“No, I’m good,” Ashley said to Flint when he offered it again.
“Just take a sip,” Flint said. “I want to make a toast to you.”
“A toast?” Ashley laughed. “No thanks.”
“Just come on, Ash. Just take one sip.”
“I said no, Flint, dang. Why you keep trying to shove it down my throat?”
Flint leaned closer to her. “I just want my baby happy,” he said. “Now come on, just drink with me. Why won’t you drink with me?”
“Because, let me see, I’m no fool?” Ashley said.
Flint looked offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Ashley said, looking him dead in the eye. “I’m not down like that, alright?”
Flint was angry. She was supposed to be the centerpiece of his plans for tonight, a night he promised would make all the guys happy. And she wasn’t cooperating? He sat the non-spiked glass on a side table and moved closer to her. He placed his hand around her wrist and squeezed.
“Ouch, boy!” Ashley said out loud.
“I thought your ass was fun,” Flint said.
“I am fun,” said Ashley. “But I’m no fool.”
But it was as if Flint didn’t hear her. “Why else you think I let you come to my party? You’re supposed to be fun, and you’re telling me you aren’t down like that?” He squeezed harder.
“Stop!” Ashley said angrily. “Stop, you creep!”
When she saw the word creep, Flint’s anger went into overdrive and he released her quickly and slapped her across her face.
Monk’s face turned as red as fire as soon as he saw that slap, and he threw people out of his way to get to Flint. Ashley’s head had been snapped back and she was holding her pained face and just realizing she had been slapped at all when she saw Monk coming toward them like a bull in Spain.
But he didn’t slap Flint. There was no open hand about it. Monk balled up his thick fist and punched Flint so hard that Flint fell over the table where he had sat that glass of beer, and he and the spiked beer still in his hand crashed to the floor.
But Monk wasn’t done with the asshole. He kicked the table aside and grabbed Flint up by the catch of his shirt and began punching him as if he was punching a test dummy.
“Fight! Fight!” some of the partiers yelled, as they all gathered around, excited to see a good match. But even Ashley could see that it was no match at all. It was Monk kicking Flint’s ass. Pure and simple. And because it was so decisive, and because Monk’s one arm looked bigger than both of Flint’s arms put together, none of his homeboys bothered to intervene. They liked Flint, but they weren’t suicidal.
Ashley was shocked as she watched Monk take Flint to town with his fists. Other than Big Daddy and Donald, she’d never known any man willing to fight for her like that. The guys she dated usually went along with the program. But Monk was fighting as if Flint had slapped him, not her. He was fighting as if he was defending the honor of somebody near and dear to him. Ashley was elated to have somebody fighting for her, but she was scared and alarmed too. She just didn’t know what to make of it all. Why was Monk even in Jericho?
And when Monk finished with Flint, leaving him battered and bleeding and just barely conscious, she was still in shock. But then Monk reached out his hand to her, making it clear that she had it right: he wasn’t just beating back a bully. He was defending her. And he had the labored breathing to prove it. “Let’s get the fuck out of this joint,” Monk said to her.
Ashley would have smiled at his use of words, but she was still too amazed. And she didn’t argue with him either. She took his hand and allowed him to lead her out of there.
And every eye in the room left Flint’s limp body and followed the trail of Ashley and the man in the suit and hat. And everybody in that room, who always thought of Ashley as the fun girl nobody took seriously, were astounded.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They rode in the backseat of his SUV in silence. Monk sat against one side window, and Ashley sat against the other side window, and Monk seemed to be in deep thought. But Ashley kept taking peeps at him.
Ever since he left nearly two weeks ago, he’d been on her mind. She didn’t understand why. She dismissed it as meeting somebody so different than the ordinary guy that he left an impression on her. Nothing more and nothing less. Until she saw him at Flint’s place.
When Flint had slapped her, she felt as if he had just humiliated her in front of the whole town. And she knew they would all take his side. Flint was the local hero to them just because of his high school glory days. He hadn’t done a thing since high school, but that was beside the point to them. And Ashley knew it. But then Monk came to her rescue, humiliating Flint instead, and it felt great to her. But concerning too. Because she couldn’t understand why would he even bother.
She looked at him. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
Monk was looking of the window, at the darkness around them. “Good question,” he said. But he didn’t answer it.
Then he looked at her. He looked at the outline of her breasts beneath the thin silk blouse she wore, and her super-short skirt. It wasn’t as if she was trying to get attention, Monk concluded. She was starved for it. And he knew he had to cut that shit out right here and now. While he was out of town, he had to know she wasn’t going to be available to the first joe blow that came along.
He couldn’t believe he was thinking such an intimate thing about her, since they weren’t even in a relationship at that point, but that was exactly what he was thinking. “Have you eaten?” he asked her.
Ashley had to think about that. Then she realized she hadn’t. “No,” she said.
“What you say we get a bite to eat?”
Ashley expected him to be so disgusted with her after what he had to do for her, that he wouldn’t hesitate in taking her straight home. But he wanted to feed her instead? Ashley was pleased and confused, both at the same time. “Okay,” she said, Monk asked her where would be a good place to go, and then he ordered Jaws, his driver, to take them there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They took a window booth in the restaurant and sat across from each other. Although it was a crowded sports bar atmosphere, with country music blaring over the loudspeakers, it was nice too. After taking their food and drink orders, the waiter confiscated their supersized menus and left their booth.
