on his nose. He has long, thin hands, which are on display because he’s playing five-finger fillet.
“You must be Angelo,” he says, thud-thud-thudding his blade on the table between his long fingers. We’re in the middle of the restaurant and older mafiosi sit all around, smoking cigars from the shadows.
“And you must be Giraldo,” I say.
And I must be pissed, because even how slow he’s playing with the knife is annoying me. He’s doing it methodically, with no risk, no danger. He’s scared of hurting himself. I warn myself to be calm. My temples throb. What a flashy young man. I clench my fist.
“Ah!” Giraldo curses as he nicks himself. He lays the blade—a blunt bread knife—aside and looks up at me. Then he stands and offers me his hand, which he should’ve done straight away. We shake, and he nods around the room, introducing the men, telling me the names of their fathers and nephews and uncles and brothers.
“Not often we get a De Maggot up here, boy,” a man named Romolo mutters. He has a flat face and a comb-over, and looks like he hates me, standing here in my flashy suit, with my glinting cufflinks. De Maggot? Boy? The man must have a death wish, disrespecting me like that. If I didn’t have business to handle, I’d snatch his life away in an instant. “Your father was busy, then?”
Here is what I want to do: grab the front of his flat face and slam his head through the window, over and over, crushing his nose with my palm. And then, when his friends pull out their guns I’ll take Giraldo hostage and drag him outside, tie him to the back of my Ferrari, and skin him all the way to New York.
But here is what I do instead: I incline my head, and smile.
Diplomacy, I think. For your sake if nothing else, Father.
“Father is always busy, signore. It’s the curse—and the blessing—of the job. But do not worry. I speak for the De Maggio name.”
“Hmm,” Romolo grunts.
Giraldo looks between us. Maybe he can see what I want to do to Romolo’s face, because he touches my arm lightly. “Come, Angelo,” he says. “We have much to discuss.”
I nod shortly. “Gentlemen. It was a pleasure.”
We walk outside as Giraldo fiddles with his glasses. When he sees my car, his eyebrows go up. He bites his lip for a moment and then, sighing, says. “Would you mind parking that out back, Angelo? We’ll take my Honda. The polizia in this town are dogs. If they catch two Italians in a car like that …” He shakes his head, clearly meaning we’d be arrested, or at least questioned. “You understand?”
I look lovingly at my Ferrari. I want to tell him to go to hell. But this is his town and I have to defer to him, so I nod and walk toward my car. Resisting the urge to barrel right through the front of the restaurant and slice Romolo’s sneer off his skull, I bring it around the back and park.
12
Dani
After the phone sex with Angelo, I just sort of wander around the apartment. That was really risky. Since it’s Wyatt’s Christmas break, he’s sleeping on the blow-up bed in my room. So I went into the main bathroom after my EMT shift and called Angelo. Don’t ask me why I did it, because I really can’t explain. It just kind of happened. Or maybe I was horny. Or maybe I just wanted to hear his voice—again.
That afternoon one and a half weeks ago keeps returning to me—the chemistry, the lust, the blistering heat of it.
I wander quietly so I don’t wake Wyatt or Zora or Quinny, trying to get Angelo out of my head. On the upside, since Wyatt has been back for Christmas break, we’ve been closer. He spends way too much time in the living room on his Xbox, swearing into his headset as he shoots people on Call of Duty. But I’d rather have him doing that than, you know, the alternative.
Every now and then, I’ll drag him away from the game by putting on Countdown, which I ordered from eBay the day after the hospital: a whole two seasons of it, recorded in England in the nineties. It’s nostalgic and Wyatt loves it.
So I should be able to lie in bed and close my eyes and sleep peacefully. But instead I’m creeping through the apartment like a burglar, only what I’m stealing is stuff that