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Half because she’s so fuckin’ cute and half because before we left, she was sending me photos of lingerie laid out on her bed, asking me which to bring.
I told her I wanted a fashion show.
“Soon. I owe you a honeymoon,” I say, my mind moving over the many ideas I’ve had over the last few months of what would make a good honeymoon for my wife and me.
“You owe me a wedding, Dante Carluccio.”
“And a wedding you’ll get, Delilah Carluccio-Russo.”
We came to an agreement that she could hyphenate her name, so long as my surname came first.
I wanted that, to call her Delilah Carluccio.
She’s mine. I know she’s dying to be a Russo, to finally have that tie to the family she never really knew, but I needed the world to know she was mine.
So the way Lilah always seems to do, she gave me that.
And the way her eyes get soft every time I say it, the way my chest tightens a bit, I would fight her all over again for that.
“We’re headed to Ocean View, actually. Thought you’d want to go.”
“Ocean View?” she says with a smile, her voice lifting a bit with excitement.
This was the kind of meeting I technically could have done over the phone or with a video call, but give me the option of spending the day out of Hudson City with my wife on my arm and having her look at me with those warm, excited eyes?
Yeah, it was going to have to be in person.
“Yes. Gotta check in on the site there. I thought you might want to go see your sister. Gotta meet my sister-in-law and all.” Her eyes go wide and her smile goes wider.
“Really?” Her voice has gone up a full octave with excitement and it’s even more confirmation that this was the right move.
“Well, the way you’re looking at me right now, even if I wasn’t planning that I am now,” I say, starting the car and moving toward the parkway.
THIRTY
-Dante-
“It . . . smells better than I would have thought here,” Lilah says, her high heels clicking on the cement floors of the Carluccio Disposal transfer station in Ocean View.
“You don’t want to know how much it costs to keep it that way,” I say, and she smiles.
“I’m nosy. I so totally want to know.” She looks around the empty space before leaning a bit into me. “So where are the bodies buried?”
I had made the mistake of taking a sip of my to-go coffee we grabbed at a Wawa on the way in before she spoke and sputter, spewing brown liquid to the floor. She slaps my back as I cough, her laugh floating around us.
“Jesus! Are you okay?” A few more coughs and my airway is cleared, but my heart still feels like it’s a beat behind.
“We try to keep the, uh, family business and our business separate, Lilah. Jesus.” I lower my voice, looking around and grateful there was no one nearby to witness my near death.
“I was joking, you know,” she says, eyes wide with my answer.
Ahh, I just showed my hand, I suppose.
“Me too.” Cover, Carluccio. Play it cool. Don’t scare off the pretty woman who didn’t grow up in this life.
“You so weren’t,” she says with a smile, as always taking shit so much better than I could ever imagine, and before I can answer, I see Sergio, the manager of the location, walking my way.
“Dante, my friend! I told you to send me a message when you were on your way!” His head moves to Lilah, and he looks her up and down. “Though, if I had a pretty lady driving with me, I’d be distracted too.”
