"Nonna, can I talk to you privately for a moment?" he asked, panic lacing his voice. I understood, Rosalina was wound up about something, I'd never seen her so animated. I was really thrown for a loop though when she lifted her arm back and slapped Dino as hard as she could across the face. Everyone at the table froze. Dino didn't move, just sat at the table with the mark of his Nonna's hand turning red and raised across his cheek.
Then the room exploded into chaos as Rosalina Affini burst into tears.
15
Harlow
Holy shit, Dino's grandma just bitched slapped him upside the head!
One minute she'd been crooning about how pretty I was and the next she launched a vicious assault on her grandson because he hadn’t moved his ass fast enough. Dino said nothing, just sat in the chair, face white and bloodless. Jeanette sat next to him, her face a mask of horror—but not surprised. Like she knew something would happen. I don't know what was going on, but I had not been prepared for the slap heard across town.
I also wasn't prepared for the tears.
Rosalina had gone from hovering over me and stroking my face to burying her head in her hands and sobbing so hard her frail shoulders shook with spasms. Concerned for her, I placed my arm on her shoulder and patted her back awkwardly, not knowing what else to do. The wailing only increased in volume until she sprang up out of her chair again. Dino must have thought she was going to take another swing because he hurriedly pushed his chair backward and leaped out of it.
A stream of Italian words spewed out of Rosalina's mouth. So fast I wouldn't have been able to understand even if I knew the language—which I didn't. Dino did though. At least enough that he caught the gist of what she was saying, and it wasn't good. He stood there, stone-faced and silent, accepting her rage until she quieted down. When she spoke again, it was in English.
"Did you think your Nonna wouldn't see? That I could look on the face of this girl and not know my own grandchild? That I couldn't see your father’s face in hers. How could I not see?"
Wait, what? No, nonononono. I didn't hear what I just heard. Nope. Nothing was making sense.
"Too many secrets you keep, Dino. Secrets for your job and your life, I know. But secrets from your family—no. Not this."
"Nonna, it's not like that. I was going to tell you. I just needed a little time." Dino had both hands out, warding off his Nonna, who looked like she was going to take another swing at him any second. Vanessa and her mother stood next to the table, arms folded over their chests. Not interfering but looking concerned nonetheless. The most alarming thing I think, for me at least, was that no one looked surprised by her behavior besides Dino—who looked like he had just seen a ghost.
And me. Who had just been called Rosalina Affini's granddaughter.
I didn't have a grandmother. My mother's parents were gone—long gone before I was born and my father was gone as well. I didn't have any living family at all. That was the truth I lived my whole life.
"I think there's been a mistake," I whispered, my voice barely audible as I tried to get the words out around the lump in my throat. Jesse gasped next to me as if he'd just had a realization and pulled me close to him in a semi-awkward side hug.
"Oh my God, that's the weird thing that's been bugging me every time I see you, Dino," he said, a certain measure of awe in his voice.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh no, Harlow, oh Babe it makes so much sense now," Jesse said, looking wide-eyed around the table at frozen people in the room. Well, frozen except for the employees who moved around the table, placing bowls of food in intervals, completely oblivious to the chaos around them. Were the Affini's always this passionate when they argued?
Dino cleared his throat and even Rosalina quieted down a bit, content to clutch my arm and pat my hand, muttering to herself about her "idiot grandson."
"It's not a mistake, Harlow, although I would not have chosen this particular evening to break the news to you. We can be...a lot to take in." Dino slid a scathing side eye in Jeanette's general direction and she blanched. "If I had to guess, I would say someone spilled the beans a little early."
"Oh, come on, Dino, I had to," Jeanette burst out angrily. “While you were busy trying to get the balls to talk to Nonna about it, Jesse could have brought her here for dinner for God's sake. Look at her. There's no way she wouldn't have known, even without any of the rest of us in the room. You think it would have been better to let that happen? When there were customers here?" Vanessa and her mother nodded their heads in agreement. Madeline was calm and collected, but Vanessa had a glassy sheen to her eyes like water was ready to leak out at any second.
