“Con, is that you?” she shouted from her office down the hallway in the rear.
“Yeah!” I shouted back. “Be there in a second.”
Aurelia’s eyes studied my face with trepidation. “Everything okay?” Now she knew me well enough to know when something was off. She picked up on my energy, my body language.
“Yeah. But there’s something I’ve got to tell you—”
“Con.” My mom came from the back, walking with an angry strut like she had heard about last night. “Lucia called me atdawnthis morning to tell me you brought Issy to tears at Daiquiri last night.”
So she was the victim in all this?
“I understand that things have been difficult between you two, but yelling at a woman like that is never okay—”
“Ma, listen to me.” I held up my hand to silence her before she verbally eviscerated me.
“You two need to find a way to coexist with each other if you’re going to be living here—”
“Ma.”
Both of her hands went to her hips, and her eyes were savage.
“Look, I wanted to tell Aurelia this last night, but it wasn’t the right time. So, I guess I’ll tell you both.” I looked at Aurelia. “I’m sorry you have to find out like this.”
Her eyes quickly flicked to my mother and back to me, and I could see the signs of stress all over her face.
“Issy tried to kiss me.” I looked at my mother instead of Aurelia, not wanting to face her disappointment. “I tried to leave Daiquiri with the guys, and she followed me. I tried to get her to leave me the fuck alone, but she wouldn’t stop. She grabbed me twice, and I stepped away. And then she tried to kiss me, and that’s when I snapped. Don’t expect an apology, because I’m not sorry about it. I spoke to Isabella earlier in the day since she disrespected Aurelia, and Ithoughtwe’d finally worked it out, but she was fucking wasted and belligerent.”
Within the snap of a finger, my mother’s rage disappeared. “What do you mean, she disrespected Aurelia?”
Aurelia didn’t say anything, but she looked at me and shook her head.
Nope, I was not covering for that cunt. “When she came into the restaurant the other day, Aurelia extended an olive branch, and Isabella continued to be hostile and called Aurelia a bitch. So I went to her apartment and told her she can’t come into my house and insult my family. I’m not sorry for anything I’ve said or done.” I used to hang assholes from the Pantheon, and now I was in the midst of some secondary school drama.
My mother continued to look at me without the sassy rage she’d worn a moment ago. Her arms crossed over her chest, and she released a heavy sigh. “Well, she left out that part ...”
“I’m sure Isabella left it out when she told her mother. I can give her the benefit of the doubt that she doesn’t remember, but I’m pretty fucking sure she does.” Made me out to be the asshole when she was trying to sabotage my life.
“I’m sorry, Con,” my mother said. “I should have known better.”
“It’s okay, Ma.”
“I was glad you two didn’t work it out nine years ago, and now I’m even more grateful nine years later. I see her true colors now, and she was never good enough for you. I’ll give her and her mother a piece of my mind.”
“I don’t want you to do that, Ma. I just want peace.”
“That’s too fucking bad. She crossed a boundary, drunk or not, when she was very aware of the fact that you’ve settled down, with a child on the way. She disrespected you, and she walked in here and disrespected Aurelia—and that shit isn’t gonna fly in my house.” She turned around and walked back down the hallway to her office, probably to finish up whatever she needed to do before she drove straight to Lucia’s house.
When we were alone again, I looked at Aurelia, afraid to see her hurt and disappointment.
But she seemed to feel neither. In fact, I could see only sympathy.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you yesterday. But it was late, and you were already asleep on the couch ...”
“I’m not upset, Constantine.”
“You aren’t?” I asked as I felt a rush of relief through my body, afraid I’d fucked up the one relationship that mattered the most.
“Of course not.” She stepped closer to me, her hand moving to my arm, her fingertips slipping slightly underneath the sleeve. “Why would I be angry?”
