by Cora Brent
Kate’s expression turned sympathetic and she took a step closer. “I heard about Anya. God, Jack, I’m so sorry. Everyone loved her.”
“Thanks,” he said listlessly. “Everyone did love her.”
Kate gave him a hug. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and squeezed. He patted her back clumsily, wishing she would just go away.
She didn’t go away though. She took his response as encouragement and moved her hands to his waist, finding his belt as she began kissing his neck. “I want to be there for you Jack,” she whispered, probably figuring that if he wasn’t stopping her, then he must really want her hand on his dick.
And he did.
Suddenly there was no better solution to Jack’s agony than some woman’s mouth on him. He could have her right here on the floor of the shop, again and again. There was a certain satisfaction in fucking someone you didn’t give a shit about. It dulled the pain and the dreariness of life for a few minutes and when he needed it again it would be waiting. If not this woman, then another one. He could do this. Just like he used to. Before Anya.
“No,” he said loudly, taking a step back and pulling his pants back up. Kate was still down there on her knees.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, offering to give her a hand to get her off the floor. “I need to go home, tuck my little girl into bed. You should go.”
Kate’s eyes flashed with anger but she made her voice syrupy and said stupid words about comforting him as he practically pushed her out the door. He was glad when it closed behind her.
A few minutes later he turned off the lights and really did head home. Allie was already asleep but Claudia was sitting in the kitchen. Jack grabbed a few beers and asked her how the rehearsal dinner went. She said it went fine but somehow he could sense her disapproval as he sucked back the beers like they were water. Ever since she was a kid, Claudia always had a knack for making him feel like he was shit. It used to irritate the hell out of him, especially because it was often true.
Claudia sighed and went upstairs, leaving him at the table alone. Jack sat down and stared out the window at the fireflies blinking in the front yard. He was fucking up. He knew it. He hadn’t even seen Allie when she was awake since Monday morning. Instead he’d given her over completely to Claudia and retreated into his own pain. He needed to stop.
There were three more beers in the fridge so Jack drank them all quickly and waited to feel tired. He wasn’t particularly comfortable in his jeans but he didn’t want to go to the bedroom for anything. Instead he went straight into the living room and collapsed into the sofa that Anya had picked out the year they were married. His head was still pounding and he wished he’d thought to take some aspirin before lying down. Jack didn’t know how long he was asleep but when he woke up there was screaming.
“MOMMYMOMMYMOMMY!!”
It was Allie, shouting the same word in terror, over and over.
“MOMMYMOMMYMOMMY!!”
Jack fumbled with his limbs, trying to get to her. Claudia was faster. She bounded down the stairs like an Olympic sprinter and flew right past him before he was on his feet.
He found them together in Allie’s room. Claudia had scooped up her hysterical little sister and held her as the girl wailed.
“I know, sweetheart, I know,” Claudia was saying in a soft voice as she rubbed Allie’s back.
Jack switched the light on and tried to take her out of Claudia’s arms but Allie held tightly to her sister’s neck for dear life and wouldn’t let go. Claudia threw him an apologetic look and he gave up, backing away until he hit a wall and then slid down to the floor.
Allie was fully awake now. She had stopped howling but her breath came out in great hiccupping sobs. Claudia sat with her on the edge of the bed and Jack stared at his children; one a wispy blonde girl, the other a lovely dark-haired woman.
Within ten minutes Allie was asleep on Claudia’s shoulder. Claudia gently tucked her back into bed and kissed her softly before turning around. She looked surprised to see him sitting there, as if she’d completely forgotten he was even around.
“I think she’ll sleep now,” Claudia whispered as she turned off the light. She paused and gazed down at him. “You coming?”
“I’ll stay,” he said, leaning his back against the wall. “In case she wakes up again.”
Claudia merely nodded and left. She looked exhausted.
For the rest of the long night, as soon as Jack would start to doze off against the wall in his daughter’s bedroom, he would awaken with a jolt. Every single time he was sure he had heard Allison screaming for Anya again even though she was sound asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EASTON
Five seconds after the bride and groom finished their vows I couldn’t remember a word they’d said. I’d stood up at the altar behind a line of Giordano men while Rocco and Sheryl finally got married. I hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention.
“It’s about time!” shouted a male voice from the rear of the church and everyone laughed. Even that joke took a minute to register with me because I’d been staring at Claudia so hard my eyes were going to pop.
She’d spent the bulk of the ceremony trying to subdue Allie the fidgeting flower girl, who had dumped out her basket of petals at the groom’s feet, smiled charmingly at the guests and then squirmed in the front pew until everyone finished saying what they needed to say.
Claudia always looked incredible to me but tonight she’d kicked it up a notch. Her deep blue dress was simple and complemented her long dark hair. The thing sculpted her breasts and waist before flaring out over her hips and falling to her knees. And forget about the black heels she wore. They were just dying to be propped up on either of my shoulders as I pumped away like a mad bastard.
Get a fucking grip.
