by Sam Mariano
He climbs on top of me and I smile up at him, thrusting my hips. “You want to fuck me, Vince?”
“You know I do,” he says, almost like it aggravates him. I get it. It aggravates me, too.
Since he’s more full of resentment than desire, as he unbuckles his belt and unzips his jeans, he tells me, “Don’t worry. You can pretend I’m him.”
I reach for his now-free cock, stroking his aroused length as I tell him, “Don’t worry. I will.”
This pisses him off, which is what I want. He pushes my arms above my head with one hand, yanking my panties down with the other. “You really piss me off, you know that?”
As he pushes his cock inside me, I groan and close my eyes. “I don’t care.”
He tries to make me care, but he can’t. He can’t reach me, and that pisses him off more than anything.
He can get inside me, but he can’t reach me.
Not like Mateo can.
---
As the sun streams in through the window, a bright, unavoidable sign that it’s morning, I brace myself for the fallout of last night. Not the empty wine bottle that I’m pretty sure we left in the middle of the floor. Not the unoffending stack of laundry I had been working on folding before I had too much wine and got lost (luckily just towels, so it won’t matter that they’re wrinkled to shit now).
I can smell food cooking. No one else lives here, so that means Vince is making breakfast.
Which kind of surprises me, because he usually only makes breakfast when we’re having a good day.
That’s the frustrating part. Last night obviously was not one, but there are good days. Before I learned what he tried to do to Mateo, we had a lot of good days.
Vince tries. I know he tries. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me, or the combination of us. I’m not completely sure what about us doesn’t work, but there’s clearly something. Our once-salvageable relationship is snowballing hard and fast into an unapologetically dysfunctional one.
Even now, somehow, I tell myself it could probably be saved. But it won’t be, because I’ve figured out what it will require of one us. One of us would have to step up and do the hard thing. The selfless thing.
The thing I would do for Mateo, but I won’t do for him.
I am a terrible person.
I don’t know why Vince doesn’t leave me. I know why I don’t leave him, but I’ll be damned if I know why he keeps wanting me.
I drag myself out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. I look like hell. The sex got really rough and my hair is a complete disaster this morning. Dried clumpy mascara shadows hang underneath my eyes. Washing my face isn’t going to suffice; I need a shower.
And maybe an exorcism.
I shower fast and put on a bathrobe instead of clothes. My mouth is so dry. My stomach is feeling shifty as hell, too. Every step I take, it feels like a vat of alcohol shifts from side to side in my gut. This is not going to be a fun morning.
Vince is at the breakfast bar with a plate of food. His phone is on the countertop and he’s scrolling through a text message. He glances up when I enter the room, and somehow he still manages to meet my gaze. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to look at each other this morning. We got mean last night. Months and months of pent up anger and resentment came pouring out of each of us.
“Good morning,” Vince says, almost gently.
Testing the waters, probably. He got meaner than I did, and I was pretty fucking mean.
“Good morning,” I murmur, averting my gaze and tugging my robe together a little more snugly. I turn my back to him, moving to the counter. I grab a plate from the cupboard and dish out the rest of the eggs. “Thank you for making breakfast,” I add.
Instead of you’re welcome, he says, “I’m sorry about last night.”
Thinking about rehashing any part of last night literally makes me shudder. “I know. Me too.”
“We were really awful to each other.”
“I remember.”
“I don’t want us to be awful to each other,” he states. “I made you cry.”
I wince. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, Mia. I love you. I hate this.”
I nod my agreement, but I don’t say it back. I do love Vince, but it’s not healthy anymore. It’s not what it started out as. I don’t even know if it’s real, or just a remnant of what I once felt. Maybe it’s obligation and I just call it love.
“We didn’t mean all those things we said to each other, right?” he asks.
Since my back is still to him, I allow a cynical little smile to play around my lips. Reaching into the silverware drawer for a fork, I lie. “Of course we didn’t.”
