there. It’s so surreal—my prisoner and my loved ones having a fucking ball together.
I sneak past the kitchen and head upstairs, take a shower—I changed at the club, but blood is persistent—and change again into some gym clothes. I’m heading to the cardio gym when Emily wheels down the hallway, giving me one of her arched romance-heroine eyebrows.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Hazel appears behind her, face flushed. A blot of flour clings to her lips that I can all too easily imagine kissing away. She’s wearing an apron, like my fantasy, ending just far enough above the knee to give me a glimpse of bare thigh. How beautiful it’d be to run my hand up under that apron, explore the flesh beneath, feel the wetness of her begging sex.
“We’re baking cakes.” Hazel is smiling, but I see the reproach in her eyes. We both know I’ve been avoiding her. “Emily tells me that you’re not completely useless in the kitchen.”
“Did she also tell you she’s an exceptional liar?”
Emily laughs. “A curse of the trade, I’m afraid. Come on, Carlo. Don’t be boring.”
“It sounds like fun,” I say. “But I have plans. Don’t let me stop you, though.”
I see the flicker of hurt in Hazel’s eyes. I feel like snapping. What, because we played a game of Scrabble together, I have to kowtow to her every random whim now? If she bangs on my door in the middle of the night and tells me she wants to go line-dancing, am I supposed to do that, too?
I am turning away when Mother emerges without her veil on.
“Carlo De Maggio!” she hisses. “If you do not get into this kitchen at once, there will be serious consequences.”
I am too stunned by the sight of the three of them, Mother wearing her scar unashamedly, her hair in a bun on top of her head. Hazel has her hair in the same bun, though hers is more wayward, wisps flying alluringly as they always do. Mother doesn’t take off her veil for anybody, not even Nario and Sil.
“Mother,” I say, “I’ve been working all morning. You must accept my sincere apologies. But I’m glad to see that you are—” I fumble for words. “Enjoying yourself.”
Hazel is outright glaring at me now. She’s trying to guilt me into baking cakes with them. What crazy parallel universe have I just wandered into? One minute I’m torturing a man; the next, I’m getting lectured like a misbehaving schoolchild. I feel like pinching myself to see if I’ll wake up.
“Come on,” Hazel says, shooting me another acid look. “He clearly wants to be alone so he can sulk. Let’s leave him to it.”
I expect Mother or Emily to come to my defense on this, to at least lightly chide this stranger for overstepping her mark. But instead, Emily nods in agreement. “He always was a sulky one, ever since we were kids. Carlo, remember the time when Daddy wouldn’t let you have an ice cream at the fair and you cried the whole afternoon?”
“That was you,” I laugh. “When are you going to give up that old lie?”
“Are you sure you won’t help?” Mother asks.
We’re like gunslingers meeting at noon: the three of them on one side of the hallway, next to the alcove where one of my faux-Roman statues sits, a carving of Spartacus that never would’ve really been allowed in Ancient Rome, and I’m down here, standing under a landscape of Manarola.
I feel inexplicably guilty as I turn away.
“Here’s what I’ll do,” I say, making for the door. “I’ll do you the favor of eating the cakes and making lots of mmm noises. How does that sound?”
Emily giggles. “I guess that will have to do, you stubborn ass.”
“Come on, girls,” Mother says. “Let’s get to it.”
“Girls,” as though Emily and Hazel are the same, as though they’re the Three fucking Musketeers. I almost sprint into the gym. I’m so eager to get my muscles burning so I don’t have to think about Hazel, about how close she’s become to Emily and Mother, about how badly I want to go in that kitchen and kiss the flour from her lips, to laugh with the three of them like we’re a family.
Like we can finally let go of the past.
I use the exercise bike until I almost fall when I step off, and then go to the weights gym and do what I can with my injured arm. By the time I return to the bedroom, I