I finally tore my eyes away from my eye candy fantasy and watched the bride and groom finish a long kiss. Sheryl wiped a tear away from her face and Rocco put his arm around her. They’d been an on and off again couple for a ridiculous number of years. Sheryl was even supposed to marry someone else at some point but that didn’t happen and now here we all were.
Jack kind of stumbled into me and I wondered if he’d already had a few. I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to get a little numb. We’d buried Anya only a week ago.
The line to get out of the church moved so slowly I thought I must be walking backwards. Claudia had somehow already slid out of there with Allie. I didn’t see either of them.
I slapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder and he turned to look at me with hooded eyes. A pang of sympathy hit me. How much had the poor guy been sleeping? All week I’d watched him pushing himself into working a ridiculous amount of hours in an effort to block out his misery. I understood, as much as I could. I’d watched both my mother and my sister die and that had shattered me in a way that couldn’t quite be fixed. But neither compared to Jack’s loss. As I followed him out of the church I tried to think of anything that would feel similar, any grief that would measure up to the one Jack faced.
Claudia.
The idea of a world without Claudia was intolerable and she wasn’t even mine. And yet she always had been mine. She was the reason why I’d never had a relationship for longer than a few months. No one else could compete with the connection I had with her. If she had ever dismissed it as just sex then she was wrong from the beginning.
It took a while to get all the guests ushered out of the church and on their way to the reception. Getty discreetly took the keys to Jack’s car, motioning that I ought to follow him and drag Jack along. Once we were in the Chevelle, Getty turned up the music really loud for the short drive to the reception.
Even though there were about two hundred brightly dressed people milling around the hall, which had once been a historic country inn, I zeroed in on Claudia the second I walked through the door. She had Allie by the hand as she talked to one of Sheryl’s sisters. She must have felt my eyes on her because she abruptly swiveled in my
direction. I didn’t even bother to hide the fact that I’d been staring. I stared some more. She gave me a small smile and a faint wave.
Ben Hollis, Sheryl’s father, came up to me, beaming and wanting to shake my hand so I was forced to turn my attention away from Claudia. For a little while I wandered around talking to familiar people. I was as polite as I knew how to be but there was all kinds of madness happening on the inside. For the last month I’d seen Claudia every day and played the respectful friend the whole time. It had to be that way as our family limped along and tried to deal with terrible things. But I was reaching the breaking point where she was concerned. Even in the midst of of heartache I had to have her. I would crack the fuck up if I didn’t do something about it soon.
I wound up at a table with Claudia, Allie, Jack, Getty, and the long-faced waitress from the Lutztown Diner that he’d towed along as his date. She kept her hand on Getty’s knee and looked disinterested in the existence of anyone else. Getty ate his steak and mostly ignored her.
“Daddy, will you dance with me later?” Allie asked and I saw Jack’s eyes turn a little watery as he looked at the five-year-old image of Anya.
“Of course,” he said, putting down his drink. “One day soon I’ll teach you the tarantella, just like I taught your sister. My grandmother was the one who taught it to me.”
Claudia was sitting beside me. She caught my eye and I figured she was probably thinking of the last time Jack pulled her out on the dance floor to help lead the guests in the tarantella. It had been at Jack’s wedding to Anya. Impulsively I reached under the table and squeezed her hand. The smile that crossed her face made me bold enough to lean over and whisper in her ear.
“Will you dance with me later?”
She shifted in her chair. Claudia and I had danced at Jack and Anya’s wedding too. Except it had turned dirty when my horny ass started to grind on her. She’d freaked out at the time and walked away from me. Not for long though. That moment on the dance floor was only a dim prelude to the passionate insanity that would happen later.
“I’ll dance with you,” she answered quietly and I knew she remembered it all.
Getty had left the table moments earlier to take the microphone. For Rocco and Sheryl’s first dance he sang Open Arms. I’d heard him sing before and the beauty of his voice always struck me.
While the audience was still clapping and wiping tears away from the sight of newlyweds in love, Jack got close to Getty. He said something in a low voice and Getty looked a little uncertain. He glanced at Rocco and then at Claudia.
“Oh shit,” Claudia said. “What’s he doing?”
Getty seemed uneasy as he returned to the microphone. He tried to hide it with a smile. “Well folks, no Giordano family affair would be complete without Jack over here leading the tarantella with his beautiful daughter. So Claudia, get on up here and help your old dad out, would ya?”
He started clapping to the rhythm and the deejay began playing the song. The music was feisty and frenetic, perfect for dancing at a wedding. But it was all wrong here.
Claudia shot me a painful glance before rising to her feet and joining her father on the dance floor. Jack began clapping like his life depended on it and the sight of him was awful. He pulled people out of their chairs and they looked confused.
Allie grabbed my hand. “Can we go too?” she begged.
“In a minute,” I told her, feeling strangely anxious.
