I was tired. It’d been a long day, and Carlo was chilling with me in the living room. That was when all hell broke loose. Alessandro walked in, looking like shit and smelling like it too. Carlo rolled his eyes and stood up to leave. He wanted to go to his room to be as far away from Alessandro as possible. “Wait!” I said as I grabbed his arm.My worst fear—us falling apart again—was staring me in the eye. I didn’t want the past to repeat itself, so I did the only thing I knew how. I made sure that they both got over whatever was bugging them. “Alessandro, glad to see you’re alive,” I said as I stood up. I was shocked by my brother’s clothes—he was wearing black joggers, a puffer jacket, and a black t-shirt. Nothing was designer, and I’d used my last dime on my credit card to make sure that he came home safe. “I have nothing to say to him!” Carlo pointed at Alessandro as if he was a stranger. “I get it. He took your money without permission.”“He went and accused Paul of stealing
In the few days I’d been back, I’d cooked for Carlo, cleaned up after him… but no matter what I did, he still didn’t want to talk to me. I’d crossed a line, but I could only apologize so many times. They never even asked what I used the money for or why I’d been gone for so long. They weren’t interested. Adolfo just wanted us to be a family like we used to be, and Carlo was too busy spending time with Bianca to care about trying to fix the bridge that I’d broken. I wanted us to go back to being the way that we were, or even better than that. It was as if seeing the damage that I’d done made me realize that having my brothers by my side was what I should have been focused on from the start. I should have told them what was really going on and asked for their help instead of pushing them away.I held my phone in my hand as I found myself restless and unclear how to get some concentration to train this morning or at least get some studying in. I was already on a thin line, seeing as I’d
What was up with this guy?He asked me up here to talk, and so far he’d done anything but. He’d offered to cook, but I knew the only thing he drank on a regular basis was his smoothies. Something Carlo told me Alessandro drank on a regular basis.“You sure you don’t want a drink?” he asked for the third time in the space of the fifteen minutes we’d been here. “No. Why did you ask me here?” I could tell I had touched a nerve as he sank down on the sofa. I looked around, realizing I’d never really sat in the living room, not like this. The first time I came here, I was swept into Carlo’s room, as he only had one thing on his mind. Not just him, but me too. I couldn’t think of what to say to Alessandro, and I wasn’t good at small talk. He nodded his head and said, “There’s no easy way to say this, but your dad’s in trouble.”“And?”I didn’t understand why he was telling me this or why he was all of sudden worried about Dad when he’d made it clear that he thought we were after nothing
I smiled as my phone chimed. I didn’t have one boyfriend, but three. What more could a girl ask for? The hot studs that I used to avoid were now my men. I had them in the palm of my hand, ready to do anything that I asked, any time of the day.“Which one of them is texting you now?” Erika asked as she crept nearer to me. “Alessandro, he’s so sweet. But I need to take a break or my pussy is going to fall off.” I smiled at her, thinking about how much Alessandro had changed within the past few weeks.“Listen to you! A few months ago, you hadn’t done the deed, and now you’re getting too much action. Oh, my pussy is too tired.” She giggled and laughed while fanning her private parts and battering her eyes. I shoved her gently out of the way, trying to get out of the bed. “Don’t make fun.”She shook her head. “I’m not. I’m happy for you. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile the way you’ve been doing lately… even if I haven’t seen you much lately.”I moved closer to her and took
Dad texted and said that he was on campus and that he had exactly thirty minutes to meet me and talk. It wasn’t a request.“Where you going?” Carlo asked as he stretched and tried to get off the sofa. He was hungover after drinking a little too much at his celebration party last night. “Downstairs. Dad’s here.”His head slowly moved around the room. “Where?”I laughed, thinking that he was most likely still drunk. “Not in here, but at the entrance of campus. He wants me to meet him.”“Fuck,” he said as he reached out for his phone. Then he shook his head. “Yep, just you. He didn’t send me a message.”“Me either,” Adolfo said as he patted me on the back and headed to the kitchen. I decided that I needed to head out of here, asap, before I got roped into the typical argument that we had every Sunday morning—why there was no food in the kitchen apart from my smoothies. I headed to the parking lot and jumped into my Jeep before the time was up. I had exactly fifteen minutes to get to th
I followed Alessandro on my bike, after having a quick expresso and sobering up, as he stopped at the entrance, I didn’t go any further. Rik said nothing to him, and I could only assume that Dad was in the limo. Fuck. He didn’t even get out, and Alessandro wasn’t in there for long. What the fuck was going on?All the color from Alessandro’s face disappeared the moment he saw me. He shook his head as I drew closer. I didn’t even have to open my mouth. Whatever it was, it had him rubbing his wrist as if it was hurt. When he stopped, I could see that it was bright red. “Dad do that?” I asked as I pointed to it. He nodded but continued to stare at the space that the limo was once in, as if he was reliving the time that it was there. “I fucked up, Carlo,” he sobbed. The last time that I’d seen my brother cry was when he was nine and someone ran over our fucking dog. That had him in tears, but since then he’d been the hard front of our family. Now he was holding onto me, sobbing in my
I never should have left him. I shouldn’t have thought about my own selfish needs, studying, living a life. He was my blood, and I’d let him down. That was the reason that he was dead. It was all down to me. “Bianca, I need to leave soon,” Erika whispered as she approached the bed. My curtains were drawn, and apart from going to the bathroom, I hadn’t left my room all weekend. Nan had tried to come in a few times, but I told her to leave me alone. I wanted to be alone in my thoughts, and, most of all, my grief.“It’s just that it’s past four, and I don’t know if you’re coming back to campus or not?”This time she was sitting at the end of the bed. I’d been horrible to her. I asked her to come to give me support, and all I’d done was ignore her. I pulled back the duvet and croaked, realizing that my voice was all messed up, most likely from dehydration and lack of sleep. All I’d been thinking of doing was just being by myself. I’d been selfish, and I hated myself for it. “I’m sorry,
We heard from Bianca, who confirmed what we already knew. Her dad was dead. Dad had told Alessandro that we were going to keep away from Bianca, and Alessandro had answered my behalf. Something that I wasn’t happy about and I didn’t agree to.I decided to call Dad here so we could talk like men. We could figure out a solution, and we would lay it on the line for him to agree to a way forward. One that didn’t involve stopping us from seeing Bianca.“Adolfo, where are your brothers?” Dad asked as I opened the door to the apartment. There was no How are you, a hug, or even a handshake. He was as cold as ice, and Rik stood firmly behind him. He was making it tough, but then I never expected it to be easy.“They’re in the living room. Waiting.”I moved out of the way so that he could enter. Even though he paid the rent and pretty much provided all the furnishing inside the apartment, he was being respectful as if he had no right to be there. That was one thing about Dad—he believed in res