The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5)

by Nicole Strycharz

  “We don’t have funerals for miscarriages,” he said. “I don’t know, maybe we should. Before my father died, I thought funerals were stupid. But they don’t happen so we can just move on, they happen so we can accept. It’s more like an acknowledgment that we lost something.”

  My jaws were so tight that my teeth hurt, my face hurt.

  He came closer and looked down at me, even though I kept looking at his feet. I feel like that crushed cigarette.

  “It wasn’t real,” I don’t believe the words I just said, but they are my only defense.

  “She was real.”

  I shook my head as my eyes filled and I crossed my arms. “Nope.”

  “Yes, Jules was real.”

  I felt my heart slow to a stop at the name. Once after our morning coffee, I had told Lorenzo that I was eighty-percent sure it was a girl, and that I had come up with the name Jules.

  I only told him once. It was after I told Noah. But Noah never said her name. Noah never agreed we would call her that.

  “What are you doing?” I asked sharply. “This isn’t your business.”

  “Someone has to give a shit about you, Lydia, your husband don’t.”

  I shoved his chest, not even making him lose his balance or sway backward. Which suddenly became my mission, so I shoved him again. And again. And again. And when I felt my eyes become wet, I hated those tears because I’m not sad, I’m angry.

  He pulled a Sharpie from the breast pocket of his coat. “Write her name on the balloon.”

  “No,” I snatched the pen and threw it at his face. “I don’t want a fucking balloon! I want her! I want—”

  “Say it.”

  “I want my baby,” I raged.

  I didn’t even care if people saw me going nuts. There were hardly any around but the few that were gave us space or left.

  The dam broke in me, and I realized that I even said a foul word to make my point. But it felt so good to be real. To take a filter off, to be imperfect and unhappy.

  “I want…” I held my forehead as the blood rushed there, making my head pound. “I want my baby…”

  He just waited.

  I faced away from him to collect myself and breathe. It didn’t work. I folded up, crouching down and covering my face so the tidal wave of pain wouldn’t knock me over.

  Lorenzo didn’t touch me or talk. He knew to just stay back there. I need to feel this alone.

  When I was done, I stood again and turned to face him. He bent and got the marker, then held it out to me.

  I made him wait again.

  Taking the Sharpie, I let him hold the balloon steady between his hands. Then I wrote it all down.

  Baby Jules Caroline Spencer

  I wrote what I felt. About how amazing she would have been. About what we would have done together. About how much I missed her. The balloon handled the message. Bearing all the hopes I had left.

  And when I was finished, I added…

  And to Flavio DiGregorio, please watch over my girl, the way your son watches over me.

  Lorenzo’s hard swallow could have been missed, but I saw it. He read my words and he knows that I mean them. I respect his family and always will.

  I took the balloon filled with helium to the edge of the stone bridge, and kissed the top, then released it. We watched it go a long way up, and even if science doesn’t allow it, I imagined that it never stopped, not until it reached the right people.

  Walking out of the park together, we found our normal.

  “This new year has to bring some change,” I said. “For both of us. This is ridiculous. We’re friends because our spouses are cheating… with each other.”

  He laughed that dry laugh I’ve come to love. “New years don’t bring change, people do, and you don’t need a new year to do it. You’ve already grown. Just keep doing it.”

  “And you?”

  “I will die alone and miserable, while my wife fucks the paramedics on call that were supposed to rescue me.”

  I frowned. “Don’t joke about it. Why don’t you ever say how much it hurts? You love her still…”

  He lifted his newest cigarette to his lips. “Love makes people do stupid things. I don’t have to say how much I love Ruby. Whether her father had me by the balls or not, I would probably be in the same boat. My situation says how much I love her, I don’t need to jibber about it.”

  “What are you saying?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “That because I hash over my relationship verbally that I’m not in love with my husband?”

  “You fell out of love with him the moment you discovered all this.”

