get outta here, Pops. You were head over heels and ready to marry her right after you graduated.”
I gasped, looking between Vinnie and his father, and said, “Wow! Are you serious?”
It took Vincent a moment before nodding. “Not one of my prouder moments,” he muttered.
Mrs. Marino scowled and pulled her hand back.
Vincent noticed immediately.
***
Vinnie and I sat on the front porch of my parents’ house, while my family, his father, and the ghosts in both our lives watched the fireworks from the curb. Multicolored sparks streamed through the air and reflected off the Great South Bay, and although the night was sticky and humid, it was also beautiful, just to have this man by my side.
He blew into the air and hung his smoking hand between his knees. “He actually looks happy,” he commented, and although he didn’t say it, I knew he meant his father.
“I know you don’t believe it now, but he will be okay,” I insisted gently.
“It’s just …” He stopped himself, pressing his lips shut and shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“I told you, you can talk to me.”
“Talkin’ isn’t gonna change shit, Andy,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“But it might make you feel better.”
He hung his head and sighed. “Here’s the thing,” he began, and sucked on his teeth before continuing, “there is no feelin’ better about this. It’s not just gonna go away by talking.”
“No, maybe not, but you might be able to find some semblance of peace.”
“He’s my dad, Andy, and he’s fuckin’ dying. Where’s the fuckin’ peace in that?” His voice cracked and so did my heart. “It’s just … it’s just so hard to look at him and know that in a couple months, he’s not gonna be here. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t …” He blew out a breath and diverted his gaze from the old man across the street. “I don’t know how to cope with this shit. You know? Like, my brother and sister, they have their own lives to deal with and keep ‘em distracted. What the hell do I have? I’m with him all the time. I’m … I’m the one listening to him cough and struggle to breathe. I’m the one who’s just waitin’ to wake up one day and find him dead. They have shit to do, and I have—”
“Me,” I interrupted, trying to remind myself that he was just finally talking and not intending to hurt me. But it still stung.
His mouth stopped moving momentarily, frozen, before saying, “What?”
“You have me.”
He licked his lips and dropped his gaze to the cigarette, burning away and barely touched. He stamped it out in the ashtray my mom had found for him, buried in a kitchen drawer, then wiped a hand over his forehead.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I said. “I know you’re just venting and I’m glad that you are. But please don’t forget that I’m here, and that I want to help you get through this. Okay?”
Vinnie turned to face me. His eyes found mine and held me there, breathless and frozen, until his gaze dropped to my lips. His hand reached out, cupping my chin to lure me toward him, and I complied without hesitation. He stole my thoughts with a kiss, tearing me from the grey area between the lands of the living and the dead, and for a moment, I resided nowhere but in the taste of summer on his lips and cigarettes on his tongue. I knew that, if he was anybody else, I would’ve found reason to be disgusted, and if I were an outsider looking in, I would’ve judged. But this was Vinnie, and I was me, and I was falling for everything that made up the whole of us.
“I know I have you,” he said, his voice rasped and whispered, as he moved his hand from my chin to my cheek. “I just wish I could keep him around, too.”
“He’ll always be around,” I replied, sliding my hand over his.
“You don’t know that, though.”
Oh, this beautiful, broken man, I thought, as my heart ached. Tell him. Tell him everything you know and release him from his torment.
“Actually—”
“Shit, that reminds me,” he said, abruptly, cutting me off.
“W-What?”
“Zach and Greyson are going to another one of those shows you like. They invited us to go with them. You interested?”
“A psychic medium?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t love that shit, but I know you do. So, if you wanted to go, I’d tough it out.”