by Bethany-Kris
She warmed him.
She made him feel alive.
“You’re the most important people to me,” he assured firmly.
“But you just said you have to go back—get back to life, right?”
A bitterness coated her words.
Dino didn’t begrudge Karen her feelings.
“This is for life,” he told her, trying to convey the suffocating expectations and rules of the life he lived without putting her front row and center for it. It was a hard thing to do when the person who needed to understand had never lived in that sort of way before. “I’m always going to be the man affiliated to the mafia—the criminal with a fucking target on his back.”
“But—”
“That doesn’t mean I wanted this, Karen.”
She stilled, her fingers clenching tight around his. “But here you are.”
“Someone didn’t give me a choice. I’m trying to make the best of what I have—I finally have a reason to do that now, because before, I was just going day to day doing what I had to since I didn’t have a reason not to.”
Karen sighed shakily. “I don’t know who you are, Dino.”
“You do, I just forgot to mention a few things along the way.”
“You think?”
“I never said I was perfect.”
Karen laughed lightly, the sound coming off like tinkling wind chimes. “You know, that’s funny. It’s all in perspective, Dino, and I don’t think you have the right perspective of yourself to be giving that kind of opinion.”
“I know you don’t think I’m perfect.”
He almost wanted to dare her to deny it.
Karen didn’t.
“In Japan, anything broken that can be repaired is often done so with gold. The culture believes that in doing so, it adds a beautiful piece of history to the object’s story. Nothing is ever really broken that way, only more beautiful, with a bit more to tell.”
Dino eyed her from the side. “I’m a man, not an object.”
“The sentiment is the same. It’s all about perspective.”
“I don’t know how to begin to repair all the broken parts of me,” he said quietly.
Karen moved a little closer to him on the bench until they were pressed together and her head was resting on his shoulder. “You started out in the right way—coming here, talking to me, and all of that. This is a good start, Dino.”
“How much longer do I have to go?”
“A ways.”
Dino nodded. “You still didn’t answer my first question.”
“His name?”
“Yeah, that.”
Dino looked out to see the baby had climbed over the side of the sandbox, and was now staring in their direction, his focus stuck firmly on the man at his mother’s side. The baby tipped his head to the side, a familiar brown gaze narrowing as he tugged on his hat and watched Dino a little more.
God, it was like looking into a mirror.
Anyone could just look at that child and know he was Dino’s son.
“Junior for the J. Dino for the D.” Karen smiled, the sight honest and true. “You said I couldn’t give him the names, not that I couldn’t be smart about it. Most people just call him by the name on his birth certificate.”
“JD.”
“But I call him Junior,” Karen continued, “and he answers to both.”
Huh.
Dino’s chest felt a little tighter, and warmer.
“But he has no father on his birth certificate,” she told him, “and his last name matches his mother’s.”
Dino could hear the sadness in Karen’s voice as she admitted those facts. He absolutely understood why she was heartbroken over doing that, but she had to know …
“It’s safer this way,” Dino said. “I’m sorry. Someday—”
“Don’t make promises you might not keep, Dino.”
Ouch.
She did have a point.
In a way.
“I’m trying,” Dino said.
“Trying to do what?”
Dino shook his head, not entirely sure just yet. “I don’t know—something, Karen. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet, but I do know it’s for you and him. For me, too. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Be happy, Dino.”
He blinked. “What?”
Karen leaned up, staring him straight in the eye and leaning forward enough to press a quick and fleeting kiss to his lax lips. “Be happy. That’s what you should do—whatever makes you happy.”
She made him happy.
She had always done that for him.
Dino just didn’t know how to keep that happiness without someone like Ben DeLuca coming along to take it from him. It was always taken from him at some point.
“Da.”
Dino’s gaze broke from Karen’s, flying to the boy standing just a foot away. The one-year-old stood in his black lace-up boots, looking like he might topple over at any moment. Still, the baby stood there, staring Dino in the face with a curious expression and his little hand pointing right at him.
“Da,” J repeated.
Dino swallowed hard, unsure in his heart.
“I have some pictures,” Karen explained. “I showed him—he knows.”
“Da,” J said firmly.
And then he took a step—one hesitant and wobbly, nearly falling over at the same time but managing to get his foot out from under himself to move another step.
His little hands slapped against Dino’s knees, and J looked up at him with wide eyes and an even bigger smile.
“Da!”
“Yeah, I’m your dad, little man.”
J’s smile grew even bigger.
“Well, you didn’t miss that, I suppose,” Karen said, a hint of a smile in her voice.
“What’s that?” Dino asked absently, his attention captured by the smiling child that reminded him of innocence and life.
“His first steps. And he walked for you—imagine that.”
Karen
“HE wants you to pick him up.”
Dino looked like Karen’s statement was the scariest thing he had ever heard. “What?”