  I hate the accuracy of his words. “Why are you so wise all the time? And do not say it’s because you are Italian.”

  “It’s not an Italian thing, it’s a me thing. I’m just that fucking incredible.”

  I winced at the word.

  “How could you still blink like that after you just swore at me?” he reminded.

  “I was angry. I don’t say that word ever. You say it all the time, and your sisters say that a temper runs in the family.”

  We stopped at an intersection full of cars and waited. “Nah, nah, nah, we do not,” he used his hands as they all do to really stress this. “That is just some American, stereotyping, bullshit they’ve fed into.” We started to walk. “Some things are just labeling for discriminatory purposes—”

  A car that decided not to abide by the light, came barreling toward us on my side.

  Lorenzo grabbed my upper arm and yanked me so hard I thought my arm would come off and I would still get hit. But he jerked me back, then swung me behind him. The car’s break screeched and skidded to a stop.

  The guy lowered his window.

  “What the fuck, you prick?” Lorenzo shouted at the driver.

  “Move it!” the driver screamed back out his open window, followed by a middle finger.

  Lorenzo moved past me and slammed both fists down on the hood of the car. “Get out here and bend over, Mother Fucker!”

  The guy rolled his window up, swearing right back until Lorenzo started toward the driver’s door.

  “Crazy asshole!” the man yelled before ripping around us, wheels spinning to avoid Lorenzo’s wrath.

  Lorenzo made a gesture with his hand that looked worse than a middle finger. “Your fucking Mother!”

  As I stood in open shock of the sudden aggression, he put his hand to my back and propelled me toward the sidewalk.

  I stared up at him for a full minute until he broke and said, “That wasn’t because I’m Italian, alright? I was provoked.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  RUBY

  Walking with my dad on a Tuesday, into Cibo Degli Dei is a strange feeling. I know that the moment he steps inside, he’s judging every little detail.

  My sister-in-law Giada is standing at the hostess stand, using her dry-erase marker to zone for the wait staff. When she sees us, her expression becomes blank.

  “Giada,” I said the name smoothly. “How are you? How are you feeling?” I smile as genuinely as I can. “Due this summer, right?”

  Her eyes translate the way I believe mine does. A forward layer of polite decency, but beneath…

  “I didn’t know you knew,” she throws back at me. “I don’t even remember the last time you came to a family gathering,” she popped a bubble with her gum. “Oh, no wait… I do.” Her meaning isn’t lost on me. She’s referring to when her mother caught me with Lorenzo’s friend at her father’s funeral.

  My dad looks down at her the way an exterminator might perceive an ant. “You’ll seat us near the window,” he dictates, not offering a false warmth in his greeting. Not acknowledging that we are all three, family.

  She took out two menus and led us to our seat, the one I know Lorenzo used to sit at with his father in the mornings.

  “Thank you, Giada,” I say and smile again.

  “Here,” she offers me one of the menus. “Since I’m sure you don’t remember any of
it.”

  “No need,” my father hands his back to her. “Only coffee, this isn’t a social visit. Where is Lorenzo?”

  “He’s out.”

  “Out?” I tilt my head then look at my watch. “With the lunch rush only fifteen minutes away?” I crossed my legs. “That’s unusual for him.”

  “My Liam is manning the kitchen,” she answers.

  “Who is Liam?” my father presses in.

  “He’s the one I told you about,” I said. “The one that came here from Chance Urban’s place.”

  “The convict?” my dad looks at me incredulously. “You hired him here?”

  “Lorenzo did,” I clarified.

  “Then tell Liam to get on Indeed and find a new occupation, he cannot go on working here,” my father announces.

  “He’s the father of my child, and part of my family,” Giada snips. “And my brother will make that decision, not you.”

  “You must be very proud, then,” my father retorts. “Such a success, that you managed to become a statistic all before reaching twenty-five. Pregnant, no doubt a school dropout, and in love with a felon.”

  “Daddy,” I warn.

