Page 80 of Made in Love and Blood

There were too many goddamn boxes in his foyer. It didn’t matter how big the foyer was, it became much smaller when filled with crap. Salvatore did his best not to glare at the delivery man taking his sweet time using a dolly to bring in a load of something in long rectangular boxes.

“Silk,” the man said, “for the tapestries.”

Fuck.

Salvatore went on the hunt for his wife.

Or Sissy.

Someone.

“Carina! Sissy! Hello, is there not a better place to put that fucking mess?” he shouted out.

“Oh, here we go,” came a mutter from the kitchen area.

Salvatore headed that way fast. “Carina, I know I said you had full control over the graduation stuff, but we have a fucking garage for a reason. We have a foyer for an entirely different reason.”

He found his wife sitting at the large kitchen island, flipping through a magazine. Sissy stood at the other side, drumming her fingernails on the marble top and ignoring his presence altogether.

“The decorator is coming tomorrow with her team to get a start on the bigger rooms, Sal,” Carina said, never looking up from the glossy pages. “Anyway, I think you should say yes, Sissy. Larkin doesn’t have a life. You don’t have a life. You can not have a life together, that’s all I’m saying. What’s it going to hurt?”

Sissy finally glanced Salvatore’s way. Just the look on his face had her saying, “Yeah, I’m going to go...let the dog out.”

“Wise choice.” Salvatore walked closer to Carina who continued flipping pages. “Did you get my text earlier?”

“About talking to your daughter?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. Birth control. Get her on it.”

“They’re not having sex,” Sissy said over her shoulder.

Salvatore scoffed low. “Please, they’re eighteen and nineteen. If they’re practically spending the night together, and they’re not having sex, I’ll eat my fucking shoes. They’re having sex.”

“They’re not,” Sissy called back.

Then, she left the kitchen entirely.

“Carina, I am serious about the mess in the foyer.”

Throwing her head back slightly, his wife groaned. “Fine, Sal. Whatever, tomorrow, they’ll be gone. Or at least, in the area they need to be. The rest will go to the garage so we can walk them a damn mile to get them where they need to go.”

“And the birth control conversation?”

At that, she turned on the stool to stare at him. “Why don’t you talk to her about that?”

He spluttered, trying to come up with an acceptable response. The longer he struggled, the more sardonic her smile turned.

“What’s the old saying? If you’re not old enough to talk about sex, you shouldn’t be having it?”

“I don’t think this is the same,” he deadpanned. “She’s my daughter.”

“Even better reason to have a conversation with her if you’re concerned. But frankly, it’s a waste of time. She’s eighteen and knows about birth control. Christ, I put her on the pill when she turned fourteen. Whether she still is, well, that’s another matter. Again, talk to her, not to me.”

His blood pressure spiked dangerously.

“What?”

Carina’s expression turned passive. “Stop it.”