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Compromise.
My phone buzzes, and I glance down at the text from Andy.
She’s getting her checked items and then she’ll meet you. Still doesn’t know it’s you, only knows I’ve sent a car.
I don’t reply to him. I set my eyes on the door, waiting for them to come out.
There’s a traffic enforcement officer who has been eyeing me for the past couple of minutes, probably because I have been in the pickup lane for too long. I can almost see him trying to work up the nerve to ask me to move or to circle and come back when my person is ready to be picked up.
I shoot him an icy glare, and all the confidence he built up disappears in an instant. He pulls his lips back into a tight smile and he looks away from me. Smart kid, I think to myself, trust those instincts.
A second text message comes to my phone, this time from my mom.
Your father said I need to leave you guys alone for tonight so Emma and Matteo can settle, and you have a chance to work things out as a family. I expect to see you ALL tomorrow morning for breakfast.
I roll my eyes at the text, but a small, fond smile creeps onto my lips. I accidentally told my mom about Matteo this morning. She and my father rarely keep secrets from each other, not outside business. And my mom didn’t want to know those secrets. She hadn’t been born into a world of crime. All she did was fall in love with a man. She married him with all his faults and his inherited spot as the head of the Lombardi Famiglia.
Thinking my father had already told her about Matteo, I had casually mentioned I needed to go to the airport to pick up my child and future wife. She about damn near had a heart attack in the kitchen.
She cursed me out, threatened both my and my father’s life for not telling her immediately, and then took off in dad’s favorite sports car with his credit card so she could prepare the house for her grandbaby.
Oh, and she called Caterina to follow behind her in the minivan. There wouldn’t be nearly enough room in the two-seater sports car for how much she intends on buying.
Taking my father’s prized Bugatti to Target was probably the smallest of the punishments she would dole out after we kept her in the dark about this revelation. I had swung by my father’s office before I left to let him know. The look of horror on his face let me know how much trouble we were truly in.
Hopefully, meeting her grandson will soothe some of her anger.
I tuck my phone away into my pocket and look up in time to see Emma coming out of the airport sliding doors. Red hair tied up into a bun, a young boy with a mess of dark curls clinging to her legs as she tries to maneuver a luggage cart stacked high with far more than it is designed to carry.
“Emma,” I say, waving a hand above my head so she can find me.
Her eyes snap to me in an instant, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping. The smile on my face threatens to turn sinister, but I force myself to play nice. I can’t run her off yet. The airport is the last place I need a public struggle. Until we get home, I have to keep my cards tight to my chest.
She pushes the kid behind her as if I haven't noticed the boy yet. It’s hard to hide my reaction to seeing him. I could tell from the photos he looks like me, but it's more obvious when he's right in front of me.
I jog over to her, and I think the parking enforcement officer lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh god, this can’t be happening,” Emma mutters from under her breath. I don’t think I'm supposed to hear her, so I ignore it.
“Here, let me help you,” I offer. I reach for the luggage cart, but she has an iron grip on it. Her face has faded to a ghostly white color, and she eyes me cautiously.
“I can call a cab. Yes. I think I should call a cab. ”
While I'm in her presence, I don't think she's talking to me. Instead, it seems I'm privy to. a conversation she meant to keep inside of her head. I let out a small chuckle and shake my head. “Why would you do that? I’m already here.”
Her tongue darts out from between her lips, licking her bottom lip before pulling it between her teeth. The view is too distracting to look away from. I also make a mental reminder to never allow her to play poker, because her tell hasn’t changed since I met her five years ago.
I rest a hand on the cart, not letting her pull away or escape from me. “The sooner we’re able to get you settled, the sooner we can get you to your dad.”
“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes darting along the cars idling at the curbside.
“I think parking enforcement over there is about to give me a ticket for being here for so long,” I tell her. In a moment of weakness as she turns to look at the officer, her grip weakens, and I pull it away from her. I bring it over to the car and start loading in the bags before she gets her bearings.
The boy peaks out at me from behind his mother’s legs, curious eyes assessing the situation for himself. He’s too young to realize we have the same Roman nose and high cheekbones, that our eyes are the same shade and our hair the same dark brown, but part of me wonders if he can tell. Maybe not in the obvious way. Dad is a title I'm going to have to earn. But maybe, I feel a little bit like coming home to him.
She must take me for an idiot if she doesn’t think I know. Even if I didn’t, even if this had been a perfectly innocent meeting, I would have realized the second I saw him.
“He’s forward-facing now, right?”
“Um, yes.”
