Take It All Off

by Weston Parker

  My eyes widened, and my heart rate kicked up several notches. I started running toward her. As soon as I reached her, I pulled her into my arms and ran my hand soothingly up and down her back.

  “Mama, are you okay? What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Her thin arms wrapped around my waist. She squeezed as she sniffled, then tipped her head back to look up at me.

  “You’re finally home.” Her golden-brown eyes filled with tears again. “My Marco. You’re finally home. Don’t do that to me again.”

  Both of my brows lifted as realization dawned. “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  Lifting one of her tiny hands, she slapped the back of my head and glared at me. “I haven’t seen you for ten days. That’s not nothing.”

  “What’s going on out here?” Aldo stuck his face out of her house and rolled his eyes when he saw us, quickly putting together what was going on. “Oh, I see. You get your very own welcoming party. All I got was a lecture about how I need to learn to do my own laundry.”

  Our mother turned her glare on him and parked her hands on her hips. “One of these days, I’m going to get you an old-fashioned washboard. You can break your own back cleaning one of your expensive suits.”

  He winked at me before disappearing back into the house. Mom let out a huff and moved to go after him, turning when she reached the door to point a knobby finger at me. “I’m not done with you yet. Next time you disappear on me for that long, you will have to deliver my eulogy upon your return. I will have a heart attack, Marco. A big one.”

  With that, she stomped into the house and left the door wide open. Sighing as I wondered how I was the only one in the family without a flair for the dramatic, I picked up the flowers I’d dropped and followed her inside.

  My mother was a small woman, barely over five feet tall, but fuck, she was fierce. Streaks of silver had appeared in her black hair years ago, and her face was lined with the evidence of having raised twin boys by herself.

  No matter how many times I had bought her new clothing or offered to buy her a different house, she insisted on wearing her same old clothes and staying in the house where she had raised us. Aldo and I did our best to maintain the place, but the carpet beneath my feet was threadbare, and the paint on the walls was chipped in some places.

  As I stepped inside, though, none of those things mattered. We had made thousands of memories in this small living space, prepared thousands of meals in the small kitchen, and played thousands of games around the small dining-room table.

  I smiled as I watched Mom smacking Aldo upside the head for something he must have said and then went to sling my arm over her narrow shoulders. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry I was away for so long, but you know that I need to travel for my work.”

  She sighed and patted my hand. When she turned to face me, she finally saw the flowers in my arms, and a brilliant smile lit her eyes. “For me?”

  “Of course.” I held them out to her and bent over to kiss the top of her head. “It’s good to see you, Mama.”

  Before accepting the flowers, she raised her hands and placed her warm palms on my cheeks. “It’s good to finally have you home. One day, you’ll see that no matter how old your kids get, they’ll always be your babies.”

  Aldo groaned. “I doubt either of us will have any personal experience with that, Mama. Now what about me? Am I not also still your baby?”

  There was a mischievous gleam in his eyes when I met them over the top of her head. I shook my head at him, but there was no stopping him from pretending to be disgusted by the attention I was getting.

  Mom knew it, too. She pointed at the leather sandals on her feet before jabbing him in the chest. “You’re my problem child. Don’t tempt me to take one of those off. You’re never too old for a hiding.” Turning back to me, she gave a small, playful wink. “Let me get a vase for those. They’re beautiful, darling.”

  Aldo waited until she left us before sticking his tongue out at me and mimicking Mom. “They’re beautiful, darling.”

  “Thank you.” I smirked. “If I’d known you liked flowers so much, I would have gotten you a bouquet of your very own.”

  “Really?” He wagged his brows at me and clutched his heart. “Don’t worry. I’ll get over the hurt that you went all the way to China and brought nothing back for me. At least Mama got flowers.”

  “Want one?”

  He shrugged but plucked a pink rose out of the arrangement and snapped it in half between his long fingers. “There. I feel better now.”

  “Great.” As I was about to roll my eyes at him again, both of us heard Mom closing a cabinet and knew it meant she would be back with us in a second.

  Aldo hid the rose behind his back, stashing it in the pocket of his jeans and dropping his shirt over it. I righted the bouquet again and held it out when she entered the room.

  “Here you go. A complete arrangement. There’s absolutely not a flower missing.”

  She gave me a strange look before shifting her gaze to Aldo’s. He was the picture of innocence as he swept a hand in her direction. “A beautiful, complete bouquet for our beautiful mother.”

  She sighed when she realized something was going on, but we weren’t about to tell her what it was. She took the flowers from me and gently placed them in the vase. “Let’s go eat. I can’t face your antics on an empty stomach.”

  At her mention of food, I sniffed the air and nearly moaned at the aromas floating on it. My mother’s cooking was such an integral part of coming home that I hadn’t even stopped to think about it before.

  Now that I had, I was suddenly starving for the lasagna I knew was in the oven. The richness of melted cheese and baking meat gave it away. Homemade lasagna was a thing of beauty to me, especially when it was my mother’s.

  “You two set the table,” she ordered as she turned her back on us again. “The food will be ready in a minute. There’s a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge. I will need a big glass if you’re going to insist on acting like children.”

