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DOMINIC
“Do they have to make these things so damn itchy?” I tug on the fake Santa beard. Not only is it uncomfortable and makes my face feel as though I shaved with the dullest blade imaginable, but it’s hot as hell. As is this entire Santa get-up I’m wearing.
Today, my two brothers and I are participating in the Manhattan Santa Run to support Young Survival Coalition, and the start and end of the race is in Central Park. My younger brother Enzo’s wife, Annie, was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer four years ago. They caught it early and she’s made a full recovery, but since then, she and Enzo have been raising money to help fight the disease.
This year, that meant talking Carm and me into doing a 5k while dressed in a Santa suit in the frigid weather of November.
My wife, Valentina, tugs on my beard, pulling it down under my chin so she can place a lingering kiss on my lips. “You make it to the finish line and I’ll make it worth it tonight.”
I grin. Best damn wife ever.
“Ew, gross, you guys,” our seven-year-old daughter, Giuliana, says. “There are people around.” She says in a tone as if we don’t know.
“Get used to it,” my stepson, Ryder, says beside her.
Val gives him the mom eye and I chuckle. He does speak the truth though.
Ryder was a teenager when Val and I got married and already knew about the birds and the bees, so he understood what happens between a husband and a wife. He’s grown now, twenty-three and making his own way in the world, but he’s a good enough kid that he came down to support the cause even though I’m sure there’s a thousand other things he’d rather do on a Saturday.
“They’re always doing this kinda thing,” Giuliana complains.
Val giggles and I pull her into me with a grin so her body is pressed against… well, my Santa suit.
“Ready to do this, old man?” Carm approaches us with a shit-eating grin. It’s practically a permanent fixture on his face these days. At least when he’s calling me old man.
Ever since I passed forty a couple years ago, he thinks it’s the funniest fucking thing. But he’s not that far behind me. Then he won’t find it so amusing.
“I might be an old man, but I can still kick your as—butt in cardio.” I give him a playful shove.
Bella approaches with their four-year-old son, Dante, in tow. “Are you two already starting?” She gives Carm a look and shakes her head.
He raises his hands. “I just asked if he was ready. He’s the one who laid down a challenge.”
“What challenge?” we hear.
We turn to see Enzo approaching and holding his five-year-old son, Mateo. Annie isn’t far behind, her hand in their six-year-old daughter’s, Arianna.
Carm thumbs in my direction. “Dom thinks he’s gonna smoke me on this race.”
“I’m gonna beat both of you.” Enzo grins. “Right, buddy?”
“Right, Daddy!” Mateo high-fives his dad and sticks his tongue out at us.
My nephew is the spitting image of his dad when he was that age. Sometimes I look at Mateo and feel a rush of nostalgia for our childhood.
The truth is, turning forty was kind of a thing in my life. It made me realize how much time I wasted denying what I felt for Val when we could’ve been together. I guess the passage of time is that much more obvious to me now, as is the fact that you don’t get a do-over in this life.
And once forty comes? Shit, time feels as though it passes by even faster than it did before.
“Care to make a little wager?” Carm’s rubbing his hands together, which is never good.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, my attention divided as I watch Arianna chase Giuliana around our group. There are a lot of people here and I want to make sure they don’t wander off.
“I’ve got an eye on them,” Val says low enough that only I hear over the noise of the crowd.
What can I say? My wife’s known me most of my life and she knows my daughter is my princess and precious to me.
“I saw that they were selling Santa bellies over there.” Carm nods to the area where some tents are set up with food and refreshments and, apparently, Santa bellies.
