Just as quickly as her eyes had closed, however, they popped back open, stunned at the sound of Blue hacking from where she was still nestled in Rocco’s arm. Her eyes flew to Blue with a gasp, just in time to see a waterfall of milk come flying out of her mouth and spilling down her chin. Joining the thick layer of spit-up that had already gathered there a moment earlier.
Just for good measure, another cascade of puke came flying out of Blue’s mouth, this time going airborne and splattering all over Rocco’s forearm.
Stella pressed her lips together to hold back the laugh that bubbled up her throat, but when she looked up at Rocco and saw him watching Blue with his mouth drawn as well, she couldn’t help it. The chortle exploded from her lips before she could stop it, and he guffawed a moment later, the deep, buttery sound of his laughter joining hers and bouncing off the bathroom walls. They laughed until she felt like her stomach had tied itself into a knot. Until she couldn’t even manage a complete breath without falling into hysterics again. Tears even burned her eyes as it took over her entire body.
“Oh my god, my poor baby, what’s wrong?” Stella took Blue from his arms and cuddled her on her hip, using her silk top to wipe away the spit-up from Blue’s face. “You must be getting sick. Are you okay, baby?”
The giggles bubbling from Blue’s smiling lips told Stella that her baby was anything but sick. Apparently just a little gassy and looking to ruin whatever mood the grown-ups within ten feet of her managed to cook up in her presence.
At the thought, Stella snuck a look up at Rocco, hugging Blue closer as heat burned her cheeks.
He looked away the moment their eyes met, running a hand down the back of his neck while motioning to the bathroom door with the other.
“I should—”
“Yeah.” Stella nodded rapidly before he could finish, bouncing Blue on her hip. “I should really clean her up—”
“—Should probably go get cleaned up.”
They shared a shaky laugh as they basically repeated one another, taking a healthy step away after looking down and seeing that they were still nearly chest-to-chest.
He began toward the door, but their eyes remained locked even as he moved. Only when he was seconds from crashing into the door frame did he turn to watch where he was going.
“You should definitely brush your teeth too,” she teased.
“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” He didn’t even look back at her, but she heard the smile in his voice.
Stella waited until he’d disappeared around the corner to slam her eyes closed. She turned away from the door and kissed the top of Blue’s head, letting the wispy hairs tickle her lips as Blue’s powdery scent worked to ease her nerves. It only eased her a little, which was strange. Usually, one sniff of Blue’s fragrant head was enough to make everything fade away. She wasn’t sure how to even begin fading away, however, from whatever had just happened in that bathroom.
“Hey…”
She jolted at the sound of Rocco’s voice over her shoulder, swiveling on her heel.
He peeked in, half his body leaning on the doorway, patting the wall with the bed of his palm. “Go to the party.”
Her mouth fell. “I thought you said—”
“I know what I said. But… you’ve been working hard these last few weeks to find a job. You deserve a night out. Get it all outta your system before your first big day.”
“What about Blue?”
“I’ll watch her.”
“What about your flavor of the week?” She rolled her eyes. “Or should I say, your flavor of the night?”
“Not tonight.”
“Rocco Wolfe? Going it alone? That’s new.”
“Work’s been hectic. Just wanna relax with my goddaughter.”
“You’ve been relaxing a lot lately, now that I think about it. The amount of car engines rumbling to life outside my bedroom window in the dead of night has lowered exponentially these last few months.”
“Like I said, been busy.”
“Justin’s off tonight, right? Maybe he can come over, and you guys can pop open a few beers or something.”
“Maybe.”
She fought a smile, kissing the top of Blue’s head to hide it, letting her tiny skull muffle her words. “Thank you.”
“You gotta give the little puke machine another bath before you go, though.”
“With the promise of alcohol and karaoke on the horizon? Small price to pay.”
“Alright…” He stood tall, then lingered, letting his eyes lay on hers for a little while longer before patting the wall again and disappearing around the corner.
Stella stared at the empty doorway, unable to tear her eyes away long after he’d gone.
