by Gabby Grace
“Ready?” I ask.
He nods.
I ring the doorbell. I can hear excited voices inside, and as soon as the door swings open, I shriek in greeting, “Mama!” I hug her for maybe twenty seconds before she releases me and spots Vito.
“Who’s this?” She looks him up and down with curiosity, almost like she’s buying a puppy and wants to check out everything about it first.
“Mom, this is Vito. We’re… together.”
“Hello, ma’am.” His nervousness is obvious.
“Ridiculous! Call me Juanita.” She steps right up to him and hugs him warmly, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and neck. He accepts her affection with a surprised look on his face, and then pats her back a few times, clearly uncomfortable with being hugged like that by anyone but me. Finally, my mom releases him and steps back. “Please, come in,” she motions.
We both step inside the front door, and the fragrant smell of homemade aborrajado, queso blanco, and empanadas fills the air. It’s paradise in here: the familiar smells, the native music, my uncles and cousins with their warm friendly faces. All of it.
“Everybody, this is Vito.” I extend my arm out in his direction like one of those models on The Price is Right.
The handshakes, hugs, pats on the back, and genuine family love that is showered his way is nothing short of amazing. My family is made up of special people and we all know how to make others feel welcome.
The living room is filled with extra chairs pulled in from the dining room and other parts of the house, and amazingly we all fit. Before I know it, we’re falling into deep conversation and I’m answering inquiries about Vito. I feel like a Hollywood starlet being mobbed by paparazzi.
“So, how did you meet?” My uncle Hector asks, his eyes expectant.
“On a plane a few weeks back. Vito was headed down here on business, and I was headed back from a business meeting in New York.”
I tell the story about how Vito was able to finagle a seat next to me, keeping my version of it PG, of course.
“So what type of business are you in?” My mom is digging.
Oh shit. I knew this question would come up tonight, and although I’ve grown to accept it, or maybe just tolerate it, I know my family, as warm and accepting people as they are, wouldn’t feel the same about his career choice as I do.
“I’m in security. I act as bodyguard for important people.”
“Like who… actors?” My cousin Carlito, who’s interested in anything movie-related, asks an innocently, eyes wide.
“I can’t really say. For the protection of my clients, they need to remain anonymous.” Wow, I was impressed. They bought it. Not that I want to deceive my family, but there’s no way I can ever tell them the truth.
They like Vito, I can tell. My family will grill you harder than the toughest job interview, but if you land the job – in this case as my boyfriend – you’re forever in their minds and hearts as part of the family.
Vito is able to talk football like no one I’ve met, and this pleases my cousin Manuel to no end. I’ve always found it amazing how guys can connect so easily via sports, and walk away from a conversation like best friends even though all they talked about was sports and for ten minutes.
“Dinnnnneerrrr.” That voice of my mom’s calling us to eat brings back the sweetest childhood memories of so many wonderful dinners shared with my extended family.
We all filter out of the living room, through the dining room －which can’t possibly fit all of us － and out through the sliding glass doors to the cobble-brick veranda. The largest table you can imagine – it can seat twelve to fourteen people comfortably and was custom-built for this veranda by my uncle Nelson – dominates the area and is filled with dishes, plates, and bowls filled with the most amazing Colombian foods you can imagine.
As is custom, everyone sits wherever they want. Vito pulls out my chair, pushes it in once I’m seated, and then sits to my left.
The stories and good cheer that pass around this table is what I’ve been missing in this world. I was so determined to make a successful career that I forgot what is nearest and dearest to my heart. Mi familia.
Being here makes me question everything I’ve been focusing my time on over the last few years. Motivated to work relentlessly long hours and achieve they type of success no one else in my family really has, I unknowingly created a new identity of who I thought I needed to be. But along the way, I forgot who I was.
Vito is laughing it up with my family, telling stories of his own, and this is what I want my life to be about. A special someone in my life who cares about me deeply, mixed with large doses of my family, is what I want. It’s the life I’m meant to live, not some idealistic vision I’ve conjured up of what a successful life should be.
Before I know it, the night is winding down, coffee is being served, and some of my relatives are beginning to filter out, faced with long drives home.
After helping clean up, I decide I need some alone time with Vito. “Mama, Vito and I are going for a walk on the beach.”
Moving from the sink, a large pile of dishes and bowls stacked in the drying rack, she dries her hands on a burgundy-patterned towel. “You two have fun.” I swear I see a twinkle in my mother’s eye. It’s happiness. Her happiness in seeing me with a man who is growing on me like a vine to a trellis.
We exit the veranda through a break in the stone wall, and follow the sandy path down to the beach, hand in hand. My hand feels good in his. It feels right.
The more than half-moon is revealing itself above the eastern horizon, another day closer to being a full moon, whole and bright. I feel more hopeful now than I’ve felt in a long time, maybe ever.
These last few weeks have been incredibly hard – I’ve processed every emotion, good and bad.