  “This is my brother’s place, he’ll call the shots,” Giada fires back.

  “This hole in the wall is no more his, than the Empire State building. Now, get Liam out here, find your brother, and get our coffee…”

  My father’s cool exterior doesn’t frighten me, only because I know that his love for me is infinite. I know that no matter the situation, his disapproval will never be pointed at me, but God help whoever surrounds us.

  “What do you mean about my brother?” Giada’s look of shock made a pang of guilt erupt in my belly.

  “It’s nothing, Giada. But do you know where Lorenzo is?” I asked.

  “Do you?” she bristled. “He’s your husband. You don’t know?”

  “Enough of this,” my father snapped his fingers at a busboy clearing the table next to ours. “Go in the kitchen and tell Liam to come out here. Do it now.”

  The boy stopped and scurried.

  “I’m calling Enzo,” Giada threatened before walking back to the stand, up front. It was a threat, but my father only sees it as acquiescence.

  My father took out his napkin and put it across his lap. “I will never understand your choice to marry into such a low-rate family.” At my silence, he smiled at me. “Do not look so glum, little one. I’m here to salvage what I can of this place you seem to love so much. Don’t I always salvage the things you love?”

  I nodded reluctantly.

  My father’s thin frame and tall stature are not intimidating to most. If he was not the man of wealth he’s come to be, or if his name carried less weight, he still wouldn’t seem inconsequential. Perhaps he would seem like a professor from the University or a less popular politician. Dignified and immaculate about everything, even walking. His reputation for being ruthless is what sets him apart. His face is hard. A mask of apathy that worries people since he cannot be read.

  The only one that’s never been afraid of him, is Lorenzo, but he should be.

  LYDIA

  Strolling back from our walk down Little Italy, Lorenzo and I start to formulate plans.

  “Move your hours around,” he suggests.

  “No matter how I do it, Noah will find out I’m working.”

  “Do you care?”

  “No,” I lift my chin. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I have a job.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, you do. Well done.”

  “It’s not stupid, is it?”

  “You like to scrapbook, you do beautiful work, and you will now get paid for it, how is that stupid?”

  I feel my body glowing from the inside out. “It’s exciting. Something to do and look forward to. I’ll still work on my toys but in my spare time. I found a place I could afford if I sell a few, look,” I dug the newspaper clipping from my pocket. “Look, look, look,” I presented the place I circled.

  He stopped, leaning against the pole to a traffic light. “Wait on it,” he held it out to me.

  “What? Why?”

  “Those toys mean too much to you. Too much dedication and hours of work. Wait. Save from your new job, then you house hunt. Better yet, apartment hunt. What you need a big house for? Hmm?”

  I thought about it. “Well…”

  “What?”

  “I want a cat and some apartment houses don’t allow pets.”

  He walked us across the street. “A cat? You’re gonna get a house for a cat? Christ.”

  I laughed.

  He went on. “There are plenty of apartments that don’t mind pets, you gotta look.”

  “But most of them say—”

  “Jesus, never mind. I’ll look and show you. A cat, huh?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Noah is allergic so I thought it couldn’t happen, but yeah, I love cats, I want a cat.”

  That is my plan. Work, save, get a place, tell Noah that I know, separate, get a cat.

  “Get a cat, now,” Lorenzo said as we came in sight of his place. “Why wait?”

  “He’s allergic,” I started. At the glint in his eyes, I laughed. “Oh, that’s terrible. You’re terrible.”

  “Unapologetically.”

  “Hey!” Giada came out of the restaurant and put up her hands to make us stop. “Don’t move.”

  “What are you doing away from the front?” Lorenzo scolded.

  “Just shut up and listen,” her emotions were so thick I could feel them from here. “Your wife is inside, with her father. He just asked Liam to come out so he can fire him, and he’s saying shit, Enzo, crazy shit. He says he can do that. Fire people. How can he fire people in our place? He’s saying he owns it, but that isn’t true, right? Please fucking tell me it’s not true?”