  Aldo roared with laughter, shoving his shoulder against mine before he took off after her. “I’ll get the drinks. You set the table.”

  I grumbled, but I had lost that round fair and square. Mom’s dining table was a wooden antique that had been passed down from her grandmother. Pockmarks and scratches marred the surface but gave it so much character that it almost felt like it was another member of our family.

  I covered it with a starched white tablecloth because my mother was of the opinion that it was barbaric to eat without one. Then I added everything else. Just as soon as I added a bottle of extra virgin olive oil, Mom came out of the kitchen carrying a board with golden bread on it in one hand and a bowl of salad in the other.

  I reached for both and she nodded in thanks before heading back to the kitchen. Aldo came back with a glass of the wine Mom had asked for and a beer for each of us. We took our seats, and I cut slices of the fresh bread while we waited for her.

  Once Mom placed the lasagna in the center of the table, she motioned to us as she sat down. “Tuck in, boys. I don’t want you going hungry. You’re both much too thin already.”

  “We’re not thin. We’re in shape.” Aldo scoffed but pushed his chair back and gestured to his abdomen. “This is what gets the girls, Mama. If you ever want us to find out about that thing you mentioned earlier about babies, we can’t get fat.”

  Mom leveled a glare at him, then bent over and, as she had promised, retrieved the sandal. Aldo laughed and tried ducking, but a smacking sound told me she had connected with his bicep after all.

  He continued laughing, but Mom ignored him.

  “Women of substance care about what’s on the inside, not the outside.” She let the sandal drop to the floor and picked up her silverware like nothing had happened. “Perhaps that’s why neither of you have settled down. You’re not socializing with the right kind of women. I can help you, you know. There’s a lovely group of young women at the church who—”


  Aldo covered his face with his hands while I groaned loudly. “Not this again, Mama. Please. We’re fine. We don’t need your help.”

  “But—”

  Aldo interrupted her, turning to me. “Tell us about China. Did you close your deal?”

  “I did,” I said, taking his cue and launching into an unnecessarily detailed description of the country, the food, and the business I’d done there.

  Mom listened, but I knew our attempt to redirect hadn’t fooled her. Her eyes were sharp and alert on mine as she listened, though. She wasn’t involved in my business at all, but she always showed her interest and intellect when I spoke about it.

  Letting the topic of us meeting the church girls go—for now—she listened and asked me questions while we ate. Aldo and I both got a few more smacks of the sandal before the end of dinner, but they never hurt and were a part of every family dinner we’d ever had.

  Aldo left the table to refill our drinks as my phone chimed with an email. Mom gave me a look filled with disapproval. She hated it when we had our phones present while having a meal together, but I couldn’t help it.

  Respecting her wishes while running a company was a fine balancing act sometimes. I unlocked my phone and only glanced down to see the email was from Edward. They had arrived in Florence and were looking forward to seeing me.

  I gave Mom an apologetic smile and set my phone back down. “My new business partners just let me know they’re in town. I have to show them a good time tomorrow. Got any ideas?”

  Chapter 4

  Addy

  Early afternoon sunlight warmed my feet as it crept in through the open windows. I was lying on our couch in the living room, my laptop on my legs as I scrolled through job-seeking websites.

  Soft footsteps padding into the room alerted me to the fact that my roommate had finally woken up. I popped my head up over the couch to give her a wave.

  “Good afternoon, sunshine. I was just starting to wonder if I needed to make an explosion go off next to your head.”

  She lifted a hand to shield her blue eyes from the light and flipped me off with the other. “Hilarious. I only got to bed two hours before dawn. Do you really blame me for sleeping in?”

  I shrugged as I sat up and swung my legs to the side. “I was getting bored by myself. Being unemployed is lonely.”

  “You’ve been unemployed for two days,” she pointed out as she pulled her long, tangled blonde hair into a bun and fastened it with a band from around her wrist. “How’s the job hunt going?”

  “Not well.” I blew out a breath and set my laptop down on the coffee table in front of me. “I’m applying for everything I can, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

  She made a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat as she inclined her head toward the kitchen. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure.” I got up and joined her at the counter, leaning with my elbows on the cool surface as I watched her fixing our drinks. “I hated working for Antonio, but at least it was work. What am I going to do if I can’t find a new job?”

  “Move your shit into my room so we can find a new roommate to cover your half of the rent?” she suggested as she placed two cups on the counter.

  I hung my head and dragged my fingers through my loose hair, bringing one lock down to play with it in front of my eyes. “Do you really think it will come to that?”

  “No.” She poured the steaming liquid into the waiting cups, added sugar, and handed mine over while wrapping her hands around her own. “I hope it won’t, but it might.”

  “Fuck.” She was right, of course. Jobs weren’t just lying around outside waiting for someone to pick them up. At least I had Elena in my corner. She had no filter and no shame, but she was a damn good friend. “You hungry? I suddenly feel like cooking.”

  “No shit?” She moved out of my way and took a seat on the other side of the counter. “If you’re going to be stress cooking and stress baking, we need to find you a new job ASAP. My ass can’t get any bigger or I’ll also be out of a job.”