I never understood what Vito did until that day. Initially, I didn’t know what to think when I learned he’d been involved with the destructive fire at the warehouse, and then when the guns came out, I really understood how far people were willing to take things in the name of what they believe in.
Petrone believed he wanted me. He was willing to do anything to make that happen, too. I could feel it escalating out of control long before Lucenzo stepped in. There was no one in that room who was going to help me, except for Teague. He tried, but he wasn’t strong enough.
Petrone killed Lucenzo to prove how far he was willing to go. If he didn’t pull the trigger that killed Lucenzo, he certainly ordered it. Either way, his hand held the smoking gun. Vito never gave me the full story, but he told me about Petrone, revealing some of his shady past and sordid history with women that was filled with violence and lustful hatred, and didn’t end well for them. I’m assuming that meant they were killed. I shudder to think that could have been my fate.
That gave me the perspective to see that what Lucenzo, Frankie, and Vito did that day was necessary. I’ll stop just short of saying that Nero Petrone deserved to die. I won’t pretend to condone it, but I do understand it.
Vito killed Nero Petrone because he felt he had to. In part, he did it to protect me and other women from this predator. He also did it to protect unnamed people who we will never know, whose lives he just helped save by keeping the heroin out of their neighborhoods. The violence he perpetrated were for his reasons, and from what I could see, they were honorable ones.
And in understanding this, I understand Vito. I hope with all my heart he decides to leave this life behind. I see more for us, and it can’t exist if he keeps up this lifestyle. That needs to be his decision, though. He must come to this realization on his own, that he wants more for himself. That he wants more for us.
This perfect night can’t come to an end. I won’t let it. I want it to go on and on. It was filled with love for my family, their love for me, and their acceptance of Vito into our beautiful little fold. I will never again forget what my family means to me, and it’s made me rethink not only how I’l
l live my life, but also where to live it. I want to be close to my mama.
As we walk down the beach, neither of us saying a word and lost in our thoughts, I think about the type of future I want. A family. Deep love for my partner. And happiness. These visions used to be filled with blurry faces because I couldn’t picture who might be there sharing it with me, but now it has come into sharper focus. I don’t know if it’s meant to be, or just a pipe dream, but now I see a face. I see Vito.
“So, you said you wanted to go on a proper date and be romanced?”
I’m shaken from my thoughts by his deep voice. “Yes, I remember saying that. It was on the phone, on that day.” Since the day Lucenzo was killed, I’ve always referred to it as that day.
“We also talked about long walks on the beach, and candlelight.”
“I remember.”
“Well, here you are, Bella.” He motions out in front of him with his free hand.
A few yards away is a large green and blue soft flannel blanket. A wicker basket is lying beside it in the sand unattended.
My hand pops up to my mouth, and I look excitedly back and forth from the blanket to Vito. “You mean… this is for us?”
“No. It’s for you.”
I hugged him then, resting my head against his chest, and then arched my neck back to look up to find his eyes again. “But how did you do this?”
“I may have snuck out from the dinner table when your cousin Carlito was telling us about his favorite movies.”
“Vito… I… I don’t know what to say.”
He puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me to the blanket. We both fall to our knees, sit and get comfortable, and then snuggle up against one another, looking out over the water, the growing glow of moonlight illuminating the small, lapping waves.
“Do you want a drink?”
“I’d love one.” Vito digs in the basket for some red wine, an opener, and two glasses. He opens the wine, pours us each a half glass, and then raises his up to offer a toast.
“To us. Let us be strong in tough times, and fuck like animals at all times.”
We both crack up laughing as we clink our glasses together. He takes a sip, and then looks at his glass for a moment as if studying it, and then slugs back the rest. The wine is delicious with a hint of cedar flavor, a Merlot, I think.
“Vito?”
He looks at me seriously. “Yeah?”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Tell me about your childhood.”
He inhales a deep breath and lets out an even longer sigh. “Well, I was raised in a good home. My parents were good people, but never around. You know… that part wasn’t perfect. Workaholics. When I was thirteen, I started lifting weights and started to outgrow the other kids. Then this guy, a football coach, saw me and talked me into trying out. I did. It turns out I had a natural talent for tackling people, so he put me on defense. I got really good.”
“So football was a big part of your life?”
“Yeah… it was. In high school, I started getting scouted and everything was going really well. I was offered a partial scholarship to play football at LIU Post. That’s Long Island University Post. A good Division II school.”
“Did you take it?”
“Yeah, but then I had to give it up.”
“Why?”
He shifts uncomfortably on the blanket. He moves to rest his left elbow down on the blanket and faces his body to me, but he’s still looking off into the distance out over the waves. “I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about this.”
“Please, Vito. I want to know the real you.”
He looks at me long and hard for a few seconds, as if considering what to say. “Just before I graduated high school, I went to a party with some friends. My buddy Garrett drove. Long story short, he got shit-faced, and when we went to leave with a couple of girls in tow, he asked me if I could drive. I was half in the bag, too, but a better option than him. There was an accident. One of the girls was hurt pretty bad, but she survived and recovered.”