"I still don't understand what's happening right now," I said more firmly, wanted them to pay attention to me if they were going to talk about me like I wasn't even there. "How can you be so sure we are related? I don't even know my dad. I can't remember his face or even his name. My mom—"
"Your mom was Asia Elizabeth Jones. We know. And your father was Anthony Affini. Womanizer, and deadbeat dad. Your mom probably never told you any of this because he was a right piece of shit and you were better off not knowing," Dino spit the words over his shoulder like a curse.
"You'll not speak of your father in that manner," Rosalina warned.
"No disrespect to you, Nonna," Vanessa interjected, her dark curly hair spilling down her back and her black eyes flashing. "Anthony Affini was your son, God rest his soul, but you know as well as we do that he was a no-good excuse of a father and partner. You loved him as your son, we owe him no such tender feelings." She and her mother nodded in tandem, twin faces with only lines of time separating them from being carbon copies of each other.
"After a certain incident that literally just happened a few months ago, I started looking into Dad to see if it was possible there were any other of us kids floating around. That's when I found your name, and also when I found out Anthony Affini had died in a car accident." At the mention of her son’s death, Rosalina dipped her head and did the sign of the cross. Vanessa rolled her eyes and sighed. Apparently, she had some issues with her father. I wasn’t surprised. I was, however, pissed.
"You did intel on me?" I accused Dino angrily.
"Oh, shit this is deep," Jesse whispered from next to me, and he pulled me closer to him, probably trying to protect me from the onslaught of information being thrust into my face.
"I had to, Harlow," Dino warned, his voice begging me to just understand. But I wouldn't. Screw him and his fucked-up notion of family. He spied on me.
"You had to what, Dino?" I shrieked, letting my voice climb an octave so that the air rushing out of my throat could relieve some of the panic that had been building ever since Rosalina Affini had cracked him upside the head and started crying. "You had to spy on me? You had to lie to me? You met my son! You played with him and you bought him toys, knowing he was your nephew—knowing he was your blood and you never told him? Does he not have the right to know? You bastard."
"Look, I know it’s a lot of fun to shit all over Dino, the bad guy," Dino roared, and the house went quiet. Nobody moved. No one except for the Affini employees who were still walking around the table, filling water glasses and picking up silverware that had fallen to the floor when Rosalina had lost her collective shit. "In case you don't remember, family," he emphasized the word and slid a caustic gaze to Jeanette and his sister, Vanessa. "The last wayward Affini child that popped up out of nowhere tried to destroy the family business and have Jeanette and I killed. He made his living as a cold-hearted crime boss and died a bloody death. And I'm the one who had to break the news to Nonna, so I'd appreciate it if you cut me a little fucking slack for being cautious this time, God damn it."
"What?" This couldn't be real.
"Don't worry," Jeanette reassured me from across the table. "My ex-boyfriend shot and killed him." Because that's much better.
"Yeah, well, he shot me too," Dino flung the words back at her.
Was this
the same murdering ex-boyfriend that I heard about the last time? Or was this in addition to him? I mean, with Dino and Jeanette it could go either way.
Another thought occurred to me in that split second, and the answer to the question I was going to ask was going to define whether I calmly walked out of that restaurant, or whether I went Rosalina and had a breakdown.
"How long have you known?" My mouth asked those words calmly, but my eyes told another story. You better answer this question before I fuck you up.
Dino clamped his lips tightly shut, refusing to answer.
"Answer me you son of a bitch. How. Long. Have. You. Known? Was it before I got the job at Glass City Guard?"
Dino pressed his lips so firmly together they were nothing but a thin white line on the bottom half of his face.
"You asshole," I shrieked, and for lack of any better ammunition I grabbed a hot buttered roll out of the basket that had just been ceremoniously placed on our table and I whipped it as hard as I could.
