I grew up knowing what connected looks like. My uncle ran with people. Nothing that made the news, but I spent enough Saturday dinners watching his friend Paulie come in through the back door to learn the language and signs of it early. The way a normal life wraps around an irregular center. The way money runs clean, even when it shouldn’t. The way certain questions don’t get asked because everyone at the table already knows the answer.
I know what I’m probably living inside right now. I’ve been telling myself it’s not my business, and I mostly still believe that. I’m here for Opal. Opal’s color is good, her appetite is back. She will get to go back to school soon. That’s the reason. She’s my whole reason for all of this. Even the debt that got me in over my head in the first place. My baby girl makes it all worth… whatever this is.
On Thursday evening, Opal decides she wants to make pasta from scratch. The project is based entirely on a cartoon about a Neapolitan chef, and in the time between watching it and dinner, she wants to know about flour-to-egg ratios and presents her case to Dario with the gravity of a business proposal.
“What makes you think I know how to make pasta?”
She frowns. “You’re Italy-ese.”
He loses his composure for a flash, then says, “Italian. And I’m Italian-American, which means… you know what? Alright. Yes, I know how to make pasta. You want to try with me?”
She grins and nods, and they’re off to the kitchen. He clears the counter, gets out flour and eggs, and teaches my daughter to make pasta with the focused patience of a man who has nowhere better to be and wouldn’t go there anyway.
I know for a fact that he has places to be. But he’s choosing to be with Opal. I’m not sure what that means.
Opal wears more flour than ends up in the dough. She presses her floury hands onto the counter, then onto the front of Dario’s shirt—two small handprints, dead center on something that probably costs more than my electric bill. He looks down at them. “Nice work, kid.”
She beams. He doesn’t wipe them off.
I rinse Opal’s face at the sink and watch the two of them across the kitchen in the low evening light. Three months, I tell myself. Only three months. I’ve been saying it as an anchor. I’m not sure it’s doing what it should.
The pasta is uneven and thick, but genuinely delicious. Opal eats two bowls and falls asleep at the table. Dario picks her up without being asked and carries her to bed. I hear him settle her in. I stand in the kitchen with the dirty dishes and feel the tug again.
He comes back and does the dishes without mentioning it.
At work the next day, I take a forty-five-minute call from a man disputing a roaming charge from a country he’s never visited. By the time I’ve traced it to a cruise his wife apparently took without telling him, I’ve forgotten entirely about the penthouse and the arrangement and the flour handprints on a shirt hanging in a closet I walk past every day. I’m just Lena Swan doing what she knows how to do. It’s the best forty-five minutes of the week.
Not counting the time spent in Dario’s bed.
Rhonda stops by my desk later and tells me the supervisor application has gone to the next round. She says it like it’s expected, not a gift. I sit with that for thirty seconds, then put the headset back on. Calls in the queue.
After I take the fourth one from the queue, I get a text and check it immediately, expecting an emergency. My phone is hidden between my desk and my lap, just in case Rhonda or anyone else looks down my row.
It’s Dario.“Was in the shower, thinking about you.”
“Opal okay?”
“Asleep. Doing good. No worries.”
Okay, well, now I’m confused.“What about the shower?”
“I was naked. Made me think of you.”
My cheeks flush hot.“I’m at work.”
“I am aware.”
My eyes roll without a thought.
“And now, I’m in my room, stroking myself while I think of you, Lena.”
I know exactly what he’s thinking.“I’m not even supposed to be taking texts right now.”
The picture he sends isn’t work-safe. It’s him, lying back on his bed, his hard cock in full, prominent view. My mouth waters, and parts of me twitch hard.
“Come home early, and I promise I’ll make you come often.”
I giggle, unable to help it.“You’re impossible.”
