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Days Too Late: 3
I pieced together every day of the past year, wondering the exact moment that Vincent had been diagnosed.
When I couldn’t figure it out, I reconstructed the year, again and again, giving up only to start again from when I’d first noticed something wrong.
The day we’d gone over Asher’s wedding security plans.
But the most prominent memories of that day were of Ari.
Fuck.
I needed to do stuff.
Get out of bed, maybe.
People died. Life moved on. The sun still rose and set. The moon still did its orbiting shit. I still had a business to run.
Only, I couldn’t. Get. Out. Of. Bed.
Dana had been fired. An emergency restraining order had been bribed from a judge and slapped on her ass.
Ari had gone back to work, pulling double shifts with Graham of all people while one of the bartenders took over Dana’s hostess shifts.
Gio took over Uncle Vince’s duties like nothing had happened. Asher returned to work the next day to put out some fires that had risen in his absence. Lucy probably sat in a lecture the day after he died.
I knew they all cared.
I knew they’d never just brush off his death.
I knew this, but I couldn’t see past the fact that they were out living their lives while Vince didn’t have a life to live.
I would never get used to a world without Vincent Romano in it.
My future had been rewritten, and I no longer liked how it looked.
My phone buzzed.
Another text.
Probably from Ari.
I ignored it.
I kept her at a distance while she took over my duties at L’Oscurità. Not because I needed space. But because I didn’t want it.
I needed her. Craved her. Wanted her to make me forget Vince, which was precisely why she couldn’t be here.
I’d left the door locked and fell asleep that first night. It hadn’t been on purpose, but when Ari hadn’t been able to enter the room, she’d spent the night on the couch and left before I’d woken up.
And the memories of Vince?
They stayed intact in my mind. Locked up. Not pushed aside by fresh memories of a woman who changed everything.
Now, she was giving me space.
She still texted. I answered sometimes, keeping my texts short. I’d promised Uncle Vince I’d open my heart, so naturally, I’d broken that promise that same day.
I heard Lucy’s voice outside.