“I think something needs to change,” he tells me.
“Like what?” I ask. I’m not trying to be mean this time, just realistic. “What could possibly fix this, Vince?”
It seems like he’s been thinking about this, but he doesn’t look forward to saying it. “I think we should try to stay away from the mansion. From him. I think we should go back to strictly Sunday dinners. That worked well for us before.”
I shake my head, still feeling a little foggy from all the alcohol last night. Maybe that’s why I tell him, “That wouldn’t work, Vince.”
“It might,” he says.
“It won’t. I don’t feel like I felt then.”
He pauses, absorbing this. “For him or for me?”
“Both,” I say honestly. “I know I’m a terrible partner. I know that. I’m even sorry for it. But there’s nothing I can do.”
“Nothing you will do, you mean,” he corrects, aggravated.
“I don’t even know the difference anymore,” I state. “You want my honesty, Vince, I’ll give you honesty. But you won’t like it.”
“Why?” he asks. “Why can’t you just….” He trails off, unsure how to finish. “Why can’t you just focus on me? Why do you need him?”
I shake my head, wishing I knew how to explain. I wish there was some logical explanation, some way I could make Vince understand how Mateo makes me feel. “I can’t explain it,” I finally say.
“He was never good to you. He played you. Even now, he just toys with you. You’re a game to him, Mia. I actually love you. You just amuse him. You’re like a fucking video game that rides his dick.”
I laugh, shaking my head. He might not even be wrong. I wouldn’t describe it that way, but I know I’m mostly a game to Mateo. I’m not his partner. I’m not the person he chose. The person he made a baby with. I have no idea what I am to him. I know what I want to be, but they’re not the same thing.
“I wish you had my back the way you have his,” Vince states.
I can’t help scoffing. “I’ve had your back, Vince. I have. I tried. But you take it too far. You’re too intense.”
“I’m too intense? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re obsessed with Mateo, and I’m too intense?”
“He’s logical. He doesn’t get as angry as you do. He’s territorial, sure, but he’s not like you. You get mean. You get bitter. You feel more, react more. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it’s harder. You punish me. Mateo’s never punished me for my feelings. Every time I’ve been with him, he knows I’m fucking you, too. He’s never mean about it.”
“Because he doesn’t. Fucking. Care.” Vince states. “He loves Meg, not you. You’re his side dish. You’re the novelty, the place he goes when he’s bored. When he doesn’t want to be gentle with the woman he actually loves, he knows you’re waiting in the wings to be treated like his whore.”
“Okay,” I say, shaking my head. I’m not hungry anymore. He’s pissing me off. “Let’s go back to ignoring. Let’s go back to lying. I can’t talk to you about him.”
“I want him out of our lives,” Vince states, coming up behind me. I do feel him this time, because I feel his anger. It’s not like when I feel Mateo. It’s not power.
Turning to face him, because he needs to see my face, I reach out and caress h
He grasps my wrist in his hand, glaring at me. “He doesn’t love you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “You don’t either.”
This really pisses him off. “Fuck you, Mia.”
“This isn’t love, Vince,” I continue, shaking my head. “You have to know that. This is… this is poison. We’re poisoning each other.”
“What would you suggest we do instead?” he asks.
“Move on?” It makes my stomach hurt, saying it out loud. I don’t know what happens to me if we break up. I don’t know how I stay a part of Mateo’s life in that scenario, but from the rare interactions we’ve had alone, I think maybe he’d keep me around somehow. I hope he would. I’d miss him more than I’d miss Vince. I don’t know how I would even function in the normal world anymore, and it hasn’t even been a year. I don’t know how anyone moves on from this family. They pull you under, wash over you until you’re gasping for breath, trying to keep your head above the crushing weight of them. But you can’t. They swallow you whole. There’s no emerging. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
But I don’t want light. I want Mateo. I want his darkness. I want his goodness. I want every crevice of him.
But I have Vince.