Claudia was trying to follow her father’s lead but she kept looking at him worriedly, especially when it became obvious that no only was he clumsily drunk, but he was crying. People stopped and stared. The music played on. Jack released Claudia and paused, looking puzzled. Even across the room I could see the tears on his cheeks.
“Daddy!” Allie called but her small voice was lost in the music and the sympathetic murmuring of the crowd.
Suddenly Jack opened his palms inches from his face and stared at them as if he didn’t know what they were. The light from the crystal chandelier overhead glinted off the gold wedding band on his left hand. Claudia was holding onto him. She hugged him and Getty ordered the music to be cut off. When it was, a horrible silence reigned.
“What’s wrong?” asked Allie with a frown.
Just then Betty Hollis, Sheryl’s mother, appeared beside us. She bent low and smiled at my niece. “I heard there are cookies hiding in the kitchen,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. She raised her eyebrows. “Would you like to help me find them?”
Allie’s eyes were round. “Yes!”
I nodded my thanks to Betty as she kindly chaperoned the little girl away from the sad spectacle on the dance floor. When I looked back, Claudia was gone and so was Jack. Rocco was making a beeline for the men’s bathroom so I followed him. We found Jack puking into a urinal.
“East?” Rocco asked. “You think you could drive him home?”
Before I could agree Jack interrupted. “Hell no. Just give me another shot of Irish whiskey.”
“Jack.”
“Rocco. Don’t fuck with me right now, okay?” Jack wiped his face with a brown paper towel and began running cold water in the sink.
Rocco sighed. “All right, big brother.”
Jack splashed some water on his face, took several deep breaths and then looked sadly at Rocco. “I’m sorry about this shit. I don’t want to leave things this way. I just need a minute, that’s all.”
“Of course,” Rocco answered with soft sadness.
Getty popped his head through the door and nodded when Rocco quietly asked him to go retrieve a shot of whiskey. I caught up to him on the other side of the door.
“Where’d Claudia go?”
Getty looked in the direction of the double doors that opened into the balmy late spring night. “That way, I think. I left her alone because it looked like she wanted it that way.”
“Thanks, man.”
I found her standing in the darkest part of the courtyard. She was startled when I said her name but she waited for me to join her. In a pained voice Claudia asked where Jack was. She was troubled by the news that he insisted on remaining at the wedding and had demanded another shot, as if either event made a damn bit of difference in the sad scheme of things.
“Does it matter, Claudia?” I asked, exasperated.
“No,” she sighed. “No, it doesn’t.”
I wasn’t close enough to her so I got even closer. I’d always understood the intense physical connection between us. Yet for weeks I’d been playing the sexless friend, backing away every time because I figured that was how it had to be for now. I thought that was what she needed.
But then Claudia turned my way and said my name in a thick, sexy voice that told me all bets were off. There were times when she needed someone to hold her hand. This wasn’t one of them.
“Here?” I asked wildly, already hard enough to hammer a railroad spike into the ground.
“There,” she said, indicating an unseen place around the side of the building.
I kissed her. I touched her everywhere and was borderline rough about it. But the more I stroked and seized and grinded with fury the more she was into it.
Claudia was all over my pants by now. “Easton,” she begged with urgency. “I need this. You need this.”
That was it. I was done being the passive buddy. We’d always been meant for something else. There was no point in pretending differently.
“You’re damn right, baby,” I told her. “And I’ll have it until you’re spent and shaking and still fucking begging for more.”
“Yes,” she moaned and by now I had my hand in her panties, satisfied that she was going to get off as hard and as quick as she ever did. “Like the first time. Like the last time. Like every time.”
Forever.
Silently I picked her up and carried her into the darkness. Fucking like animals against the side of a building was probably no one’s romantic fantasy. But we’d never been conventional, Claudia and I, so it was mine. It was hers
too.
“Only you, Claudia,” I whispered when I was inside of her. Later I would come up with better things to say. For now I just needed to cement the fact that this was exactly where we belonged.
I held onto her as we collapsed onto the wet grass. We were behaving like horny teens instead of sensible adults and I didn’t give a damn. My pants were somewhere below my knees and I didn’t give a damn about that either.
“You should tell her, Easton.”
Anya had said that to me once. The words came right out of nowhere sometime in the last weeks before she lost the ability to speak. Even by then they emerged slurred, garbled. I understood what she meant and who she was talking about, even though I pretended I didn’t. That would always be the last thing I clearly remembered my sister telling me.
We were still on the ground and Claudia was still in my arms. At best a few more minutes remained before she would insist that we needed to put ourselves back together and return to the reception. But for now Claudia’s head was on my chest, my heart beating beneath her cheek.
Yes, this time I would tell her. There was no stopping me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CLAUDIA
I was in his arms and had no wish to be anywhere else. But I flinched at the nearby sound of a giggle and then a man’s voice complaining that he needed to get back on the road to Queens. The woman on his arm begged for one more drink. He sighed but relented and they returned to the reception. I thought I recognized their voices, friends of Rocco’s.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Easton protested, pulling me back when I started to move.
