by Tessa Thorne
I shake my head. I hope he doesn’t start picking up bad habits from Rocco. But it’s nice seeing Ethan talking with someone else. He’s been so lonely since we’ve been on the run. And every growing boy needs positive male role models. Though, I can’t say Rocco is a positive role model. I don’t want Ethan looking up to a criminal.
“What position did you play?” Ethan asks, craning his neck up at Rocco.
“Catcher,” he says. “You wanna know why?”
Ethan nods his head vigorously.
“Coach said to me, ‘Rocco, you’re built like a shitton of bricks, so you’re gonna be a wall at home plate.’,” he says, emphasizing his Italian-American accent.
Ethan laughs. “You said the S word.”
Rocco looks at me and grins, and I just shake my head again. I can’t be mad at him. What do I expect? I’m staying in the home of a mafia hitman. It’s not like I can demand that he not curse around my kid. And it’s not like Harry ever stopped cursing around him.
My eyes drop to my barely eaten eggs and toast, and I let out a low sigh. It’s depressing to realize a hitman makes a better role model for my child than his own father. I watch Ethan chatting with Rocco about baseball, and I can’t even remember the last time Harry said anything to Ethan that didn’t make him cry.
“I’m not very good at baseball,” Ethan says, his voice losing its happiness.
“You just have to practice,” Rocco says.
“Coach said I’m hopeless,” he replies, his voice dropping into a whisper.
Rocco looks like he’s about to say something, but I interrupt him. “I’ll talk to him when I take you to practice tomorrow. He has no right to tell you that.”
Rocco looks at me like he wants to say something also, but I shoot a meaningful glare at him. We talked about this before I moved in with him. Ethan’s my son, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to have Rocco teaching him life lessons.
He grins at me and takes that as his cue to leave. “I’m heading to the gym. You got the keys.”
He pats Ethan on the back on his way out. “Don’t let people give you shit, kiddo. Or else you’re gonna be eating shit the rest of your life.”
I glare at him, working my jaw as he heads out the door. How dare he speak to my baby like that! He can save that kind of talk for his own kid. I’m going to have to have a talk with him tonight.
I lower myself to Ethan’s level, put my arm around his shoulders and look him in the eyes. “Don’t listen to him, baby,” I say, trying to take the temper out of my voice. “You’re doing just fine. I’ll talk to the coach and straighten him out.”
He drops his eyes from mine and stares at his hands. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?” I ask.
He looks up at me, unsure if he should say anything.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You know you can always tell me how you feel.”
He looks at me, still unsure. “I think he’s right,” he whispers.
“What do you mean?” That’s the last thing I wanted to hear.
He looks up at me, his big blue eyes glistening with emotion. “I don’t like getting made fun of.”
I pull him against my chest and wrap him tightly in my arms. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I say.
I’ve been so wrapped up in trying to make sure our lives don’t go spinning completely out of control that I haven’t been paying enough attention to Ethan. I put him in baseball so he’d have something to do, and so he'd have a chance to socialize with other kids during the summer. And I haven't really had enough time to go by and see how he was doing at it. I should have known that he wouldn’t tell me what was hurting him unless I made sure to ask. He’s been afraid to talk since Harry started getting violent.
“Do you still want to go?” I ask. “You have practice tomorrow.”
He looks at me for a moment, still unsure, before nodding his head yes.
“Okay, baby,” I say. “I’ll talk to the coach.”
“No,” he says firmly. “I’ll be okay.”
“Is this because of what Rocco said?” I ask.
“No,” he says, looking away from me.
That just boils my blood. We haven’t been here for more than two days and he’s already messing with how I’m raising my child. I’m definitely having a very stern talk with him when he gets back.
We spent most of the day outside exploring Rocco’s neighborhood. I’ve never spent much time here. It’s not that Williamsburg is difficult to get to. It’s just that every neighborhood in New York City is so self-contained. You have everything you need in each area. You never need to leave your own neighborhood unless you’re feeling adventurous. And I’d always loved the Upper West Side so much.
