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Damn…
I was getting soaked out there, and, somehow, I could feel beads of sweat spreading across my forehead. To my disappointment, the light in the bedroom on the second floor was off. Reaching the second floor, I stepped on the landing, the white curtain behind the window coming into view. I held on to the railing on the right for support, suspecting it wouldn’t be much help if the whole damn thing collapsed. I used my drenched fist to knock on the glass, before throwing a quick glance down at the road. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There was a row of parked cars on either side, a green van speeding down the road.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
I heard Piper’s muffled voice, the light in her bedroom coming on.
“It’s me. Cesare,” I spoke out, more drops of water moistening my stubble.
“Holy god!” she yelled, pulling the window to the side. “What the hell are you doing out there? You could have used the door. I would have let you in, you know.”
“Cute,” I murmured, unwilling to get into that kind of conversation on that crappy fire escape. “Get back. I’m coming in.”
She took two steps back, before I reached in. I grabbed the ledge and lifted my leg over it, my shoe grazing the pane. I heard some pebbles fall on the aluminum, my shoe leaving a wet print on her floor. My head pressed against the pane of her window, I repeated the same process with my other leg.
“Well, I can’t complain about being bored,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Me neither,” I agreed, wiping water off of my forehead with my forearm. “That fire escape nearly killed me.”
“This is the part where you explain why you didn’t use the door like regular people do,” she stated, a touch of irony in her voice.
“You’re being watched, Piper,” I announced, my expression serious. “I don’t know if you’re being watched twenty-four-seven, but someone’s monitoring your moves. I didn’t want them to know I was here tonight.”
“Thanks, but I got that information when a certain someone paid me a visit at the hospital yesterday,” she told me, a cold look in her eyes. “Does the name Maggie Owens-Roselli sound familiar?”
“She did…?” I stopped talking halfway through my sentence, unable to believe her last statement. “How come?”
“She’s a long-time friend of mine,” Piper went on. “We hadn’t seen each other in over three months, because she recently had a baby and found a new job. Anyway…” she paused for a second. “She said some quite disturbing things about you, Matteo, and Leo. Honestly? I couldn’t believe my ears. I mean, I knew you were not law-abiding citizens per se, but you actually want to join the mafia? Do you realize howcrazythat sounds?”
“Not to us,” I disagreed, recalling just some of the images I had taken from my old neighborhood with me. “You see, we got a pretty good taste of what those people have when we were kids. Or, rather, what we lacked. Little things like food, adequate shelter, safety, and security. In short, everything you can obtain if you have enough money.”
“So, you’re willing to risk your life out there every day? For what?” I threw my hands up in the air. “ Fast cars? Loose women?”
“Look, I’m not here to explain why I’ve made that choice,” I snapped. “I just wanted to explain why I’d been out of touch. And why we can’t be together.”
“Too much danger,” she said, taking her eyes off of me to look out the window.
“The last thing I want to do is see you get hurt.Especiallybecause of me,” I said in a louder voice. She justhadto get the message, or else my little climb up her fire escape would have been for nothing.
“I understand,” she whispered, tilting her head to the side, her gaze still down on the floor.
This should have been my cue to leave.
We could part ways in peace.
No drama.
No screaming.
But, as I looked closer, I noticed a tear in the corner of her eye. Leaving its edge, that tear streamed down the side of her nose. I parted my lips, her sniffle coming to confirm what my eyes were telling me.
“Hey,” I said with a whisper, my fingers tipping her chin up. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear.”
“You’re right. It’s not,” she agreed, lifting her eyes back up to mine. That redness in them… Man, it hurt. Bad. All that disappointment on her face shut me up for good. I wasn’t going to open my mouth—I had nothing to say. I felt my heart breaking, her labored breath the only sound in my ears for a few seconds. “Thank you, though.”
“Thank me?” I asked, her last sentence stunning me. “What for? Disappearing on you? Not calling you back?”
“For the memories,” she explained. “And for climbing up the fire escape to hide the fact that you were here. I can’t think of anyone else who would do that.”