Ashley leaned forward and grinned. “That’s Petey,” she said of the waiter. “When we were in high school he used to declare he was going to be the most successful boy to ever attend our school.”
“He might well be the most successful,” Monk said, looking at a text message on his cell phone.
Ashley couldn’t believe he said that. “Successful?” she asked him. “He’s a waiter.”
“So? He looks happy, satisfied with what he’s doing. Why the hell not?”
“Because he’s a waiter. A waiter, hello? How can that be considered the most successful of everybody from our high school?”
“Depends on how you define success. Me? I define it as a heart thing.”
“A heart thing?”
“A heart thing,” Monk said again, as he placed his cell phone back in his pocket. “I base it on the heart of the person. Are they happy? Are they able to take care of themselves on their own terms? To me, that’s successful.”
“Not to my family,” Ashley said as she leaned back, and Monk could see a sadness suddenly appear in her pretty eyes.
And Monk stared into those sad eyes. “What’s successful to you, Ashley?” he asked her in a soft voice.
“To my family, success means you have to,” Ashley began saying, but Monk cut her off.
“I’m not asking about your family. I’m asking about you,” he said. “What’s successful to you?”
Ashley had to think about it. Nobody had ever asked her such a question. “To me,” she said, “success would be . . . happiness. I agree with you. If you’re happy and you
know it, and if you’re able to take care of yourself like you said, then, yeah, I guess I would call that successful too. But also being able to have some fun would be a must for me too.”
“Fun?” Monk asked.
“And lots of it,” Ashley said, smiling.
“Fun? I see. Like all of that fun you were having at Flint’s house?” Monk asked, and then looked at her.
Ashley’s smile almost left just thinking about it, but she held on. “It was fun until he tried that stupid stuff.”
Monk had been wondering if she fully understood what Flint wanted to do to her when he was trying to get her to drink that beer. “What stupid stuff?” he asked her.
“Slapping me,” Ashley said. “Trying to get me to drink his rape beer,” she added.
Monk had never heard it termed that way, but that was exactly what it was. “So you knew he had put a mickey in your drink?”
“I can’t say I knew for certain,” Ashley said, “but why else would he be so invested in me drinking beer? Flint’s party wasn’t my first rodeo. I know what these boys be up to around here.”
“Woman like you should be tired of boys,” Monk found himself saying.
Ashley caught the personalness of what he said, and they briefly exchanged a glance. But he was dead right. “I am,” she said with an exhale. “But if all Greece has to offer are Greeks, you have to take the Greeks.”
“Or say fuck’em,” Monk said with a grin, “and wait for a good Italian to come along.”
Ashley laughed, especially since nobody was going to confuse Monk as anything but Italian. She was also surprised by how cute and boyish he looked when he grinned.
“But you and me,” Monk said, leaning forward, his Jersey accent heavy, “are different, you know?”
Ashley was concerned. “Different in a bad way,” she asked, “or different in a good way?”
“It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s just different.”
“You mean like our race?”
“Hell no! “ he said and leaned back. “I been around long enough to know that good people come in all colors, and bad people come in all colors too. No one race ain’t got no monopoly on good and bad.”
Ashley laughed. “You’d make an excellent English teacher,” she said.
Monk laughed too. “I’d be better than some I know,” he said jokingly.
But Ashley turned serious again. “But what did you mean by us being different?” she asked him.
“We’re different,” Monk said. “It’s like . . . It’s like I live in black and white. But you live in color. You like fun. I like order. You like cutting loose with the crowd. I like being to myself. We’re different.”
“But even a person who lives in black and white sometimes want some color in his life. And a person who lives in color, sometimes needs black and white in her life.”
She and Monk stared at each other, as if they both knew what Ashley said was the truth. Their stare was only broken when the waiter brought their drinks.
Monk also noticed that Ashley was a little nicer to the young man, which made the young man even happier. When he left, she leaned forward. “What’s your real name?” she asked Monk.
“Francis. Francis Paletti.”
“Francis? Oh, okay. What do people call you?”
“Frank. Frankie. Monk. Pop.”
Ashley laughed. “You have a lots of nicknames.”
“Too many,” Monk said. “Way too many!”
“What should I call you? Frankie, Frank, or Monk? I refuse to call you Pop.”
Monk laughed. He took a sip of his wine, and then looked at her. “Which do you prefer?” he asked her.
“Which do you prefer?” she asked him.
“None of’em, to tell you the truth.”
Ashley laughed. “Well, then, I’ll pick one.”
“Pick one.”
“I like Frankie, alright,” Ashley said. “And Frank’s not bad. But I think I’ll call you Monk.”
Monk was surprised by that. “Why wouldn’t you call me Frankie?”
“Because you don’t act like a Frankie. You’re too, and I’m not saying you’re old, but you’re too old-acting for a Frankie.”