——
The sweet flavor of cranberry juice mixed with the subtle bite of vodka soaked Stella’s tongue at Charlie’s Karaoke Bar later that night, and she couldn’t help but notice how much her favorite drink reminded her of Rocco. Sometimes sweet, mostly bitter. So much so that she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to stop drinking or down the whole glass in one swallow. The bottle of Sky Vodka sitting in the ice bucket in the middle of the table before her was only half empty, promising she’d have plenty of time to figure it out. Several other perspiring cocktail glasses surrounded the bucket, drinks that belonged to the other women who’d joined DJ for her party that night.
A pre-recorded backtrack of Total Eclipse of the Heart blared through bar so loudly it made the walls tremble, a drunken man slurring the lyrics on stage, so badly the microphone backfired every other word. His glassy eyes were focused on the screen displaying the lyrics before him, even though he seemed to skip every other word in his attempt to keep up.
Stella sucked on her straw until her drink slurped, indicating her third cocktail of the night was empty. Their cocktail waitress swept in right away to re-fill her glass.
Stella thanked the waitress while shifting in her high-waisted blue jeans and Run DMC crop top, her eyes dashing across the other women who surrounded her at the small table in the corner of the bar. They were all friends of DJ’s, cocktail waitresses at the nightclub DJ had managed for years. Which meant they all weighed about a hundred pounds soaking wet while still managing to have boobs and asses the size of beach balls. Stella tugged at her loose crop top, hoping that the rolls of fat spilling over the waistband of her jeans weren’t visible at a table full of women with flat bellies and six-pack abs.
She proceeded to suck violently at the straw of her refreshed drink, unable to tell if it was the condensation on the glass making it feel slippery and unsteady or the fact that the vodka was finally kicking in. Still sucking, she waved with her free hand when DJ’s girlfriends announced they were going to go look through the songbook next to the stage to choose what they wanted to sing. DJ waited for them all to scamper away before she bumped Stella’s shoulder with hers, talking a little louder than normal so Stella could hear her over the talking, laughter, and music that filled the bar to the gills.
“Thanks for coming, boo.” DJ smiled, doing a little shimmy in a white mini-dress that glowed against her tan skin.
“Haven’t missed the last 28 years, and don’t plan on missing the next 28 either.”
“You better slow down on that drink, or you might not make the next 28. Are we really looking for a repeat of our Kappa days in our early twenties?”
“Ah, Kappa. When I still knew what fun was.”
“Man, we were out of control.” DJ laughed. “Remember how much we hated each other when we were little, though?”
“I didn’t hate you. You hated me.”
DJ slapped her arm playfully. “That’s a lie.”
“You ignored the shit outa me. Why do you think I finally gave up on you and resorted to chasing after your brothers and their asshole friend Rocco instead? They might’ve tried to ditch me every single day, but at least they let themselves be had once I finally managed to catch up, however resentfully. Your bedroom door stayed closed and locked. The
re was no catching you.”
“Truth?” DJ raised an eyebrow. “I was jealous. Of you and Troy. Your connection.”
“And when did you imagine Troy and I were connecting? Was it before or after he and Rocco got finished screaming at me about how annoying I was, to leave them alone already, and to please go back home where I belonged every time I came over?”
“Troy only ditched you because Rocco did it first. But at night, at the dinner table, when all the streetlights were off? Your name never left his mouth.”
Stella’s eyes watered.
“Then high school rolled around, and he wasn’t so interested in ditching you anymore,” DJ laughed, her own eyes glistening under the bar’s strobe lights. “Worshipped you so much he always kicked me out of his room the second you came over. I totally ceased to exist. I hated that.”
Stella bumped her shoulder this time. “Then college rolled around…”
“You mean Kappa Kappa Gamma rolled around.”
“And it was a drunken love story for the ages, yours and mine.”
“Amen, sister.” They clicked their glasses together, sniffling away the moisture that had accumulated in both their eyes.
