He shakes his head at the truth of it. “Is that Sophia?” He throws me a look that implies her beauty is on his mind. “She looks incredible!”
I glance and catch the darkness of her stare before she turns away. Francis is about to raise his hand to call her name, but I grab it before it goes up and silence him in the process. A cloud descends on my heart, but I keep my voice the same as best I can. “She gets better with the years, Francis. But let’s leave her be. I don’t want to share you just yet. When did you get back?”
“Just last night! Only for a short visit. Ah, Antony!” Francis turns and hugs another from our neighborhood and I watch as they exchange idle conversation, catching up for a quick moment.
Sophia, Francis and I used to play together as children. Her younger brother Eduardo joined us when we let him. But the three of us, we are all the same age, though Francis now seemingly wears more years. A financial tycoon, he has been the prize of several wives. He works too hard and now his hair is almost entirely gray, where mine is salt and pepper. To add to all that, his weight bears forty pounds more than it should. But his demeanor always brightens any room and his presence is welcomed by all.
I believe it is this charm that has him three times married, and his ambition, three times divorced.
“Caio, Antony!” Francis turns to me, and we continue on through the crowded market, but he steals a glance Sophia’s way and I peek, too, curiosity getting the better of me. Her back is to us, her legs slightly visible thanks to the sun shining through her dress. It traces outlines on the long waves of her hair, too, and Francis and I almost run into a cart of zucchinis from distraction. He laughs. “No woman I know in London has the sex appeal of that woman. I’ll have to visit her. Is she still single?”
A sting of jealousy takes me by surprise, and I falter. “Sí.”
His round cheek pinches in with a solitary dimple. “Look at that face! Did something happen between you?”
Looking away to cover the truth, I scoff, “No! Of course not.”
His eyes narrow, but I stop to pick up an heirloom tomato, squeezing it and bringing it to my nose for inspection. From behind me, he asks, in English, “And what of your American girl?”
Handing the tomato to the young girl behind the fruit baskets, I’m reluctant to answer. “She is back home. America – not my home. For now.” To the girl, I say, “Cinque del tuo meglio. Grazie.” She smiles, her fresh face flawless around sweet brown eyes. Her little hands get to work selecting five tomatoes she thinks are superior.
Francis leans in toward me, switching back to Italian. “Are you telling me your American is gone, Sophia is single, and you are here with me? Are you insane? When are you going to wake up?”
I snort, looking to the sun, letting it blur my vision and squint my eyes. “You just asked about Sophia for yourself. Make up your mind.”
He hits me in the ribs and takes the wind out of me, just like he used to do when we were nine. I grunt and smack him and he laughs and jumps back, crying out, “I was asking to make you jealous. You never learn!”
“Learn what?” But he doesn’t answer as he walks off, almost waddling with his size. I frown and pay the girl. “Grazie.”
“Prego!” she says, a shy smile peeking up at me. To the right her mamma sits on a short wooden stool, watching with a proud eye. I nod to her and she to me, before I turn and follow my friend.
“Francis! Wait! How you can move so fast with those extra pounds, I’ll never know!”
He guffaws and calls over his shoulder, “My years of running from lawyers!”
A few feet before I catch up to him, my phone rings, vibrating in my pocket. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have heard the sound over to the afternoon market chatter. I step left to avoid a collision with an old woman wearing a shawl over her head to protect her from the sun.
Annie’s name and photo shine up at me, and I quickly slide to answer. “Bella.”
“Christiano, I’m so sorry I haven’t called earlier.” Her voice is quiet.
She’s speaking in English and for a moment I consider answering her in Italian, but decide against it. “You are calling now. How are you? What has happened with…”
She cuts me off, urgently whispering, “I’m fine. The bar is getting remodeled. We open on Sunday. We’ll be open during construction.”
I look at the dirt rifled with small patches of green weeds beneath my shoes. “That is good. I am glad to hear… No, I am glad to hear your voice. That is what I am glad for. I need to see you, Bella. I want to go there.”