Vince is still holding my wrist, and now he pushes me back against the counter, reminding me of when we first met. It’s hysterical that this is what reminds me of when he met me, but it is. It seems like a lifetime ago now, for both of us. We’ve both changed so much. Experienced so much. I was intrigued by him back then. Afraid, but intrigued. I saw sadness in him then, and I wanted to be his solace.
I don’t anymore.
I’m just here.
“I slept in his bed last night.”
Vince’s brown eyes widen, like he can’t believe I’d say that.
I can’t either. My heart races with the danger of it. Pushing Vince. It’s mean and it’s dangerous, because Vince isn’t methodical like Mateo; he’s a loose cannon.
“Curled up against him,” I add. “My head on his naked chest. His arm around me—”
For the first time since everything first happened with Mateo, I think Vince might hit me. He doesn’t. But he pushes me so hard against the counter, it hurts. He fists his hand in my hair, yanking my head back.
Then he pushes me to the floor.
I go down on my knees, and he takes his cock out. There’s not much room between his legs and the cupboards behind me, but he strokes himself, glaring down at me.
He fists his hand in my hair again, guiding my mouth to his cock, and tells me, “You’re mine, Mia. Not his. Don’t forget your fucking place.”
Chapter Eight
Meg
A couple of days pass and I don’t change my mind.
In fact, I warm right up to the idea of sharing Mateo with Mia.
I’m still not sure completely how it works, but he’s obviously into it, I think she’ll be into it, and I’m not about to be the odd man out.
So, we’re doing this.
Or, we’re going to try anyway. I’m not sure when. I’m not sure how. Mateo doesn’t seem to be in any kind of rush, but I assume that’s just because he wants to make sure I’m fully on board.
I call her up Wednesday and tell her I want to go shopping. She doesn’t blow me off this time, and our outing is reassuringly normal.
So I ask her if she wants to spend the night.
“Are we going to snuggle again?” she jokes.
“Maybe,” I shoot back, with a breezy smile.
I have said nothing about Mateo’s idea. My assumption is he wants to be the one to propose it, and I imagine it will go down much easier if he does, too.
When we get back home, Mia accompanies me to our bedroom so I can put my dresses away. She takes a tentative seat on the edge of the bed, her gaze wandering back up to where we all slept a few nights ago. I wonder if she’s reliving it in her mind. I wonder how many times she’s relived it since she left.
I sort of wish Mateo would’ve already talked to her about it, that way I could talk to her about it. There’s a lot to discuss, rules to establish.
“Do you like Francesca’s room?” I ask, stepping out of my walk-in and closing the door.
Mia nods, bringing her gaze back to me. “Oh, yeah. Her room’s great.”
“Her closet is even bigger than mine,” I remark.
“It’s incredible. It’s one of the first things I saw when I originally came to this house, actually. First Mateo’s study, then Francesca’s giant walk-in closet. I was completely blown away.”
I smile a little, imagining it. “I bet. What was your life like before? We’ve talked a little about your family, but not really before you came here.”
“My mom’s…” She contemplates for a moment, looking for the right word. “Lively? Youthful?”
“Irresponsible?” I offer.
Barely stifling a smile, she says, “Well, it’s not the word I would’ve used, but she did enjoy having a much older daughter to share the responsibilities. Which I get,” she adds, because she’s Mia. “She was a young, single mom so it’s not like she had a partner to help carry the burden. She had me instead. So mostly I would just watch my siblings. I helped out with them a lot until I met Mateo. Once I met him, he wanted me to live here, so he gave me a fake nanny job, paid my mom off, sent her half of my fake paycheck.” She rolls her eyes. “He paid her half of my fake paycheck all the way up until I started my first semester of college, and I haven’t even lived here since spring.”
“So, irresponsible and money-hungry? She sounds like June Cleaver.”
Mia shrugs, apparently as generous with others as she is Mateo. “She does her best, I think. It grated on me sometimes, but I got a lot of childrearing experience. Not that I’ll need it,” she adds, rolling her eyes.
