The Right One - Felice Stevens Page 0,6

out of him. Was he that desperate for his mother to love him?

She waved her hand in the air. “It’s not in Manhattan, so what good is it? Some crappy area of Brooklyn? Big deal. If your father hadn’t been so stupid and gotten himself killed, you could’ve inherited the business. That would be something to be proud of.”

Unwilling to listen to any more negativity against his father, he pushed his chair away from the table. “I have to go.”

Shaking and without saying another word, he left her on the deck and walked to his motorcycle. He passed his mother’s aide on the walkway, returning from her errand, but gave her only a brief wave, unwilling to stop and have a conversation in his rotten mood. Once seated on the bike, he lifted his face to the sun, letting it bake away his hurt. He was too old to let the sting of his mother’s words upset him.

And yet it did.

Maybe he was a loser like she said. He’d heard it often enough when Robert would knock him around.

Useless. Good for nothing. Won’t ever amount to anything. Leech.

After all, he was only the owner of a dilapidated building that always needed repairs. His plan to buy that second building was taking longer than expected, but even then, it wouldn’t matter to her. Nothing would ever be good enough. Leo clenched his hands into fists, breathing deeply. It didn’t matter what she said. He was going to do it.

***

As soon as he got home, he stripped to his boxers and put himself through a punishing weights routine, then pounded the standing punching bag. He’d taken up boxing in college to release all the anger and pain twisting his insides into knots. He was afraid if he didn’t, he might explode. He and Peter would spend hours in the gym, working the bags and learning moves from instructors willing to give them advice.

Exhausting himself until he was almost ready to pass out was the only way he could deal with visits to his mother. He knew he was a shit for losing his temper with her, but with every visit, he was finding it more and more difficult to summon up the smallest bit of love for the person who’d abandoned him in favor of a designer wardrobe and a fat bank account.

Once showered, his body aching but still humming, Leo walked the half a mile or so to the supermarket to get some beer for the ball game that night. It was a typical outer-borough neighborhood where you knew the local shopkeepers by name, and on warm evenings, many of them could be found chatting with people in the doorways or on the street. Tables and chairs were set up on the sidewalk in front of the small storefront restaurants, and Leo waved to a couple of men sitting with beers and platters of pierogi in front of them but shook his head at their calls to join them. Occasionally he’d hire them for odd jobs around the building when he needed extra help and though they tried to be friendly, he kept to himself.

He meandered up and down the aisles and tossed a couple of bags of chips into his shopping wagon as well as the beer. After seeing his mother, he wanted to release the pain of the present and decided to return to the past, when things between them had been good, so he picked up a loaf of bread and a block of cheddar cheese, thinking life would be so much simpler and better if everything could be fixed with a grilled-cheese sandwich, like it used to when he was a kid.

A loud crash sounded behind him, and he, along with everyone else, looked around to see what happened. That new guy who’d recently moved into his building stood frozen, big green eyes popping wide at the display of refried-beans cans now rolling around his feet. What the hell was his name?

Morgan Cantrell—that was it.

Prior to Cantrell moving in, the real-estate agent had forwarded his information to Leo, who, intrigued by a man who wore a shirt and tie while apartment-hunting, did a little research of his own. The nervous, slightly shy man didn’t fit with the usual type who rented in the building. His marriage at the W in Times Square to some hotshot lawyer had made the New York Times and solidified his opinion. Tenants in his building didn’t normally have that kind of bank,