Monk felt a stab to his heart when she explained her reasoning because he knew what she meant. He was not her type. He was not her definition of fun. That was what she meant. Frankie was fun. Monk wasn’t. He exhaled. Why in the world did he come back here?
But Ashley wanted to know more. She was just glad he’d come. “Tell me about yourself,” she said to him. “I told you about myself the last time. Now it’s your turn.”
“Oh, yeah?” For some reason Monk removed his hat and sat it on the table as if he was about to expose himself so he might as well go all the way. But it was the first time Ashley had ever seen his beautiful dark-brown hair. He looked even cuter, she thought, without that hat. “What you wanna know?” he asked her.
“Where do you live? New York?”
“New Jersey,” said Monk. “Whatta you asking me that for? Can’t you tell by the accent?”
Ashley smiled that smile Monk was beginning to think was irresistible. “New York, New Jersey, it’s all the same to me,” she said.
“Well it ain’t the same, young lady, bite your tongue!” Ashley laughed. “I’m a Jersey boy right here. Born and raised! I take pride in that.”
“Okay, Jersey Boy, do you have a family?”
“I got a father and three brothers.”
“Three brothers?”
“Three. Two of which I haven’t seen in years. One of which I wish I never see again.”
“A close family, hun?” Ashley said, and it was such a quick comeback that she made Monk laugh.
“What about your mother?” she asked him.
“No, she ain’t around. My old man married some woman recently, a woman around my age. But that’s his thing.”
“What’s your thing?” Ashley asked.
“I don’t have a thing,” he said with a smile.
“Sure you do!” Ashley said. “What do you do for a living?” She decided to move on.
But Monk was cagey about that question too. He began moving around and seemed to talk with his shoulders as much as his mouth. “I do what I do for a living.”
“Such as?”
“I do a little of this, and a little of that,” Monk said.
Ashley smiled and nodded her head. “Yup,” she said, “you’re Mafia alright.”
Monk looked at her. “Mafia? Whatta you talking? What Mafia?”
Ashley was grinning. “You’ve got Mafia written all over you.”
“Like hell I do!”
“You do. You know you do. Face it, Monk. You’ll feel better if you face it!”
Monk couldn’t help but smile too. This girl, he thought. She always seem to have a smile on her face like the whole world was her campground. “You enjoy this shit, don’t you?” he said, and Ashley laughed. “You enjoy needling me. You enjoy seeing me squirm like a fucking rat.”
“I enjoy telling the truth.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’s true, Ashley? That I’m Mafia? That I’m in the mob? What would you know about that?” Monk asked her.
Ashley couldn’t believe he said that. “You’re kidding, right? You’re asking me, a Sinatra, the niece of Mick the Tick Sinatra, what I know about the mob? And don’t get me started on my Uncle Sal and Uncle Reno and Uncle Tommy. And Teddy too? Come on! What do I know about the mob? What don’t I know!”
But where Ashley expected him to be pleased to be in the company of the men she named, she noticed a kind of depressed look appear in Monk’s big eyes. “It’s nothing to be proud of,” he said. “That’s what you don’t know.”
His response silenced Ashley momentarily, because it seemed to bother him, but that only made her even more curious about him. “Why would you get into something you aren’t proud to be in?” she asked him.
“You don’t get into it,” Monk said, “it gets into you
. It started for me when I was a kid. I’d follow my old man around, watching him do what he do, watching all those old guys he was learning from. And I learned from him. These guys are the elites where I come from. They’re who you wanna be like. I was a kid, what did I know? So I became like them. Problem is, the mob? It don’t give a fuck how young you were when you got in. You’re in. That’s all it cares about. And you ain’t ever gettin’ out.”
Ashley had heard her uncles say that too. “Never?” she asked him.
“Never,” said Monk.
Ashley thought about how her uncles beat around the bush when she asked them anything about their mob connections. They denied all. But not Monk. “So that’s what you do all day? Mob work?”
“Mob work? This girl! There’s no such thing! I own businesses in the Jersey area. I run my businesses.”
Ashley took it back. He was in denial too. “Legitimate businesses?” she asked him.
“Is any business legitimate? Your Uncle Mick runs one of the largest and most respected corporations in America. Is that business legit? Reno Gabrini runs the largest casino and hotel on the Vegas Strip. is that casino legit? Your old man runs practically every business here in Jericho. Are all his businesses legit?”
“Yes, they are,” Ashley said proudly. “I can’t speak for my uncles. They never tell me shit,” she said, and she and Monk both laughed. “But as for my daddy? As for Big Daddy?” She was nodding her head. “He’s legit all the way. I mean a hundred percent. And you can take that to the bank, boy!”
She was shaking her body and bobbing her head in that way Monk always found attractive on black girls.
“So you figure your old man’s legit?” he asked her.
“I know he is,” Ashley said. But then she thought about what Donald had said. About how her father taught Uncle Mick everything he knew. “What do you know about my father?” she asked Monk.
“What I know about him? Businesswise? Nothin’.”
“And otherwise?” Ashley asked.
“Otherwise? I know you don’t wanna cross his ass. That I know,” Monk said.
“But you would agree his businesses are legitimate?”
Monk Paletti: Taming Ashley Sinatra Page 7
