Page 117 of Dirty Pool

“Sorry, but this couldn’t wait.”

Dante made a noise under his breath, and something shuffled on the other end of the call. Was his father in bed already? Probably. “Well, what is it?”

“Is Ma awake?”

“She is now.”

“I raised him better than this,” Catrina snapped, making Michel chuckle.

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah. What is it?” his father asked.

“I’m … uh, in the city,” Michel said.

Silence answered him back before his father gained his bearings enough to respond with, “Since when?”

“Yesterday.”

“What—”

“We needed to wait twenty-four hours before we could go into the Clerk’s office after we got the marriage license, that’s all.”

It took his father entirely too long to respond.

And then, when he did, all Dante could do was splutter. Michel couldn’t remember a time when his father had been as equally upset and confused at the same time, but apparently, he got to be the lucky fuck who did it for him.

“What?” his father finally settled on barking.

Michel cleared his throat, adding, “I did some stuff.”

“I fucking guess, Michel!”

“Give me the phone—you give me that goddamn phone, Dante!”

Something crackled, and then, his mother was on the phone, too. Michel thought to move the speaker away from his ear because he was pretty sure his mother was about to get very loud. Like the idiot he was, he kept the phone pressed tight to his ear, and just about got his eardrums busted out for doing it, too.

“You got married and I wasn’t there?”

Michel blinked. “Hey, Ma.”

“Why would you do that to me?”

She was hysterical.

Her words, a shriek.

“I have spent years loving and raising you, and this is what you do to me? How dare you, Michel Dante Marcello!”

Oh, full name.

He was sure Dante hadn’t been his middle name before his parents adopted him, but as he didn’t know his middle name from that time, this worked just as well to get his mother’s point across.

Michel said the first thing that came to his mind, hoping it would calm his mother down. “You’re going to love her, Ma. She’s fucking amazing, and I just want … I just want you to love her like I do, okay?”

Catrina quieted.

He breathed a little easier, then.