Stella shook her head after taking another drink. “I swear, since having Blue, I’d completely forgotten what alcohol even tasted like.”
“It’s time you started getting acquainted with the magic of wine. It’s like the housewife’s tequila, except no one will call you a drunk if you have it every day.”
“Rocco damn sure would. Although, I can’t believe he actually canceled one of his booty calls tonight so I could come and celebrate with you. Probably, the first evening in his adult life he hasn’t had some random chick in his bed. Hopefully, my baby will already be asleep by the time he inevitably drops dead from the shock.”
“I still can’t believe he gave up the FBI,” DJ breathed, cutting a look at her.
Stella shifted, the clouds of smoke floating through the bar suddenly feeling suffocating. “He didn’t do it for me. He did it for Blue.”
“So he just… dropped his biggest dream in life, moved all his stuff into your house, pays the rent, buys the groceries, changes dirty diapers, does everything a father would do… for no reason other than Blue? No other reason at all?”
Stella wanted to tell DJ the real reason Rocco had thrown everything away to move in with her and Blue, but she didn’t want DJ to know the truth. That Rocco had stayed because he’d found her working the back room in a seedy massage parlor. Because he’d seen with his own two eyes the dark path she’d almost taken and had done everything in his power to stop it.
“You know he sees Troy like a brother. How loyal he is.” Stella sighed. “He kept hearing all the bill collectors that never stopped screaming into my answering machine whenever he’d come over to babysit Blue. Freaked him out that we might be in trouble. You know how he and Justin are. Always to the rescue.”
“And yet my baby brother didn’t quit grad school to move all of his stuff into your place and pay all your bills. His life went on as usual. Rocco’s came to a screeching halt.”
Stella faltered.
“Is there something going on between you two?”
“Of course not.”
“Because you know I would never forgive you… right?”
“Then it’s a good thing there’s nothing to forgive.”
“I wouldn’t be a part of your life, or his, ever again.”
“You’re not even a part of his life now. He told me how you’ve been ignoring his texts for months.”
“So now you guys are talking about me behind my back?”
“It doesn’t count as talking behind your back if I’m telling you to your face.”
“What other deep dark secrets are the two of you whispering to each other every night?”
“Oh my god. Nobody is whispering secrets. Am I speaking English? Is that alcohol going to your head already? He sleeps in the guesthouse. He has a new girl in his bed every night. He literally has me answer his phone for him sometimes, pretending to be his infuriated girlfriend, just to scare off the girls he doesn’t have the balls to dump on his own. He’s not trying to woo me. He hates my guts for costing him the FBI. He’s not thinking about me romantically, nor am I him.”
“My brother’s heart would shatter to bits, even in the afterlife.”
“Never thought I’d miss the days when you hated talking about Troy, but alas… here we are.”
DJ studied her for a long moment. “I guess… growing up with Rocco, I’ve just seen too many women who say the same thing. Then they’re sobbing into my lap months later because he smashed and stopped returning their calls. Why do you think I don’t introduce him to any of my girlfriends at the club anymore?”
“You’re forgetting that I grew up with him right alongside you. How could I fall for his games? I know he’s a sexist, anti-feminist, misogynistic pig. And even more than that, I know that men like him—who constantly brag about how skilled they are—are always the worst in bed…” Her words trailed off as she flashed back to Rocco’s thick, hard dick, his vigor, and his impeccable stroke game in her guesthouse weeks back. Her eyes fell from DJ’s as she tried to exorcize the vision from her mind.
But looking down at the blank table only allowed Stella’s brain to go blank as well. Leaving plenty of room for the embrace she and Rocco had been entangled in inside her bathroom earlier that night to filter in and take over. She gripped her cocktail tight enough to shatter it, the sweaty glass nearly flying from her fingers as the memory grew more vivid every second. The tip of his nose caressing hers. Their bodies flush. How hard his abs had felt under her quivering fingers. How heavily he’d been breathing. The way his heart had raced. The same thick length that’d held her captive in the guesthouse months earlier pressed hard against her belly.