She doesn’t answer at first, then, “Christiano, don’t. I need to tell you something. I’m staying here. For good.”
My blood slows as I wait for more. Francis walks to me, his eyes meeting mine. I shake my head to tell him this is important, not to interrupt. “What has happened that has made you so sure?” She doesn’t answer me. Scowling, I wait, with Francis standing close by. I can feel his support. “Annie! No more silences! I deserve more!”
She starts to cry, and instantly my feelings layer. I want to apologize, and I want to yell. The two are at war, and both are justified.
She chokes out on a sob, “I met someone.”
The market spins around me like a tornado. My fingers whiten around the phone and I pull it away from my ear, staring at it like I don’t understand what it is, or how it could bring so much pain. I bring it back to my ear to hear her say, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!”
“You met someone already who is important enough that you say this to me?”
I wait for her to speak, and little sobs are the only thing I hear. “I’m so sorry, Christiano. I should have told you sooner…”
“What do you mean? How long has this been going on? Bella! Answer me!”
“It’s complicated. I don’t have time to talk right now.”
“I will not accept this.” Hanging up the phone without hearing another word, I look around a collapsed world. Everything looks out of place, twisted by my disorientation. My heart feels like it might explode with pain.
Francis grabs my shoulder, puts his arm around it, and makes my feet walk by guiding me out of the market like this. He lets me go after we’ve cleared away from the crowd. In English he asks, “Why don’t we get blind stinking drunk?”
I say nothing. He pats my back, and we walk silently side by side to his car parked nearby. We spend the afternoon drinking half of the town dry, until Benito, the owner of the bar that employed my Annie for over three years, offers to drive us home. We stumble into his van. As Francis snores between us in the bench seat, I ask Benito, “You knew her well. What should I do?”
He thinks about it and turns the wheel. “That girl loves you. She talked about you all the time. Every night she worked, I had to ask her to shut up about you.”
“You are lying.”
He laughs. “I may be stretching. It was every other night. But Christiano, why are you asking me?” He slows down in front of my gated driveway. Shifting in his chair, he looks at sleeping Francis and then to me. “You want her? Go get her!”
Francis wakes up and looks around, wiping away a bit of drool. “We’re here already?”
“We used a time machine,” Benito dryly says. Francis rolls his eyes and body out of the van, following me to the keypad. Benito rolls down his window and yells, “He can’t mean much to her. She’s confused. You know Annie; she’s just a baby. Go get her!”
I wave him away, slowly pressing in the code. I can only focus on one thing at once. As I straighten my spine to argue, I look to see the taillights turning way down the road.
Francis passes out in one of my guest rooms, and I stumble to my own bed.
I met someone.
I’m sorry.
Before the alcohol takes away my consciousness, I make a decision. If I remember it by morning, that’s another story.
17
Brendan
Waking Up To Hear Someone You Just Fucked, Crying In Another
Room, Is Never Good.
________
Wait, is she talking to someone? She just said something… I listen more, but quiet weeping is all that’s coming from her living room now. What the fuck is going on?
Carefully rising up out of her bed, I slip on my jeans and walk out to find her in her purple, silk robe, lying in the fetal position on the couch, phone clutched in her hand, crying.
“Hey.”
She sits up, quickly wiping her eyes. “Oh! Hi! Did I wake you?”
I look at her phone; see that it’s off. “It’s six in the morning. Were you talking to your parents? Everything okay?”
Annie wipes her red nose and hesitates. “No…. I mean, yes! Everything’s okay with my family. It wasn’t my parents. I was talking to my ex.”
An icy feeling makes me shift my weight. “I see.” I turn and start for the bedroom to get my things, but stop myself, thinking, this can’t be what I think it is. Calm the fuck down, Brendan. Ask her what’s up. I turn around, licking my lips to get ready for putting myself out there. She looks just as lost as I feel. “I’m just going to ask – what are you doing calling your ex when I’m sleeping in your bed? Your timing couldn’t be worse.”