We find our way to the local farmers' market. I’m reluctant to admit it, but it’s better than the one we had back home. There’s a lot more produce and a lot of specialty handcrafted foods. Like freshly prepared pasta, every sort of pickled vegetable you can imagine and even homemade cheese.
After we finish shopping, I end up with one full bag of groceries. I’d have gotten more, but I don’t know how I’d carry it home with my bad arm. My shoulder hurts just from holding Ethan’s hand to make sure he doesn’t run off somewhere by himself. That’s the last thing I need right now. Thankfully the doorman at Rocco’s place was nice enough to help me bring the groceries upstairs and even unload it all into the fridge.
The groceries I bought are enough for several meals, including what I plan to make tonight. Fresh spaghetti with homemade sauce and sausages. I haven’t cooked a proper meal in forever, and I know Ethan’s going to love the sweet sausage. I’ll make enough for Rocco to have some too if he’s hungry when he comes home. I may still be mad at him for what he said to Ethan, but it’s his kitchen and it wouldn’t be right to cook in it without making enough to share.
It feels like a rare pleasure bringing groceries home and cooking it in a proper kitchen. I let Ethan watch TV while I cook. I hate it when I have him sit in front of the TV, but I can only do so much by myself. When I finish cooking, we sit at Rocco’s glass dining table and eat dinner together like a proper family. He’s exhausted from our day out, so I read him his Terry Pratchett story at eight thirty and he’s passed out cold by nine o’clock.
What a day. I never thought it’d feel so good to just have a normal Sunday. I pour a glass of the red wine I find in the pantry, promising myself I’ll replace it, and draw myself a nice bath. My shoulder is sore from cooking and doing the dishes, and I just want to relax.
It almost feels normal lying in a sparkling clean bath, sipping on a delicious red, listening to soft music on my phone. This is what life is supposed to be like. No family should have to live in a filthy motel room, terrified for their lives, wondering when a psychotic ex will find them again and tear apart whatever pathetic life they’ve managed to build for themselves.
But I know this can’t last. I’m in the apartment of the man I wanted to hire to kill my ex-husband. And I’m paying him to protect me and my son from him instead. This can’t last. I need to find a way to end this once and for all. What am I supposed to do if I can’t get the law to protect me from him? Or even kill him? To think that I actually tried to do that.
I dip myself until I’m chin deep in the big tub and rub my sore shoulder, trying to let the memories of the last time he hurt me drift away. It joins the flood of memories of all the other times he did this to me in the back of my mind, always threatening to burst out and overwhelm me. I tolerated it until he started hitting Ethan. I should have gotten out sooner so he would have never turned his fists on my little boy. I shouldn’t have ever married him in the first place. Ethan would have been better off if he'd never gotten to know him.
But my mom was horrified at the thought of me raising a bastard. She threatened to kick me out and disown me if I didn’t marry the man that got me pregnant. So, I married him. Then I listened to her and stayed with him when he started drinking too much and hitting me.
I stare at the spotless tiles across from me, and shake my head to clear my thoughts. I can’t keep blaming my mother. No matter what she told me, I made my own decisions as an adult, and I need to own up to them. This is my mess, and it’s up to me alone to clean it up.
The magic ruined, I climb out of the tub and put on my favorite robe. I just took it out of the dryer, so it’s warm and extra fluffy. I check in on Ethan to make sure he’s still sleeping. He’s lying in the middle of the sleeper sofa, asleep with his arms flung up above his head. The way he does when he’s relaxed. I haven’t seen him sleep like that in what feels like ages. He’s been sleeping curled up, his arms over his face, like he’s trying to protect himself from a scary world.
It’s nice to see him feeling safe. Even if this can’t last. I’ve learned to treasure these rare moments by now.
I kiss him lightly on his cheek, and head back into the living room, closing the door behind me. I lie back on the couch, curl my feet under me and turn on the TV to relax by watching a cooking show before I go to sleep.