She waved at Junior who was looking to his father with hands outstretched, making constant grabbing motions. It was his non-verbal way of asking to be picked up. “He wants you to pick—”
“I don’t know how to do that, Karen.”
Her brow furrowed. “You just pick him up, and he’ll sit in your lap.”
Dino still seemed uneasy as he shook his head. “I’ve never held a baby before and—”
Before he could protest more, Karen leaned down, scooped up the waiting baby, and put him straight into his father’s lap. Dino’s arms instinctively circled around Junior, holding him tight and close.
“See, nothing to it,” Karen murmured.
Her words were bravado and little else. She could plainly see the concern and uncertainty reflecting in Dino’s gaze. She didn’t think in all the time they had spent together that she could bring forth one memory where he looked as terrified as he did right then, with his own son in his arms.
Not even the day he’d been beaten in a back alley.
Not the times she watched him in court on the television.
Not even when he approached her earlier.
It was a genuine fear—terror, even—coloring his eyes. Like he had no fucking clue what to do next, or how to handle what was already in his arms.
Karen thought it was probably far more than just holding Junior. It was likely the whole child and father thing, something she knew Dino didn’t have good experiences with. His own father was dead, and the man he had been stuck with after his father’s death had been an abusive prick, to say the least.
“It’s easy,” Karen said softly, reaching out to stroke her son’s cheek.
Dino cleared his throat, still as stiff as a board but smiling slightly. “What is?”
“Loving him. Caring for him. Wanting the best for him. Bein
g the best you can be for him. It’s easy to do those things, Dino. Being his parent is the easiest thing I have ever done. He makes it easy, okay? Don’t be nervous.”
“I don’t know how.”
“It’s like breathing.”
Dino looked over at her, and a recognition lit up his usually cold gaze. “Sort of like how loving you is as easy as breathing.”
Karen could and would not deny how much she liked hearing that. But she had other things to deal with before she could really sit down and deal with her feelings about their situation and how she felt for Dino.
More important things were waiting.
Like their son.
“Like that,” Karen agreed quietly. “All he wants is to be loved, and he loves you in return. That’s pretty easy, don’t you think?”
Dino nodded once. “Sounds easy.”
“So why are you still sitting there like a block of ice?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be a good father,” Dino admitted.
Those words broke her heart. For him, and the lack of worth he must have felt for himself and his ability to love. She supposed being treated like trash—like waste, needing to be put out with the rest of the garbage—would leave anyone with a shitty sense of self-worth.
And her heart hurt for her son.
For his excitement at recognizing the man she called “Dad” every time she brought out the photo album on the bookcase. For his innocent love that he wanted to be returned. For the time he had already missed with a man he looked and acted like in every possibly way.
Karen tried not to show it.
For both of them.
“That’s not really for you to decide,” Karen said.
“Pardon?”
“You don’t get to decide if you’re good enough for him—if you’re worthless or amazing as a father.”
Dino fixed the baby’s hat, carefully balancing him on his lap at the same time. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t get to decide,” she repeated simply, “he does. The only thing you can do is influence him in one way or the other by the things you do and the way you love him. He gets the final say, Dino.”
“Oh.”
One little word.
All it took was that one little word for Karen to know Dino would do just fine.
“This is a nice place,” Dino said. “Bigger than your last apartment.”
Karen found him leaning in the kitchen entryway of her apartment, surveying the space with an appreciative eye. “Not as nice as that house you tried to shove on me, though, right? And I needed a bigger space for all the stuff that comes along with a new baby.”
Dino didn’t miss her dig about the house if his smirk was any indication. “I was trying to do something right, Karen.”
“The thought was nice.”
“But?”
“But I didn’t feel right taking it,” she admitted.
“Yet, you took the lake property.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice there, either.”
“You could have said no,” he pointed out.
“You knew I wouldn’t.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t. Big difference.”
Karen sighed, tossing the potato into the colander and setting the knife aside. “Say what you want to say.”
Dino crossed his arms, never once taking his gaze off of her. In the living room, she could hear the sounds of Junior rolling around in his walker and bumping into things, followed by his babyish giggles every time he hit something. It was his favorite game to play. Karen had learned early on to pack away anything that might break when Junior was let loose.
“You haven’t moved into the lake property, either,” Dino finally said.
Ah.
There it was.
“I have a job, and it’s a bit of a drive from there to the studio, Dino,” she explained. “That’s all.”
“Not that I gave it to you.”
Karen shook her head. “Not that at all.”
“Okay.”
She eyed him curiously. “Why haven’t you mentioned the other house? It’s closer—it’d be an argument for you to use to get me living there.”
Dino’s expression blanked, growing cold and emotionless as he replied, “It’s not safe. It probably won’t ever be, now.”
“Mike seemed pretty—”
“Mike is dead because of that house,” Dino interrupted.
