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“Emi.” Cindy knocks on my door before entering. “I just need to go to drugstore. Do you need anything?” she asks me, and I am about to decline when a new thought enters my head.
“You know what, I will come with you. I need to go for a walk and get some fresh air,” I say, grabbing my handbag.
“Great, I will just put the phone on the voicemail,” she says and I go out to tackle my babysitter.
“Hi. I need to go out,” I say to the man standing near my door. “I need to run some errands.”
“Fine. We have a car downstairs.” I shake my head.
“No, Cindy and I are walking. You can stay here. We are just going around the corner to the drugstore.” I fully expect him to do as I ask as I head to grab the elevator.
“What’s your name?” I ask him to fill in the void as I wait for Cindy.
“Romero,” he says, pulling out his phone.
“Are you reporting my movements to Nico?” I ask, my eyebrow rising in challenge.
“Yes. It is my job. It is at his request to know where you are at all times.”
“Fine. Tell him I’m with Cindy running errands,” I say without any further commentary, knowing I need to pick my battles and this is one I am not going to win.
The three of us get into the lift comically, Cindy giving me a side-eye and Romero ignoring us completely. I am sure when he joined the mob, babysitting someone like me was not on his list of priorities, but Nico obviously has other plans.
“Tell me again what countries you are visiting,” I ask Cindy, keen to get some of her excitement into my weary bones.
“Well, we fly to London and are staying for a week. I want to visit Buckingham Palace and see Big Ben, then we will take the train to Paris!” I smile at the look on her face.
“Tell me about France. What are your plans there?” I ask, my ears now clearly attuned to every word coming from her mouth.
“A few nights in Paris, to see the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and go to the Moulin Rouge, and then we are heading South on the train to the Mediterranean. There is this large chateau right on the water called Dragonfly, which apparently has views of the water that are amazing. It’s the best place to watch the sunset, but it gets booked months in advance, so we don’t have access yet. We are hoping to go for lunch when we are there.” My heart skips.
“Dragonfly? I haven’t heard of them before. Tell me about them?” We step out of the building and into the hustle and bustle of the city pedestrians. My eyes are looking everywhere, my ears firmly hanging on every word Cindy says.
“Oh, well, I am not really into wine myself, but George loves red and supposedly, they have one of the best. We just wanted to check them out. We didn’t realize how beautiful their chateau was because they never advertise and don’t have a website. But we saw a photo of it that one of our friends took last year on their travels and they highly recommended it. It has a casino and everything!” I feel like I am going to faint.
This is obviously the winery my father did business with. Why are all these places now suddenly being pushed at me, when over a month ago, I had heard of none of them.
“Sounds lovely,” I say to Cindy with a smile.
“Are you all right, Emi?” Cindy asks me, looking concerned. “You look a little pale.” She grabs me by the elbow and pulls me with her into the drugstore.
“Fine, just tired.” I wave my hand around nonchalantly as we go inside.
Romero stays outside the store, not willing to look over the makeup and female products we are here to pursue. Remembering I need to grab some tampons, I leave Cindy to look over her sunscreen options and make my way to the feminine hygiene section. As I stand there, I do a rough calculation in my head of when my period is due, and my fingernails dig into my palm when I realize it was weeks ago. With everything that has been happening, I hadn’t even thought about it. My daily interactions with the mob and Nico have had me so preoccupied, my monthly is not something I’ve given any attention to.
I have never been late, and while I can attribute it to the hectic pace my life has undertaken this month, a deep brick of realization is sitting in my stomach as I hear Nico’s words in my head.
We will be more careful next time. It was only one time… we will be okay.
My eyes flick to the pregnancy tests and, along with a box of tampons, I grab the early test kit. The one that can test for ultra-early results, and I swallow the bile that is rising in my throat.
I can’t be. It would be literally a one in a million chance. The one time in my entire life that I have had sex without some form of protection. I am now cursing myself for going off the pill six months ago, something I chose to do at the time because I wasn’t sexually active and I wanted to give my body a break.
Nico coming into my life was unexpected and my desire for him even more so.
Yet here I stand, at the cashier, with both a box of tampons and a pregnancy test, silently praying she puts them in a brown paper bag and quickly before Cindy or Romero notice anything.
“Did you get everything you need?” Cindy asks, just as I grab the paper bag from the cashier.
