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I guess she still wants to believe.
But do I?
Marco and I arrive home late in the afternoon after talking with the old boys for a while. We’ve made no ground on the search for the rat, but maybe that’s okay. It was nice to have a normal day for once. It was nice to hear about my father and who he’d been when I was a kid. It’s been nothing but stress and hair pulling this last week. I close my eyes and see him. I go about the day and see him. Just vision upon vision of my father on the slab. Then there’s the photos…
His friends inevitably asked about the funeral, I’ve been putting it off I told them. I didn’t want to do it until whoever was responsible was rotting in the ground. They respected that.
We walk through the entrance and I pass the picture of Ma and Dad without looking. Sophie is on the couch reading. She’s sitting how she’s been sitting for the last few days, with her hand on her belly and a book in the other hand. She smiles and looks genuinely happy to see us, or at least Marco. They’ve become good friends these last few days. He’s always been the better one of us with pressure.
“How’s your day going?” I ask.
“Fine,” Sophie says. She doesn’t move, she dog ears her book and closes it.
“How’s yours?” she asks.
“Fine too,” I say. “We had some of my father’s friends talking with us today.”
“Wanting to be Dons themselves now that you’re in charge.,” Marco adds. “All getting in his ear.”
“All with a different plan of attack too,” Luca smiles.“It’s well meant, but they—the times have changed. I don’t think I’ve heard the word bazooka since I was a kid.”
Marco snorts a laugh. “Or tommy gun!” The two grin like friends.
“I bet it was a bit of fun though,” Sophie adds.
“Yeah, it was.” I take a few glasses out of the cupboard and then grab the bottle of wine that’s been on the counter for the whole week and a half we’ve been here. I open it and pour three glasses. Marco takes the glass and seats himself at the kitchen counter on a stool. A dim opening in my mind reminds me of what I tried to do last night but got too chicken shit afraid of. “It’s a little unsettling though,” I say. But then realize what we were just talking about, and not what I’m thinking. “Not the bazookas.”
“Obviously,” Sophie adds, a grin of her own.
I look at her in all her beauty. I look at the woman standing by me, even when I can become so distant. I need to have a try with her. I need to share. “No, um—we’ve had more messages. More taunting and bragging. From the blackmailer,” I say, drinking a whole glass of wine quickly then repouring for myself.
Sophie takes the glass of wine but doesn’t drink it. Her face hasn’t left mine but has drastically changed, she’s intently watching me. Surprised. Or relieved?
It makes me nervous, but I continue. “They’re bragging that they’re right under our nose.”
Marco puts his glass down and excuses himself. “Gotta drain the lizard,” he utters with a wink.
With the click and lock of the toilet down the hall, we’ve both watched him go. Both watched the last wedge keeping us from being alone since my semi-admission in bed. Sophie is angelic and patient. She holds her glass and watches me intently. I still feel that an invisible bubble is keeping us apart. The invisible bubble I keep making and refusing to pop.
I sigh deeply. I need to try. I need to apologize fully. “Sophie,” I begin, looking into her eyes. But how? “I need to apologize.”
“You already have,” she responds.
“No, but—I’ve been distant. I’ve been awkward. I’ve been everything I don’t want to be with you. And the other night—”
“I accept your apology,” Sophie says. “I accepted it last night too.”
The bubble begins to shrink between us. I walk out from behind the island and lean against it, looking at her on the couch. “Look, I’m sorry for accusing you of killing my father.”
Sophie nods. “I’ve accepted your apology, Luca. And, if I may, I have an apology to make.”
It’s my turn to be confused now. I thought I was the one being a distant arse? “What for?”
“Well, there is something you don’t know—”
The toilet flushes and her eyes dart to the door in fear. Marco is returning, but she hasn’t said what she wanted. She stutters and doesn’t say anything in the end. The door opens and Marco emerges. He makes a beeline straight for his drink. “Bottoms up!” he says, finishing it in one. He’s grinning and looks between us, it’s only then he realizes how serious the conversation has been between us. His grin drops immediately.
I stare, waiting for her to continue. But when she doesn’t, it only lights up a new set of anxieties within me. My phone pings again. It’s another security alert.