Karen’s heart found her throat. “What?”
“Exactly what I said. His involvement with me beyond a level someone thought was appropriate cost him his life. All because he put forward the paperwork and transferred my money between accounts so I could buy a house. Now, it’s watched. It’s mine—people know it’s mine. I won’t put you into it just to have them know about you and J, too.”
“You say people like it’s just anybody. It’s not just anybody, is it?”
Dino didn’t even blink. “My uncle is not a nice man.”
“Ben DeLuca, you mean. In your letter, you wrote about him a lot.”
“He’s a monster.”
Karen heard what Dino said loud and clear, but she was also listening for what he didn’t say. Something she had noted all those months ago when she read his letter—a certain tone he had when he talked about his uncle, and how he referred to himself.
Ben wasn’t the only person Dino thought was a monster.
He believed he stared at one every day in the mirror when he looked at himself.
Karen didn’t know how to help him to see that wasn’t true at all.
“But not a monster I want you worrying about,” Dino added when Karen stayed silent. “And that’s why I won’t push that house on you. It’s not important.”
Karen fiddled with the sleeve of her shirt, a question burning on the back of her tongue, wanting to come out so badly. She wasn’t sure if she should ask. Her heart was screaming at her, wanting to say how she felt, while another part of her wanted to stay safely hidden inside the cocoon of walls she’d built that would keep Dino at arm’s length.
Given the way he was staring at her, she knew there was no possible way she would be able to keep him at a distance for long.
Dino wouldn’t let her.
Karen really didn’t want to, anyway.
There was still a real fear in her heart that made her worry—one day she might wake up, and he’d be gone. To where, she didn’t know. How, she couldn’t answer.
It was just a possibility.
It happened once.
It could happen again.
“Karen?” Dino asked. “You good?”
She blinked out of her daze, staring up at him and realizing how close he had come to stand in front of her while she was lost to her own thoughts. She could smell the spice and woodsy scent of whatever cologne he was wearing, and she almost wanted to bring him closer, just to see if that smell would swallow her whole and make the rest of the outside world disappear.
Somehow, Karen beat that urge down.
“I’m fine,” she eventually said.
“You look a little lost.”
Well …
“I am, but it’s okay.”
Dino cupped her jaw in his large hand, his thumb stroking her skin softly but surely, letting her know with each touch that he understood without needing to be told a thing. “Thank you.”
Karen’s gaze widened. “For what?”
“Letting me be here. Allowing me to spend time with you and him. Listening to my apology. All of it, really.”
“I never planned on doing anything different.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had, you know?”
Karen shook her head. “You were right, Dino. All those months ago when you called and said the fact you loved me meant I owed you at least five minutes—you never got those five minutes. I’ve been waiting all this time just to give them to you.”
His thumb stilled. “Yeah?”
“All this time.”
“I
never told you before, but you’re amazing.”
Karen’s lips curved into a smile. “Come on—save the charm for another day, Dino.”
“No charm. I’m leaving us up to you. So, no charm, nothing like that.”
“Huh.”
“Scout’s honor,” Dino murmured, winking.
Karen only half believed him.
She didn’t mind the charm.
“Let me finish getting dinner ready, and then we can talk some more if you want,” she said.
Dino let her go, and she felt the loss instantly, almost wishing she hadn’t said a thing, and instead, kept him close. He stepped back, waving at the kitchen sink where the potatoes were still waiting to be peeled and washed.
“Go for it,” he told her. “I look forward to a decent meal for the first time in a year and a half.”
“Prison food is that bad, huh?”
“Worse. So much worse.”
Karen didn’t press him for more information, but only because Dino had already turned around and was heading back for the living room. He scooped a small Styrofoam packet—it looked like it was big enough to hold maybe a cheeseburger—off the table. She hadn’t asked what was inside of it earlier, but maybe it was something he had been waiting to eat and picked up on his way to visit her and Junior.
“He can have something before dinner, right?” Dino asked over his shoulder.
“Depends on what it is, Dino.”
“Something he’ll like.”
“That tells me nothing.”
Dino didn’t say anything more, and Karen perked at the sound of her son’s squeals when he got his father back in his line of vision again. Already, Karen knew Junior was happy just to be around his father. There was a connection there, and as long as it was fed and nourished, it would only keep growing.
That was pretty amazing.
Junior deserved his father.
Dino deserved his son.
“Dino, what is it?” Karen shouted over her shoulder.
“Just a cupcake.”
A what?
Why would he get their son a cupcake?
Karen dropped the potato and knife again, heading for the living room. She came to a full stop in the entryway as she saw Dino bend down and open the Styrofoam package, a small chocolate cupcake with rainbow frosting resting inside. On the top, a small candle rested there, and he pulled a lighter from his pocket, lighting the colorful wick.