She bursts into a fresh set of tears, covering her face with her hands and sobbing, the phone clutched in one small hand, smooshing her nose. I’m completely confused and my hand is up in the air like it has a question to ask. I don’t want to yell at her, because I don’t know what to yell. I need coffee for something like this. It’s six o’clock in the fucking morning on a Saturday.
Finally, she says through her fingers, “I told you I had to tell him about you. I told him. I told him it’s over and I really hurt him. I never wanted to hurt him.”
I blink a few times, wondering what to say to that. “You’re crying because you still want to be with him?”
Her hands fly down and she shakes her head. “No! I’m crying because I hurt someone I care about, Brendan. This is hard!”
“Okay. Okay, look. I wish I could say I understand, but I don’t. But I haven’t broken it off with someone I loved before. I don’t think I’ve ever done that, actually. So I’m having a hard time understanding this. Are you sure you don’t want to be with this guy?”
Exasperated, she stands up. “No! I don’t want to! I want to be with you!” Raking her hands through her hair, her face all wet and flushed, she paces back and forth. Her tear-filled blue eyes rise up and lock on me, the rawness vibrant on her face. “Let me explain, and this is just so you understand, since you’ve never been here. Okay?” She waits for me to nod.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
She breathes in deeply. “He was there for me when no one else was. When I had no friends, NONE, that man saw something in me and took me into his home and became my best friend. I grew up in his care.”
A tidal wave of jealousy whips through me, and my eyes steel. But I keep my trap shut.
She waits, seeing if I can handle this. I nod again and she continues, “He never treated me badly. I have the bar now, because he wouldn’t accept my money. I worked at a bar his friend owned – a job he got for me – and that’s where I learned everything I know.” She looks at her phone like he’s in it. “But I had to tell him about you because you told Rebecca goodbye, and you told me you don’t want me touching anyone. Not that I was going to touch him! Don’t worry! But I had to tell him, so he didn’t hope.” Her hands fly to her face as fresh tears fall. “Do you know how awful it feels to kill someone’s hope?”
I go to her, taking her into my arms. She pushes off me slightly so as not to press against my ribs, lays her head on my chest, her shoulders shaking. “Look, Annie, I haven’t been where you are. But what you just said, there isn’t a human being worth his weight who wouldn’t be moved by that. Your ex… Christiano, isn’t it?” She nods. “Well, he’s a lucky guy to have someone care as much as you do. I hope you come to care for me that much.”
She looks up at me, the redness making the blue shockingly brighter in her eyes. “That’s a really sweet thing to say.”
I search her for the truth. “You really don’t want to be with him?”
She laughs at my stubbornness, shaking her head. “I want to be with you, Brendan. Isn’t it obvious?”
“Yeah. I’m just working through some things.” I kiss her nose. “I’m not normally the boyfriend type. But I want to be yours.” A tear falls down her cheek as she looks at me. I catch it with my finger. “This one’s mine. He can have the others.” She smiles, making a small sound. “Let’s go back to bed, Freckles. Mr. Donovan doesn’t have to be let in until nine.”
I put my arm around her and she trudges beside me back to the bedroom. As we pass a small table under a framed poster of Tuscany, I glance at it as she lays down her phone. “That’s pretty. Ever been there?”
“Um… yeah. You?”
“Not yet.” I hold open the bedroom door for her and watch her slip her robe off, the beautiful curve of her back coming into view. “Why’d you have to call him so early on a Saturday? Did you wake up thinking about it or something?”
“He texted while we were sleeping. He has weird hours, so I had to catch him when I could. Can we stop talking about it? I just want to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up with all this.” She looks at me as she climbs in the bed, but looks away as I pull my jeans off, which is odd. I’m pushing my luck with these questions, aren’t I?
“Yeah, sure. We don’t have to talk about it. I’m glad you told him.”
She lays her head on the pillow, closing her eyes. After a couple seconds, she whispers, “Sometimes it’s really hard to be honest.”
