Nothing about the ivy-covered building gave away the madness inside.
The place was quaint with red brick and it took up most of one block of what passed for Cuoricino’s business district. Like most restaurants in the sleepy town, Carelli’s had been established decades before when Santino and Angelique Carelli turned their back on the family business—the dirty, illegal kind that had left Santino’s father old before he’d reached the age— and got serious about babies and safety and being legit. Unlike other eateries in town, Carelli’s was always packed, especially on early summer nights like this one, and had become a hub for good food, better conversation, and the place that most people ended up at no matter where their night began. There was something about the building and the people that lingered within it. Maybe it was the air that perfumed around it. Maybe it was the family that ran the place. Whatever it was, the restaurant was a spot of rest and welcome: a place to find comfort and warmth.
I had, six months ago, on a frigid Christmas Eve night, freezing in my broken-down car with my infant son snoring in the back seat. It was that building and the comfort it promised that made me stop, but it was the people, the family I’d made in this place that had kept me here. The same loud, obnoxious people currently screaming at each other over a one-year-old’s birthday cake.
“Let him have it, for shit’s sake,” Dante said. “It’s his birthday!”
“He’ll get it everywhere,” Antonia Carelli answered her brother. “That’s blue damn icing. You want blue icing all over that beautiful outfit Maggie bought him and Ma’s tablecloth?”
Toni had good intentions. Of the crowd surrounding my son, Mateo, she was the only one who had been with me when I picked out the bow tie and suspenders to match his toddler-sized slacks and checkered shirt. The outfit hadn’t been cheap, but I wasn’t worried about the cost. I’d chosen dark colors for a reason.
“Toni…it’s fine,” I said.
“Bullshit it is!” She waved a hand, ignoring me.
I suspected her attitude over her brother wanting Mateo to smash his fingers into the cake had more to do with the beautiful man talking on the cell outside of the restaurant than with any outfit I’d picked out for my mijo. She had history with Luca DeRosa, I guessed, but wouldn’t talk about it. No one would.
“What’s the problem?” Dante asked, staring down at his sister with a glare I’d never seen either of their parents give her. “It’s what babies do on their first birthday. Maggie, tell her before she pops a damn vein.”
They did this a lot—putting me in the middle, expecting me to take sides when their family drama hid behind all the mierda that surfaced with their bickering.
But I wouldn’t play. I hadn’t in the six months I’d been part of this loco family. I wasn’t going to start on my kid’s first birthday.
Dante and Toni’s arguing slid toward the competitive, fun-natured side. It didn’t bother me. Dante and his older brother Dario, though, had deeper, meaner issues. And when Toni and Smoke, the oldest of the Carelli siblings argued, it got personal and messy. And I made myself scarce.
“Toni, stop being ridiculous,” Dario said, looking away from his cell long enough to back his younger brother up.
But Toni wouldn’t give up her fight and stepped to my side, brushing the hair off Mateo’s forehead, nodding toward the large cake her mother had her pastry chef make. It was fancy, a little decadent for a one-year-old, but the blue frilly roses and scrolls of white and blue icing did look delicious.
“Ignore them. I’ll cut it up and you won’t have to worry about the outfit. He looks so bello,” Toni said, picking up her phone to snap what had to be the fiftieth picture of Mateo.
“Madonna, Antonia, are you still bothering Maggie over the outfit?” Mrs. Carelli said, coming into the dining room followed by her husband, their arms weighted down with more gift bags and wrapped boxes to join the dozens already on the table at the back of the room.
“Ma, it’s going to make a mess and…”
“Toni,” I heard, and I had to repress a shiver at the deep shift of Smoke’s tone. Six months of hearing that deep voice—most of the time right next to my ear saying filthy, delicious things— and I still hadn’t gotten used to it.