“Oh my God, Vito.” I put my arm around his shoulder, extending it up to stroke his hair. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to pull up bad stuff… I…”
“I want to. I need to get it out.” He takes a deep breath. “So, I was charged with a DWI, sentenced to thirty days in jail, lost my football scholarship, and my dad was so pissed that I tarnished the family name that he disowned me. My mom tried to help me and stayed in touch, but he wouldn’t let her. I was barely eighteen with no prospects and on my own.”
“What happened next?”
“I had one option that I could see at the time. I’d met a guy in jail who had connections making good money. I never asked why, but I had an idea that it was illegal stuff. He took one look at me, my physical size, my strength, and he offered me some work.”
“That’s how you got involved with the family?”
“Exactly. That was twelve years ago and this has become my life. It’s all I know.”
“Are you okay?”
"Yeah. I’m good.” He seemed a little troubled from opening up to me, but since we seem to be heading deeper into this conversation, I gather the courage to reach a little farther.
“Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
He sighs long and hard, and once he's expelled all of his breath, he seems to make a decision. He turns then to speak to me.
“When my dad disowned me, my little brother strayed from the straight and narrow path. I had always been there for him growing up, but my father wouldn’t allow me to have anything to do with him anymore." Vito pauses, rubbing his chin for a moment, a far off look in his eyes. "Carlo was always a follower. He fell in with the wrong crowd, got heavy into drugs, heroin mostly. He overdosed. He was only sixteen."
“Oh my God, Vito. I’m so sorry.” I gasp, resting my hand on his shoulder and massaging it a bit.
“It doesn’t matter now. I’m mostly past it. It gave me purpose in life even if I’m working on the opposite side of the law.”
I can sense he’s done talking, and I don’t think he will give me much more. That was his much.
“Thanks for sharing that with me.”
“Sure.”
I turn to face him, too, in a mirror image of how he’s posed. “Is there anything you want to know about me?” I didn’t think he would ask himself, and I wanted Vito to know I was willing to share, too.
“What happened to your dad?”
“He died a few years ago. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry, Bella.” His arm went to my shoulder and he massaged it a bit. “Do you miss him?”
“Yes. I wish you could have seen him with my mom… they were so much in love.”
“You want what they had?”
“Yes. Tonight reminded me of that.” I smile as a single tear streams down my face. I wipe it away with the back of my hand. “How about you?”
Vito is silent for a moment, searching his thoughts to be sure of his answer.
“Yeah… I want that, Bella.”
Just like that, a whole world of possibilities opened up for us. We were on the same page, and that’s a good place to start.
“Enough of this serious talk. After all, you went through all this trouble, and I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.” I shuffle my body over to him and swing my right leg over his thighs until I’m straddling him. I kiss him lightly on the lips, and then pull back so I can see his face.
Leaning back on his arms, his legs extended out and crossed, sitting up slightly, he lifts one arm and places his hand on my cheek. He caresses it gently for a bit before bringing his mouth to mine, tender and slow at first, and then with increased vigor.
His arm drapes around my waist so he can pull me off of him and shift me to his right side, settling me down into the blanket. His st
rong hands travel up my thigh, and then higher to my lace panties, already growing wet with his every touch.
His hands move slowly down my legs with my panties, drawing them down past my curvy thighs to my calves, and then flinging them off my feet. I kick my sandals off as I surrender to the sensation of his hands moving slowly down my legs, as Vito settles back down into me, his fingers finding my moistened clit, slickened with my flowing juices.
He buries one finger, then two, right up to his knuckles, a vibrant shock wave traveling through my core as his fingers walk up inside my core, zeroing in on my g-spot, while his thumb massages me on the outside.
Instinctively I rise up to meet him, grasping at the blanket and not seeming to know what to do with the handfuls of it in my hands. The smell of the ocean air, salty and fresh, and the sound of the water, slowly moving in on the shore and then receding, matches the rhythm and movement of his fingers deep inside me.
His fingers leave me and panic races over me, not wanting it to end, and then I feel his hot, slick tongue meet my folds, and welcome this shift in the agenda. Vito is masterful, skilled, and eager to taste me, his tongue washing over me, my back arching, my hands around his head, stroking his hair and pulling him into me.
I can’t take much more, but yet I want it to go on forever, I don’t want this to end. I want him inside me, but know he’ll want to pleasure me first, taking care of my needs before he fills me up completely.
Sucking and licking his way over my pussy and across my inner thighs, switching off to a finger or two at other times, leaves me guessing what’s coming next, but I’m fully appreciating everything he is doing to me.
Then he stops. I open my eyes, shifting from my sense of feel to sight, and I’m glad I do. He’s lifting his shirt over his head with both hands crossed in front of him, the dim light of the night sky illuminating the grooves in his muscles. I’m staring at perfection, and he’s all mine for the taking. I come up to my knees, meeting him on his, and I impatiently unstrap his belt and unbutton his jeans. He pulls his pants down the rest of the way and kicks them over to the side, along with his shoes.