crows squawked as they abandoned the bars for the light pole over our heads.
“This town, our people here, they like things quiet. Simple. It’s a balance that we keep. It’s been that way forever. They ask us to keep that balance, to keep that peace.” I squinted, watching a black Lincoln with a busted taillight slow through the park, then speed beyond the town entrance. “Who is that?”
“Never seen it before,” Dario said. “New York plates.”