“But he doesn’t talk about it,” DJ beamed.
Stella looked up with a gasp. “Huh?”
“They do,” DJ went on. “To this day, I still get texts from friends I mistakenly set him up with, years ago, desperate for another chance, even though he’s been ignoring them for years. And you see my girls here tonight, right? My girls are hot shit! It’s not like they’re hurting for dick. For them to throw their pride to the wayside like that? He’s doing something right.”
“I don’t want to think about what he’s dong right. Or wrong. I’d rather not think about him at all to be honest.”
“That’s interesting, considering you’re the one who brought him up in the first place.”
“But you’re the one that’s keeping it alive, so let’s end it. Now. Okay?”
Silence fell. Not the type of cozy silence that usually fell between two old friends, either, where both parties were comfortable enough to let it linger for ages. For the first time with DJ, it felt like silence with a stranger. One that left Stella terrified about what might be going on in her best friend’s head that she wasn’t saying out loud.
And, even more so, terrified of what was going on in her own.
——
“Yo, what’s going on between you and Stella, man?”
Rocco’s head snapped away from the basketball game playing on the TV before them, and he shot a wide-eyed look across the living room couch. Just as Stella had suggested, he’d invited Justin over for a few beers. With Blue fast asleep upstairs, they’d already smashed through an entire six-pack, with the last two bottles cradled atop their respective splayed thighs. A deck of cards laid abandoned in the middle of the coffee table before them, halfway through a hand of poker. A friendly game with two men would never be as satisfying as it had been with three, the way they’d played it all their lives before Troy had gotten bored with them and started taking his money to the tables in Atlantic City…
Then Louisiana…
Then Vegas…
So for the last few hours, they’d chosen watched the game in a contented quiet instead. Save for a random cheer or groan whenever their respect
ive teams pulled ahead or fell behind, Rocco had begun to suspect it was almost too quiet. And with the question he’d just asked out of nowhere, Justin had just validated it.
A heavy silence fell between the two friends as they watched each other across the couch, game forgotten. Neither appeared to be in a hurry to be the first to speak, even though their unblinking eyes and heaving chests proved their busy minds had formulated much to be said.
Rocco broke first. “The fuck you just say to me?”
Justin shifted on his end of the couch, staring ahead, but Rocco remained stoic. Unmoving. His fingers serving as the only sign of life as they tightened around the sweaty neck of his beer bottle.
With a deep breath, Justin raised his eyebrows, still staring ahead. “It’s been months. Why you still here?”
“Because they’re still in trouble. What am I gonna do? Am I gonna rent an apartment and add another bill to the pile she’s already built up over that last six months? Does that make sense to you?”
Justin cut a look at him, blues eyes irate. “He took a bullet for you.”
Rocco’s heart skipped a beat. “Which is why I stayed. For him.”
“Not for her?”
“Never for her.”
“‘Cause that’d be a hell of a way to repay the guy who always had your back since you were five years old. Fought next to you in the schoolyard all the way up to the battlefield. He wouldn’t be okay with it when he was alive, and he wouldn’t be okay with it now. It wouldn’t just be the ultimate betrayal to him, but to me too. To DJ. The whole family.”
“Yo, how long have you been holding this in, man? Where is this even coming from?”
“I know you…” Justin’s teeth bared as he appeared to wage a silent war against the voices in his head. “I know you.”
“Why am I being lectured about something I’ve never done, and will never do? Troy was my family. You guys are the only family I got.”
“When it comes to women… you’re not like the rest of us out here, Rock. You hit it, quit it, and walk. Never looking back. No feelings. No emotion. So you have no idea how easy it is to get emotionally attached to a woman who’s depending on you to take care of her. How dependent you can get when you’re all she has in the world. It’s fucked up because it feels like should be the other way around. But when a woman needs you—when she really needs you—that’s when you’re more open than you’ve ever been before. Throw in a baby, and that must skyrocket to a dimension even I haven’t experienced yet.”
Forbidden (War Book 1) Page 12
