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“The forgiveness you’ve shown me for all I’ve done to you, baby? It means everything,” his voice was sleepy, sweet, “You’ve written your name on my heart so I wanted it visible. I saw the artist who did my other ink. I think he integrated it all really well.”
“It’s beautiful, Tommy.”
He kissed my cheekbone, kissing a tear away, “The way you trace my ink all the time after we make love, I want you tracing your name on me, too. So I had it written just the way you’d do it. Went through your boxes to get a writing sample. I’m branded. You own me, baby girl. Body and soul.”
“Will you marry me?” I asked, through tears, looking at my Ice Cream parlor hottie, my dream man.
Every time he gave me a big smile I thought it was the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. But right then, laying together in the little bed in the hayloft where I’d truly fallen in love with him, he gave me the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen yet and then he said, “I’ll think about it.”
I scrunched my nose up at him and he leaned over and kissed my nose.
Later that morning we drove back to the city to finish packing our things. We were starting over somewhere else. We didn’t want to live in the house Tom bought, the house that I now knew was bought because it was my own mother’s dream house. Tom’s distorted entitlement put all this in motion and we wanted nothing to do with it. We were getting on a plane and taking some time for one another before the family flew down to meet us for our wedding.
I went into the kitchen and Sarah handed me a cup of coffee. When I took a sip I could swear there was not a grain of sugar in it. My eyes narrowed at her and she gave me a sly smile and turned around and resumed packing a box of dishes. I was about to reach for the sugar but noticed the sugar bowl had already been packed away. I sat down at the island and decided to see if I could live without my 3 sugars. I took a second sip and really, it wasn’t all that bad.
Epilogue
Tia
We planned to get married a month after Tom Sr. died. We were doing it in Costa Rica with Tommy’s siblings, Eddy, Bianca and Nino, Sarah, Lisa, and all the kids. Tommy and I are moving there and starting over. I haven’t said goodbye to my old friends and my old life. I just can’t go there right now. It’s too raw and I’m too different. My friends are in school, dating, working part-time jobs, and being teenaged girls. I’ve changed so much in the last few months. Maybe someday I’ll go back and see them. Or maybe it’s better to just move forward. I wrote Rose and Cal a letter, it was vague but heartfelt. I mailed it to them before we left.
Dario’s taken the company over and he’s going to transition it into something clean and wholesome and then he says he’s going to sell it and become a commercial airline pilot. That’s what he dreamt of ever since he was a small child. I asked Tommy what he dreamt of. He never answered the question honestly, gave me a storybook ‘happily ever after with my ice cream parlor maid’ kind of answer. I know that’s not true because he never envisioned himself settling down before he met me. I know he envisioned himself at the helm of Ferrano Enterprises. I don’t know what he’ll do with his life but I know he is too driven and too smart to stay idle for too long. He just needs time to heal, to figure out what he wants. We both do. Then we’ll see what pearls life’s oyster offers us.
My father is still incarcerated but he’s still alive, at least. Tommy’s father’s death along with the death of the guards that were also there was reported in the newspapers as having to do with mafia business gone wrong and related to a cartel in Mexico. I guess JC, whoever he is, has good clean-up skills. Thank God Tommy had the foresight to put a GPS in my engagement ring. It was crazy stalkerish of him to do it but it probably saved my life. Would Tom have killed me to teach his son a lesson? We’ll never know.
Since we’ve been here in paradise, Tommy’s been having nightmares and I finally convinced him to get therapy after he woke up in the throes of one of those nightmares with my throat in his hand and I was turning blue. He agreed, after a big argument where I stood my ground and won, to start Skype counselling sessions with a therapist in the UK that has excellent credentials and experience in helping men like Tommy come to terms with their dominating personalities.
I don’t know if it’s the counselling, the guilt, or the grief over all that happened but he hasn’t wanted to play any sex games. I’ve tried to initiate them for stress relief, or thinking it’d help bring his spark back but right now he’s quiet, subdued, reflective, and seems to be all about the vanilla. He’s sweet and attentive and he’s my ice cream parlor hottie. And he’s sad and troubled and he’s not the same. I’m missing the blackjack berry thunder. We just have to give it time. I hope. I know he feels regret for all the pain and hurt and I know he loves me but I kind of miss my dominator. Yes, he’s possessive and protective but he’s too… vanilla.
Tommy
We got married at sunset on a beach in Costa Rica with our family around us. We were both dressed in white. I danced with her to our song and she put on the ring with the gold and black knots. And I was in heaven for she was truly mine at last. I didn’t deserve her but she gave herself to me anyway. She’d stared into my eyes and promised to lo
ve, honor and obey, which made me smirk, which then made her smirk. I gave her a look of promise and her gaze went heated and the justice of the peace that married us had to clear his throat to get our attention back on the ceremony.
When the song ended and another one began, I whispered into her ear,
“Wife, when your husband takes you to bed to consummate our marriage, he’s going to rip that fucking vanilla dress off you and fuck you like you’ve never been fucked.”
I continued, but looked into her eyes, they were huge and she was panting, “I’ve got handcuffs and a spreader bar, some toys, and a tub of blackjack berry thunder ice cream.”
She had a full body shiver.
(I’d gotten a local chef to recreate it from the approximate recipe of the brand back home.)
I was ready for our life together to truly begin and while I had a long way to go with therapy and making sure that I never went overboard with her again and while I’d given up my birthright as mafia crime boss, I had not given up the right for my life to have flavor!
The End