  Lorenzo’s darker self emerged. “Where are they?”

  “At your window seat,” Giada explained.

  “Why would they come here?” I asked.

  “Enzo,” Giada demanded his attention. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you did not give our father’s restaurant to that pompous piece of shit.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Oh, my God,” she covered her mouth. “Oh, my God, Enzo—"

  “Okay,” I stepped between them. “Let’s all just take a breath. You guys can’t do this now.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Giada’s voice rose. “How could you be so careless with our family’s lives?” she accused, looking past me.

  Lorenzo remained silent, bearing her words like lashes.

  “Giada,” I stepped more in her way and held her hands. “You can’t upset yourself, you’re pregnant. And I know there isn’t time to talk right now, but your brother likely did what he thought was best at the time. We have to cool it—”

  “How much?” she asked him anyway. “How much of Cibo Degli Dei does he own?”

  Lorenzo crossed his arms. “Eighty-percent.”

  I thought Giada was going to pass out.

  “He’s going to fire Liam!” She yelled at him. “Is that what you want? I know you hate him for making me happy but for Christ’s sake, Enzo!”

  Lorenzo went past me for the doors like a bull about to charge a red flag. I grabbed the crook of his elbow and held on until he stopped to look down at me. “Go home, Lydia. If Ruby sees you, all the ugly is coming to light. Go home.”

  “Stop a minute,” I made him stand still, but didn’t let go. “You can’t go in there like this, feeling like this. It looks weak like you’re rattled. This is your place, no matter what it might say on paper. You have to go in there with authority, but not anger. Just your usual, bossy, authority.”

  He was furious. I could feel the rushing of his veins under my hands, over his coat, if that were possible.

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. “Not really, anyway. I’ll go around back and wait there where the workers smoke. You’ve got to think with your head, not your heart. Men
like Ruby’s dad don’t respond to brute force. They respond to wit. Just be the dominant, heavy-handed, Roman, half of you,” I teased.

  He released some tension.

  “Now, Giada, you go back in there first,” I said. “Go back to work. Smile and act normal. Lorenzo,” I tugged his coat. “Take your coat off so it looks like you’ve been back for a bit. They’ll have a view of the hostess stand, go loom over your sister like you normally do and dictate. Tell her to wipe the menus down again, even if they’re clean, have one of the busboys roll silver wear, and greet a table of customers… Then go to Ruby’s table and stay standing. Don’t sit. You’re working, and body language-wise, you are looking down at Mr. Rothman. If Ruby tries to touch you, let her. Don’t act cold or segregated even if you might want to. Act affectionate.”

  Telling him to let his wife touch him felt weird. I never imagined Ruby and Lorenzo being intimate or romantic, but the vision of it in my head was almost equally upsetting to when I think of her with Noah.

  Giada stroked my arm, then went in to do as I said.

  Lorenzo just stared down at me. “You’ve gotten bossy, maybe you got a little Italian in you,” he smirked.

  I smiled. “Maybe. I just know how the politics of engagement work. You’d be surprised how much peacocking goes on in a church.”

  “You don’t have to stay. I got it.”

  “No, I’ll stay. You’ve stayed for me; I’ll stay for you.”

  LORENZO

  I don’t give two shits about Ruby’s fuck of a father, but in the end, my family legacy is in his hands and that’s why I followed Lydia’s advice to a T.

  Liam arrived at their table first while I was greeting a table of customers. I used my side vision to see how it was going but didn’t rush my encounter with the patrons. I could feel Ruby’s father’s eyes on my back.

  When I did come to their table, Liam looked devastated.

  “Richard,” I inclined my head at Ruby’s father, then looked at Liam. “Why are you out here and not in the kitchen?” I snapped at Liam.

  “Liam is not employed here, anymore,” said Richard, just as one of my waitresses brought him and Ruby coffee.

  “I don’t remember saying that,” I looked over at Liam. “Did I tell you that?”