I’m about ready to turn in for the night when I hear keys in the front door. I almost jump out of my skin when I first hear it, but I force myself to calm down. I watch suspiciously as the door swings open, and Rocco walks in wearing a well-fitted pinstripe navy suit. My heart fills with relief when I see his face. The alternatives could have been so much worse.
He looks up in surprise as he sees me still awake, and his eyes turn to the TV. “That’s my favorite show,” he says in a low voice.
He kicks off his shoes and lays his jacket across the back of the couch.
I’m almost a little sad to see him take off the jacket. He cleans up so nice in a suit. He could easily have walked off the cover of GQ magazine.
“What’s that smell?” he asks as he gets closer to the couch.
He takes in a deep breath through his nose. “Is that gravy with sausage?” he asks with a tinge of hope in his voice.
“I made dinner,” I say, standing up. “Want me to heat some up for you?”
He looks between me and the kitchen, a wide smile on his face. “That’d be amazing.”
“You get out of those clothes, and I’ll heat up the food.” I immediately regret the words that came out of my mouth as his smile turns into a cocky grin.
“You know what I mean,” I say flatly, trying to recover my dignity as I take the leftovers out of the fridge.
“Sure do,” he says, that frustrating grin still plastered on his face. “You want I should do it here?” he says as he starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“No!” I clap my hand over my mouth as I realize how loud I’m being. Of course, I really mean yes. Jasmin’s dragged me to places where women pay men not even half as hot as him good money to strip like that. To get that for free? Hell yes. But it wouldn’t be right. I need to keep this professional.
He cocks an eyebrow at me with that now-familiar devilish twinkle in his eyes. “I’ll be back.”
The food is heated and ready by the time he returns. He’s wearing another pair of athletic shorts and a tight fitting t-shirt. I watch the muscles rippling on his arms as he grabs a beer from the fridge. His shorts are so thin I can make out the muscles in his ass when he bends toward the fridge, and the outline of his cock head when he turns around to take the warm plate from my hand.
“Careful,” I say, quickly bringing my eyes back to his. “It’s hot.”
“My hands don’t burn so easy.” His smirk tells me he caught me peeking, and I can feel my face going red.
I head back to the couch ahead of him, pulling my bathrobe tighter to hide my blush. I curl back up on the couch and he sits on the other side, putting his plate on the coffee table.
He takes a deep pull from the beer, and I take a sip from my second glass of wine, desperately trying to get my hormones back under control. I can’t keep letting him affect me like this.
“Man,” he says as he picks up his plate and stuffs his mouth full of pasta and a chunk of sausage. He grins at me with his cheeks full as he finishes chewing his food and swallows before continuing. “Don’t want to keep you in suspense, but I didn’t want to talk with my mouth full.”
I can’t help but let out a laugh. I stretch out my arms over my head and arch my back. “God it feels good to laugh again,” I say before realizing I was speaking out loud.
He just looks at me and grins through another mouthful of food.
“This is really good,” he says, gesturing to the quickly emptying plate with his fork. “There any more?”
“Yeah.” I nod, moving to get off the couch. “I can warm up more if you want.”
He puts his hand on my thigh and nudges me back down. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ll get it myself.”
I look down on his large hand on my robe-covered thigh. His knuckles look a bit red and roughed up, with a small cut over his middle knuckle. He sees me looking and pulls his hand back to his plate.
My heart starts beating rapidly as I realize what that means. I don’t have to guess or ask to know what he’s been doing tonight. Of course that’s what he’s been doing tonight. Me and my son are staying in the house of a mafia hitman. What did I expect? That he wouldn’t be doing what he normally does just because I’m here?
“Did you get this stuff at the farmers' market?” he asks, pulling me out of my downward spiraling thoughts.
I don’t know what it is about him. He acts so normal, despite me knowing what he is. I mean, I know he’s dangerous. And his body’s one in a million. But I just can’t see him as a bad guy when we’re chatting across the couch with him eating my leftovers.