Right at Dino's face.
He didn't even have time to duck, it splatted right in the center of his forehead, sticking there for a moment before sliding down over his nose and onto the floor, leaving a shining, buttery trail behind it.
There was dead silence in the room. For the span of ten seconds nobody even breathed—even Nonna hadn't moved.
On the eleventh second, Dino sprang into action, picking up an entire bowl in his hands and lobbing breadsticks and dinner rolls like a gas-powered snowball launcher.
"First of all, sister," he bit out the words as he lobbed a bun at my head. I ducked and it hit Jesse in the chest. Sorry Babe, casualties of war. “I had nothing to do with getting you that job. I was just getting information when that resume came across the desk okay?" he asked the question as he whipped his arm back and a long breadstick whacked me in the shoulder.
Okay motherfucker, let's dance.
I picked up a delicious looking popover, mourning its inevitable death because I was going to make sure I annihilated Dino with it when I cocked back and let it go. And I did, bouncing it right off his fat lying mouth.
“Stop throwing things at me,” Dino yelled, and his words penetrated the room like a shotgun blast. He might have been taken seriously except for he blasted off another couple of rounds from the bowl he carried in his hands, getting butter and crumbs in my hair and on my new dress.
My brand new,—only thing with a skirt I owned—dress.
“I didn’t get you the job and you didn’t get the job because you’re my sister. Those were two completely separate things and Gabe didn’t even find out about it until he was having us help him go through resumes. And in case you haven’t figured it out in the weeks since you’ve met him,” Dino had run out of bread and he eyed the empty basket in his hands like he was considering chucking that at me next. “Gabe does whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants. He got a wild hair up his ass about you, so he hired you. And it was a pretty good decision because you make a fantastic addition to our team, so welcome to the fucking family. Both of them, I guess.”
It wasn’t enough of an explanation to appease me, but I had run out of bread and energy and as I looked around the room, everyone’s attention was focused on me. Everyone was waiting for me to make the next move, but I didn’t know what that was going to be. I turned to look at Jesse, who was still sitting in the seat next to me, his eyes wide with shock. There was nothing in his expression that was going to help me get through this. He was just as surprised as I was.
“Enough!” Rosalina may have been a frail old woman, but she sure could command attention when she wanted to. Even in my emotional state I jumped and dropped the fork I was getting ready to slingshot across the table. “Everybody sit. No more fighting. Dino is idiot. Everyone agree?” Dino threw his hands in the air and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but he didn’t argue. He just pulled his chair back up to the table and sat down in a huff, Jeanette trying to hide her laughter behind her hands and failing. Madeline and Vanessa took their seats wordlessly as Rosalina, or Nonna as I guess I should be referring to her now, turned her attention back to me.
“Harlow, mia belezza,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “You are family. You have the face of your father, just like Dino. I raise Anthony to be a good man, but he did not do right by you. By any of you. Please don’t punish this old woman—let us be family.” She looked up at me, her face deeply lined with time, experience and sadness, her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun streaked with steel. How much she must have suffered over the years, with what Anthony Affini had put her through.
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. I didn’t have words for what I was feeling. It hurt, but there was also the fluttering of hope, delicate as a butterfly’s wings, giving birth to the thought that maybe this was exactly where I was supposed to be. I felt Jesse’s thigh press against mine under the table, giving me the reassurance that he too, was here to help me through whatever was going to happen next. I gave Rosalina’s fragile hand a gentle squeeze.
“I don’t even know what it’s like to have a family like this. I…I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Generally speaking,” Vanessa said as she and her mother both took their seats at the table next to Jeanette. “We argue really loud—and then we eat.” As soon as Vanessa and Madeline took their seats, the last tray of food was placed on the table, and one by one the Affini restaurant staff that had been setting the table each took their seat as well until all the chairs were filled.