“With Vince,” I say, ignoring the pang of guilt this gives me. Of course Mateo has to want to the 19-year-old who wants babies. Of course.
“Yeah,” she says softly, nodding. “Not as long as we’re together, anyway.”
“But, I mean, you’re still young. Trust me, I had a baby young, and that shit is hard. They’re adorable with their gummy little grins and their tiny little fingers and toes, but if the dad isn’t a team player and you don’t have a nanny? Hard. Draining. And you’re so young, Mia.”
“I wasn’t planning on having one tomorrow or anything,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’d like to finish college first. But if my choices are have one right now or not get one at all? I’d suck it up and have one now.”
“Well, do you really think you’ll end up with Vince, though?”
That one makes her wince. She also doesn’t immediately respond, grabbing a decorative pillow instead and toying with its tassel. “I don’t know.”
“Sorry,” I say, realizing that seemed emotionally detached. “I realize you guys have been together for a while, and you apparently went through a whole thing to get together in the first place. But, I mean, he’s your high school boyfriend. I’m pretty sure it’s more common not to end up with your high school boyfriend than it is to end up with him. Especially you two, with your… issues.”
It looks like she agrees with me, but instead of saying that, she tells me, “It’s complicated.”
“Is it complicated because you love him, or because your lives are so completely spliced together that you don’t know where you go after him?”
“Jeeze, Meg, I thought we’d talk about shoes, not this,” she says, lightly. When I only offer a faint smile, she tries to come up with an answer for me. “I love… parts of our life. Parts of my life. I really like college. I haven’t been going long, obviously, but I really enjoy going. I didn’t think I would get to go, because I didn’t think it would be financially feasible, and obviously Vince’s family is paying for it. I like our friendship—you and me,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “This is important to me. I sort of lost my best friend when I got together with Vince, because she was a civilian, for lack of better word. She thought it was nuts to get involved with him, and she judged me pretty hard—which I understand.” Frowning slightly, she says, “You just don’t get it from the outside. It seems so cut-and-dry; they’re the bad guys. It’s insanity. Stay away. But then you fall down the rabbit hole and there’s so much more to them than that, and it’s just….”
I nod, because I totally get it. “Yeah, I know.” Flashing her my engagement ring, I add, “Rabbit hole inhabitant, right here.”
The sight of my ring causes her to dim a bit, and I remember she doesn’t know what I know.
“Would you leave Vince, if you could? If you wouldn’t lose your place in the world?”
Looking a little unsure, she asks, “My place in the world?”
“Your place in the Morelli world,” I specify, holding her gaze. “Mateo and I touched on this after the wedding. Neither of us really thinks you and Vince are going to make it—no offense. What if Mateo kept paying your tuition and you moved back to the mansion?”
“Back to the mansion?” she questions, her big blue eyes about as wide as they can get. Then she looks about as torn as a person can. I wish she’d say why, but she can’t, because Mateo has to be out doing other things and not catching her up on the decisions we’ve made about her life. Damn the man.
“Yeah. Francesca’s wing’s available again, after all.”
Mia considers this for a very long time. Well, only a couple minutes, but it seems like an exceedingly long time. Finally she looks back at me and shakes her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. Mateo owns me when I live here.” Then she clears her throat and adds, “I don’t see myself leaving Vince in the immediate future anyway, so we probably don’t have to worry about it yet.”
I walk over and join her on the bed, reaching over to place my hand on hers. “I spent a lot of time in a relationship with someone I didn’t love. Like, not even as much as you love Vince, I think. When he died, I literally felt nothing. I never cried. I felt like a monster, but… I didn’t care. You’re obviously more of a feeler than I am, so I know you would feel that deeply. You’re more loving. More of a giver. But be careful you don’t give too much, because the men in our lives? They like to take. It doesn’t feel like you’re being replenished.”
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