Lifting up the blanket, I climb in. “Yeah, but the other option sucks.”
She nods, and one more tear sneaks out and falls to her pillowcase. I pretend like I didn’t see it.
18
Annie
When: Sunday Morning
Where: Krav Maga Class
Me: Itching to tell my trainer he saved two lives.
________
“Alright, Level 1. Everyone in a line.”
Hurriedly dropping my keys and phone along the back wall, I jog across the padded floor to the line. Side by side, my Krav Maga classmates and I face the mirror, just like any you’d see in a gym classroom. We’re all wearing clothing that bears the Krav Maga insignia. I fought this at first, because it felt like conformity, but now I understand it’s for unity. We’re all in this together. We’re going to sweat our asses off together. We’re going to kick each other’s asses together. And it’s so much fun I can hardly stand it.
Our trainer A.J. is one of the very best. I grin, eager to tell him what happened, as he walks the line of students. “Anyone have any injuries?” One guys raises his hand and points to his knee, so A.J. says, “Okay, go easy on it. Modify what you need to.” The guy nods, and A.J. tells us to turn and face the photo of Imi Lichtenfeld. We do this out of respect since he created the art. Then we face A.J. We bow to him and he to us, everyone saying in unison, “Kida!”
“Alright you guys, start jogging back and forth. When I say sprint, run as fast as you can. Go!”
We jog, sprint, bear-crawl, do jumping jacks, full sit-ups, push-ups (which I always do on my knees because I’m weak like that), then all of it AGAIN. They call it a warm-up but I call it hell. Every time, I’m completely drenched with sweat, thankful for deodorant, and proud of myself because it seems to get easier with each class. My endorphins fly around like a sparkler.
A.J. calls out when warm-up is over, “Everyone find a space and face the mirror. If you’re right-handed, your right foot is going to be a little behind you, on the ball of your foot, all ten toes facing the mirror. This is your fighting stance. Your hands ---” he holds his up in front of him like he’s a werewolf, “---are up six inches in front of your face, like this.”
Level 1. That means we always go through the basics. New people join and fall out each class, so every class starts the same.
I like the ritual of it, and being back here after everything I’ve been through is better than an anti-depressant pill. People quit smoking doing Krav. They lose weight. They build confidence. And apparently they shoot gunman with their own guns, too.
Def Leppard’s, Pour Some Sugar on Me comes on. I partner up with another girl my size, and when I punch the tombstone pad, she’s knocked back again and again, grinning at me, “Good! That’s really good!” I start laughing and she nods, “Keep going! You got it!” So I focus, relax my body so ‘they’ never see the punch coming, and then BAM, I lunge forth and punch the pad hard. My partner catches herself from falling. “Again!” she cheers. I do a combo-punch and she tilts the pad, which means she wants me to do a hammer-fist, so I slam the side of my fist down like I’m hammering a nail, and every fiber of my being jumps to attention, a smile stuck on my face. We switch places and I cheer her on, just like she did, me.
A.J. finally calls out, “Time! That looked pretty good. Now remember, when you’re out there, there’s no pad held up for you, and they’re not going to just stand and let you hit them. You’re going to do whatever it takes. That’s why we train you one attack at a time so it becomes second nature. That way when someone confronts you – and we hope they never do – you’ll have a lot of weapons at your disposal. I saw some of you doing hammer-fist, combos, and elbows. That’s great. So what we’re going to do now, is defense. You’re going to learn how to get out of chokeholds.”
All of us take a knee as A.J. grabs one of the more advanced students to demonstrate on. “Okay, so when you’re being choked, you do NOT want to pull away. You want to use their power against them, so instead you go toward them. If they’re pulling, they’re expecting you to pull back. But if you go toward them like this, it throws them off balance.”
After he goes over the chokeholds from the front, sides and back, we spend the rest of class partnered up, practicing. One of us has our eyes closed. The other walks around us, goes to choke us. We get out of it. Repeat.
Hearts Series Bundle: Books 1-6 Page 38