“Tomorrow, you bring my great grandson to see me,” Rosalind didn’t phrase it as a question, so I could only assume it was a direct order and she just expected it to be followed. She hummed happily to herself as Dino took her plate and began to scoop a healthy portion of lasagna out of a giant dish that had been set in the middle of the table. I’d worked up such an appetite fighting with Dino the smell of tomatoes and cheese seeped in through my nose and made a dive towards my empty stomach. I was salivating at the thought of the first bite, and for some reason felt that I had never in my life ever been so hungry.
“Is it always like this?” I asked in awe, speaking to no one, or everyone—hell I didn’t even know anymore.
Dino handed the full plate back to his Nonna, who nodded in thanks. He licked a bit of marinara sauce that had spilled onto his thumb and grinned.
“Not always. Sometimes we have gnocchi.”
16
Jesse
Harlow’s hand was warm in mine as we finally left the restaurant. After about a hundred hugs and a bunch of pictures I took with my phone that Rosalina made me promise to “print out for her,” we were fat, satisfied, and ready to call it a day. The silence of the night was a stark contrast to the cacophony of the restaurant, and I sighed and pulled Harlow in for a hug and a quick kiss before we crossed the street. I doubted anyone still inside was paying attention to what we were doing but just in case, I didn’t want Rosalina to see me making out with her granddaughter in front of the restaurant.
“Hey, Jesse,” Harlow asked as we walked through the mostly empty parking lot and down to the edge where the strip of grass in front of the restaurant met the dark pavement of the road. I stopped to look at her, in no hurry to return to Nasta’s. It was ten o clock, and I was pretty sure JJ had probably passed out on Dad’s couch. Dad was probably snoring in the recliner next to him I would lay a twenty on it. “What did you mean when you said it makes so much sense now? The weird feeling you got when you looked at Dino?” Harlow stopped walking and tugged on my hand so I would stop too. “Why was everyone so convinced that Rosalina would know who I was just by looking at me?”
“You’re kidding, right? You haven’t figured it out yet?” I couldn’t believe she was missing something so simple.
“Well, I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.” She was so adorable with her nose all wrinkled up that I kissed her again. Just a little bit. I didn’t want her to go home tonight. I wanted her to go home with me. JJ too
.
I wonder if we can schedule a sleepover sometime? Do people do that? I have an extra room for JJ to sleep in.
“What are you thinking about?” Harlow interrupted my internal monologue and I remembered what we had been talking about. Pulling my phone out of my pocket I scrolled through the pictures I had taken that evening and stopped on one of her, Dino and Vanessa all standing next to each other. I held the phone up to her face.
“I’m talking about this.”
I watched as realization dawned on her, and the smile spread across her face.
“Oh my God I’m an idiot,” she laughed and pushed me in the shoulder.
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice it right away, but to be honest I’m not thinking of your brother when I’m kissing you—even if you do have the exact same face.” I rubbed my shoulder in mock pain and grabbed her hand again.
“We might as well be the same person with different hair.”
“Well I wouldn’t go that far,” I shuddered at the thought. “But you do look strikingly similar. Since Vanessa looks like her mom, and you never met your dad you probably wouldn’t put two and two together like that. But Rosalina would have made the connection immediately, and I think Jeanette telling them before Dino got around to it was probably a good move. Because I was going to take you to dinner at Affini’s as soon as they opened again. I want to take you lots of places,” I added, cringing inwardly at how corny those words sounded, but meaning them anyway.
“Hey Jesse, something’s not right,” Harlow said, and there was nervousness to her tone as we walked across the street to the bar, the windows reflecting the lights shining brightly from within.
“What?” I couldn’t tell what she was looking at until I realized the bar was closed. There shouldn’t have been any lights on at all. Dad’s apartment windows faced the side of the building, and they were supposed to be upstairs watching movies. It was ten o clock at night. Who was in the bar?
Jesse (Glass City Hearts Book 3) Page 13