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“Heya, Pops,” I answer, forcing cheerfulness into my voice.
“Hey, kiddo. How’s the job going?” He sounds different, wrong. Still the usual warm tone I was used to hearing from Pops, but wrong somehow. Kind of muffled.
My stomach sinks, twists. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine,” he says soothingly, and his voice still sounds wrong.
“Pops, what is it? Are you sick? Do you need me to come home?”
“No. No, no, sweetheart. I’m fine. You worry too much,” he chides.
“Pops. I can hear it in your voice. Something’s wrong,” I say softly. “What is it?”
He doesn't answer for a moment, and then I hear him clear his throat. “D’Agostino sent a few of his guys over here. A little reminder that he wants his money before the first of the month.”
“Pops,” I whisper.
“I’m okay,” he assures me. “I’m fine, Sammy. They roughed me up a little, that’s all. Black eye, fat lip. I’m okay.”
I can hear the unspoken “for now” in his voice.
“We’ll get you out of this. I promise.”
“Sweetheart, this is my mess, not yours,” he says in a firm voice. “You need to worry about your future. I’ll worry about my messes. You have your own life, and that’s all I want for you.”
I swallow. “Pops…” I want to tell him that I’m working on it, that it’ll all be okay. That a relaxing retirement is right around the corner and he won’t have to worry about anything.
“It’s okay, Sammy. Look, I gotta get back to work. I just wanted to check on you.”
“Okay,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Be good.”
“Always,” I tell him, our usual exchange. My father hangs up, and I sit there, looking at my phone.
And I know I’m going to stay out the month, even if it destroys me. My father deserves a new beginning just as much as I do. A million dollars can buy both of us a fresh start, and it’s the least I can do for the things he’s sacrificed for me.
I take a deep breath, then another. I can do this. I don’t have to be whole when it’s over. I just have to make it through. I can rebuild myself later, once I’m away from Dante and the way he makes me want impossible things.
Suck it up, take what pleasure he can give me, and start over once the month is up. I can do this.
At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
***
Dante
Something’s up. Samantha’s withdrawn and quiet, and there’s a distance in her eyes that feels like a punch to the gut every time I see it. I can’t get her to talk to me. She’s still as responsive as ever when I make love to her, still as sweet and hot and needy, if not more so. But if we’re not naked, the chance of getting her to open up to me at all is practically zero.
I’m surprised by how much this bothers me. We’d started settling into a routine. I’d let her know when I’d be home, and either she or I would order delivery. I ordinarily don’t cook, and I sure the hell don’t expect her to.
But I need to do something to draw her out. Shake things up a little. So instead of ordering something to be delivered, I stop off at the market on the way home and pick up a few bags of ingredients, as well as a dessert I hope she’ll like.
As I drive home, I can’t stop trying to figure out what changed. She was fine, and then the next day when I got home, she greeted me the way she always does—naked—but there was that distance in her eyes, that sense that no matter what I did to her, there was a part of her I just couldn’t reach.
And man, I’ve tried. I’ve spent the past few nights using every weapon in my arsenal to try to draw her out. No matter how hard she comes, no matter how she screams, no matter how much she moans when she goes down on me, I can’t make her share anything else with me.
The fact that I’m this fucked up over it is probably a bad sign. I hate seeing her like this.