“Yeah,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. It’s still sore, but not near as bad as it was the day after Harry hurt me. “It was really nice. Ethan loved it.”
“He’s a good kid,” he says, setting his plate on the coffee table.
“He is,” I say.
He’s been a lot happier since we moved in here, even though it’s only been a couple of days. The change in him has been so obvious. It’s amazing how much you can miss just from not having a stable, clean home. I never valued those things because I’d always had them.
Even though I got pregnant my senior year and moved in with my husband when I was just eighteen, I never had it bad financially. I was raised in a comfortably middle-class family. My mom never worked. I was an only child. My dad worked for the railroad in an union job and retired with a pension before passing away. And Harry entered the police academy right after school to join his dad in the NYPD. So things were never bad for us. At least financially.
I even learned to start coding on my own to have something to occupy my free time. That’s how I met Jasmin.
The sound of Rocco grabbing another beer from the fridge pulls me from my thoughts. I didn’t even notice him getting up. He comes back to the couch, and gestures with the bottle of wine toward my empty glass.
“Please.” Another glass won’t hurt.
He fills the glass, hands it to me and leans back against the couch with his arm behind his head.
I drink slowly, peeking glances at Rocco while we watch TV quietly. I hate to admit that I barely notice the show. I love the tattoos on his arms. I’d love to hear how he got them, and who drew them. Tattoos are all the rage now. Practically everyone in the tech co-op is covered in them. But his are different. I doubt he got them because they were trendy. They fit him so well that I suspect they have a deeper meaning. I want to ask, but I know I have a bad habit of asking overly personal questions, and I don’t want to start doing that with Rocco. It never ends well.
“So, how is it that you love cooking shows and have this amazing kitchen, but don’t cook?” I ask, turning toward him on the couch.
Talking about cooking has got to be the safer choice. There’s no way this will up getting too personal. He keeps staring at the TV for a moment as the chef throws a bunch of ingredients into a food processor and gives it a whirl. Then he turns to me and shrugs
.
“Don’t know,” he says. “Always wanted to learn, but never had the time.”
“You said your mom cooked,” I say. “Why not learn from her?”
I regret the question the moment I ask it. A dark cloud passes over his eyes, and the muscles in his jaws tense as he presses his lips flat together. So much for a safe topic. Why do I have to have a talent for always digging where I’m not welcome? My mom always said that about me, that I dig too much, asking people about things they’d rather not talk about. And here I go again.
He takes another long pull from his beer and puts the empty bottle down on the coffee table with a quiet clink.
“It’s been a while since she cooked,” he says.
I can tell he’s trying to hide it, but I can hear an edge of sadness in his voice. I did it again. Hit him right on target. Just where I needed to go if I wanted to kill a good mood and turn it all awkward so I can go to bed feeling like a butt. God damn it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, leaning toward him with my elbow resting on the back of the couch. “I didn’t realize…”
He turns toward me, a forced smile on his face. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s just how it is. She hasn’t been able to do much since I was a kid.”
“Oh my God,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It was a long time ago. You deal with the shit life throws at you, and you move on best as you can. You should know, of all people.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” I want to drop my eyes from his. But there’s an intense sadness in them that I want to fix. It feels like it’s my fault.
“Really, though,” he says. “Most broads I’ve met would’ve crumbled if they were put in your situation. The shit you were willing to do to protect your son, it’s fucking impressive.”
I can’t help but smile at the compliment. Even though he called me a broad, it doesn’t sound offensive coming from him. I don’t know if he’s right though. I think most people would say I’m crazy. Going on the darknet to find a hitman. Trying to buy a gun to kill him the next time he showed up at my door with alcohol on his breath and a mean look in his eyes. Then paying that hitman to let me move in with him so he can protect me from my ex-husband. But it feels like something any mother would do to protect her child. It doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything special.
