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Sex, whether we wanted to admit it or not, always made shit complicated.
“Fuck,” I hissed, sitting in her driveway, raking my hands down my face, trying to calm my system.
I wasn’t going to let myself relieve the tension, to go home, take a shower, and rub one out to thoughts of her. That was only going to make it harder to keep my hands to myself in the future.
Backing out of her driveway, I didn’t trust myself to go home, to let myself obsess over thoughts of her.
So what did you do when you were trying to behave your fucking self?
You went to visit with your mom, that’s what.
Oddly enough, it seemed like Dante and Santo had the same idea, because it was their cars on the street when I pulled into the driveway behind my ma’s car.
The problem was, I thought of nothing but Savannah as I walked up the front path that was lined in sprawling gardens.
Her putting in new plants, pulling weeds, on her hands and knees while I moved in behind her…
“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled to myself as I opened the front door.
The sounds of conversation called to me from the back of the house, as they often did. The kitchen had always been the heart of the household my entire life.
Every good day started in that kitchen, sharing small talk over a big breakfast.
And every bad night ended in it too. Sometimes, with my brothers or me getting our asses handed to us for sneaking out or fucking something up, getting that ‘disappointed’ speech that always made me wish my mother was more of an ass-whopping kind of mom because I figured it would hurt less than the knife to the gut feeling that particular word always created.
When we were older, the bad night ended up with a lot of silence, hands cupping mugs of coffee, or stiff drinks, just sharing each other’s company as we tried to come to grips with whatever tragedy had befallen the family.
It was my mom’s favorite place, and that love was reflected in the decor.
The floor was an imported stone. Down the center of the room was a massive antique table instead of a traditional island. Part of the top was stone, the other part worn wooden slats. The range was nestled in its own cove, an all black massive machine with brass accents, eight burners, three oven doors, and a pot filler.
Along the window ledge onto the back porch were pots of some of her most used herbs: basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, sage, and parsley. When you walked past, the air always managed to kick up the scents. If, by some off chance, the room wasn’t already filled with the scent of cooking.
There was a massive blue storage cabinet with plate slots and closed drawers, hiding away some of my mom’s many pots and pans and various other cooking gadgets.
“Oh, look who came for a visit!” my mother said, turning from the stove in her red apron, her dark hair half pulled up, her cheeks a little flushed from standing over a hot pot. “It’s almost like you knew I was making stuffed shells for dinner.”
“Heya, Ma,” I said, walking over to press a kiss to her cheek, then accepting the glass of wine that my brother passed me. Most of us would rather something stiff, or even just a beer, but our mom always served the wine from our brother Massimo’s winery. “I knew I could count on you for making something good.”
“Well, I was just making this for our little hero, but then your brother showed up, so now I’m making double. Speaking of,” she said, putting down her massive slotted spoon, and turning to give me her full attention. “You should have told me how beautiful she was!” she gushed, pressing a hand to her heart.
“You went to the restaurant today?”
“The word got out that it was open. Of course I had to drop in and pick up some pastries, show them some support. Oh, don’t worry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t tell her I was your mother. I wish I could have. And given her a big hug, told her how much I appreciate her. She was so lovely,” she added, turning back to the stove as Dante shot me a knowing look and Santo shook his head.
You could always count on our mom for having wedding bells ringing in her ear whenever a reasonably attractive woman was even a satellite in one of her sons’ lives.
Though in this case, unlike the time she’d tried to hook up Dante with her book club friend’s daughter who turned out to be a lesbian, she would be happy to know that there was attraction on both sides when it came to Savannah.
But I was damn sure not going to tell her that. What with the whole plan to try to keep my hands to myself moving forward.
“I felt so bad for her, seeing her working so soon after being so hurt,” my mother went on.
“I went in this morning and took over for a while,” I said, only realizing what I’d just said after the words were out of me, and my mom was turning, eyes wide.
“That’s my boy,” she said, eyes working overtime, and I only barely managed to hold back a wince, all but able to hear the shit that was going to be crossing telephone lines the next day between her and the aunts.
Santo caught my eye, jerking his head toward the back porch.