  I snorted. “Your ass is incapable of getting big enough to get you fired. You dance for hours every night.”

  “True.” She flashed me a wide grin and shimmied her shoulders. “Speaking of which, I might be able to organize a job for you at the club.”

  “No. I’m not built for that.” I wiggled my butt at her as I bent over to retrieve a pan. “See what I mean? No one will pay money for that.”

  Her tinkling giggles filled the air. “You’d be surprised. It takes all kinds to keep the customers coming back. Not everyone is into small tits like mine. Some prefer round hips and actual asses.”

  “Round hips and actual asses are one thing. I jiggle when I move, Elena. No one wants to see me take it all off. Trust me.”

  When I turned around to gather the ingredients for crepes, I caught the edge of her smile. “That’s bullshit. You’re gorgeous. Men will drool if they see you walking onto that stage. Grab ahold of the pole, and other bodily fluids will be added to the mix.”

  I grabbed a bag of flour, shaking my head as I rummaged around a drawer for our measuring cups. “I can’t do it, Elena. I just don’t have it in me.”

  “But you could,” she quipped. “You could have whatever you wanted in you. Or whoever you wanted, if you prefer to think about it that way.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Getting laid won’t get me out of this situation.”

  “No, but allowing guys to fantasize about laying you just might.” She got up and pretended to grab onto a pole, walking in slow circles as she kept watching me. “I could show you some moves. It’ll be fun, and a job is a job.”

  Walking to the fridge to get some eggs, I dragged in a deep breath. “You really think it’s a good idea? I’m mouthy. I can’t help it. The first time a customer reaches for me, they might just get a fist to the nose. I don’t think you want to be on the hook for recommending someone like that.”

  A shrug lifted her shoulders before she resumed her imaginary dance. “If someone gives you trouble, all you have to do is call one of the bouncers. They’ll take care of it for you. I promise it’s a lot more fun than you think.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” I gave up on mixing my batter, crossing my arms over my chest as I leaned my hip against the counter and watched her. “But I could never do that. I don’t move as well as you do.”

  To prove my point, I started rolling my hips and stuck my arms up in the air.

  Elena stopped dancing and arched a manicured brow at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Dancing.” I stuck my chest out and ran my hands up and down my sides. “Sexy, isn’t it?”

  “As fuck.” She burst out laughing, bending over from it as she kept her eyes on me. “That’s not dancing. It looks like a flamingo having a seizure.”

  “Thanks.” I dropped my arms to my sides and decided to get back to making her breakfast. “See what I mean? I’m just not cut out for that kind of work.”

  “We’ve been out together before. I know you’ve got moves.”

  “That, I do. I’m an excellent swayer and I can jump up and down with my hands in the air like I just don’t care right along with the best of them. But that’s not really what’s required at your club, is it?”

  She pursed her lips and pretended to consider my question seriously, tapping her chin with her forefinger. “It could be. There’s a market for just about anything. I’m sure there will be customers willing to pay to watch you jump around. I could ask at least.”

  “Are you serious?” I whirled around to face her, my heart pounding until I saw the humor in her eyes. Her shoulders shook in silent laughter. “You had me going there for a minute.”

  “Good, because I wasn’t really kidding. I was just laughing at how shocked you looked. Come on. Like I said, a job is a job. We’ll get to work together and I’m willing to bet you’ll get great tips.”

  “Why?” I asked, bringing my hands up to my breasts and jiggling them a lit
tle. “Because of these girls? I promise you they won’t earn me tips. They might earn me a ride to the station in the back of a police car if someone tries to touch them. Otherwise, they’ll earn me a trip to the emergency room. They can’t be left unrestrained. I’d give myself a concussion if I jumped around.”

  Elena sighed and finally sat back down. “Fine, but you better get ready to suck our landlord’s dick then. Maybe you can exchange giving head for a place to stay.”

  “Our landlord is a woman,” I reminded her as I cracked an egg into the well I’d made in the flour. “I don’t think she has a dick I could offer to suck.”

  “Women like getting head, too. You don’t have many options here, Addy. If I could afford to cover your half of the rent, I would. But I can’t.”

  “I know. I love you for saying that, but I wouldn’t have let you anyway. It’s my responsibility, not yours. I’ll make a plan.” What plan? I had no idea.

  I didn’t even have any family with that kind of money that I could ask for a loan. Kyle probably would have sold a kidney to keep a roof over my head if that was what it took, but he’d taken care of me for long enough. It wasn’t pride keeping me from going to him. It was the knowledge that he’d give me money he didn’t have. No matter what it took.

  I was the one who’d wanted to comp that meal, knowing it could get me fired. This was on me, not Kyle. Besides, it wasn’t the first time I was up shit’s creek without a paddle in sight.

  I’d work something out eventually.

  Elena perked up suddenly, slamming her mug onto the counter with such force that some of her coffee spilled over the sides. “What if you don’t have to make a plan because I already have one?”

  “Yeah, what plan is that?”

  “You could make some good money just serving drinks at the club. With what you made before you got fired, savings, and a boost from the tips you’d get, you’d be able to pay rent and get through the next month. I could make it happen for you as soon as tomorrow.”