Chapter 23 – Renzo
Chapter Twenty-Three
Renzo
Five Months Later
Ihaven’t seen my twin brother in months, but now that Geralynn is about six months along, I need him to help me understand everything going on between the two of us.
I can’t talk to Nicoletta about this, but as Geralynn gets rounder and since she still hasn’t told me anything about how she feels… I’m lost.
When I call Gino, he doesn’t pick up after the first call and returns my call about half an hour later.
“Are you dead?”
“Busy with Peter. What’s up?”
“Why are you busy with Peter?”
“We’ve been hanging out lately.”
I guess that answers where the fuck Gino has been the past few months. I try not to take it personally that he hardly messages me first and when I call him, he doesn’t care to pick up the phone instantly. It’s like he doesn’t care if I live or die.
“I’ve been fine, thanks for asking.”
Gino laughs, implying with his tone that I’m dramatic for expecting my twin brother to maintain a relationship with me.
“Miss me?” Gino asks. “You could have called earlier.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Nicki told me you’ve been busy.”
I don’t know how much Nicki told him, but I hate the idea of anyone having any information that could lead to them tracking her down or hurting her.
“How much do you talk to Nicki?”
Gino is mentally agile enough to avoid answering my question directly. “Not much, honestly. I hear from her once in a while.”
“Heard from her recently?”
“I haven’t heard from her any more than I’ve heard from you,” Gino says. “Want to come out tonight?”
“I can’t.”
Geralynn’s baby bump is huge now and I can’t bear the thought of leaving her alone at night. Gino doesn’t know all of this, I assume. But maybe he talks to Nicki more than I think. I barely keep track of my sister, although I know she has kept track of me and Geralynn throughout this entire ordeal.
“Why not?” Gino asks.
I grunt. “I have a feeling you know why not?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you think I know Nicki couldn’t have done this alone?” I snap at my brother. He acts purposefully obtuse like we aren’t carved from the same hunk of marble, in eerily similar form at that.
“Nicki never told me how that ended up,” Gino says, playing innocent. I doubt that Nicki has kept much of this to herself. She must have gloated – I can’t imagine her not gloating.
I stop him dead in his tracks. “I don’t want to talk about the baby.”
He knows. I can tell that Nicki updated him on everything based on the way he smiles in response to my statement.
My siblings are nothing if not total nuisances.
Gino waits a long time and then I hear a voice that sounds eerily like mine, reflecting the word back to me with terror that I simply don’t feel. “Baby?”
He knows. Again, the tone of his voice gives me all thei nformation I need. Luckily, he doesn’t sound judgmental about it, but his next question does irk me.
“You’re going through with it?” he asks before I can respond, as if that were ever a question.
“Of course I’m going through with it.”
Gino can’t hide that this surprises him. Why should it? I signed a contract. If Nicki told him anything, then maybe she told him about the details of her sick little contract.
“With a black girl?”
I don’t want the judgment implied by Gino’s tone to bother me, but it does.
I’m even more defensive than I would have been before I confessed my love to Geralynn and before I dedicated myself to becoming a better person for her.
I want her to choose me at the end of this, because she gets to walk away with my money and the baby no matter what.
“Yes. With a black girl.”
“You called me the worst thing in the world when I brought home that mixed chick in Mallorca. And you poured a jug of your piss all over her while she slept.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you think that helps? Do you think that changes what you’ve done?”
Gino doesn’t sound angry, but he’s my twin brother and I know he shares my capacity to share his true feelings whenever he chooses.
There’s a thinly veiled undercurrent of outrage in his voice.
Is he really so angry about that biracial Italian girl?
I poured a jug of my piss all over her because I saw her first. I bought her that first drink.
I wanted her and she still chose my brother.
I might have made it about race, but truthfully…
My brother stole my first chance to work Geralynn out of my system.
That’s what I thought at the time. The poor girl was only collateral damage.
“How do you want me to make it up to you?” I ask him, trying to stay cool and collected, like I don’t need his forgiveness. Truthfully, if I can’t get my twin brother’s forgiveness for my transgressions, I can’t expect Geralynn to change her mind about confessing her love for me.
“You can’t. That’s why racism is such a stain,” Gino says.
When did he become MLK Jr.? Did he finally meet some girl at the bar or something? I feel disrupted by my brother’s criticism. Heat burns around the edges of my neck.
“I don’t need you to lecture me like you’re perfect. Hooking up with a few black girls doesn’t make you some type of activist.”
“You’re right. It also makes me a better lover,” Gino says, clearly just trying to throw some rage-bait my way. I don’t take it.
“I regret calling you.”
“No you don’t. You need me.”
“For what?”
“To tell you that it’s okay to love Geralynn. Probably everyone knew you would end up with a black girl, anyway. We live in America, Renzo. It’s diverse. Who cares?”
I hate that he’s right about me needing him.
There’s no point in denying it, but I do it anyway out of some leftover twin competitiveness.
Gino and I share our fundamental genetic makeup which gives him the ability to occasionally read my mind.
What exactly do I need him for? The parts of myself that I can’t access.
“Seeking your advice doesn’t mean I need you.”
Gino sounds far too smug for my liking and it gets on my nerves, even if I don’t want it to. “I should charge you money for this valuable advice.”
“If you looked better, you could wear my clothes and pretend like we used to,” I mutter, ignoring Renzo’s effort to get under my skin.
I have to stay focused on my singular desire to win Geralynn’s affection.
Her ass might have throbbed for days from the wine bottle but by the time the throbbing subsided, did she still think of me?
Will she feel that pang of hurt I have to feel whenever we’re away from each other?
Gino’s impatience snaps me out of my brooding and into a more immediate state of annoyance. “Tell me what you need, Renzo. Believe it or not, I’m busy right now.”
“Doing what?”
“Spending time with Peter. Who calls me other than when he needs something.”
Gino acts like it’s personal that I haven’t spoken to him.
“I’m busy too.”
“Fine,” Gino says, still acting pretty offended. “I’ll ignore it this time because I enjoy hearing you have humility for once.”
“I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to get this girl to see that I love her but nothing I do works. She doesn’t have feelings for me. At least she claims she doesn’t.”
“She probably doesn’t have feelings for you.”
I seethe quietly, ignoring the urge I have to insult my brother’s haircut, muscle mass, and the amount of space between his eyes.
“Thank you, Gino.”
“Why would she? We’re talking about Geralynn, right?”
“I am not having a secret relationship with a black woman.”
I repeat the lie so immediately that I barely recognize the words coming out of my mouth. Am I embarrassed? Protective? Gino laughs.
“If I didn’t know you, maybe I would believe you. Haven’t you always had a crush on her?”
“I’ve never had a crush on her. What the hell are you talking about? She’s Nicki’s fat best friend…”
And I’m so attracted to those parts of her now.
Thick. Fat. Whatever you want to call it.
Geralynn’s body is insanely sexy and the moment I had her (consciously) for the first time, I became fucking addicted to touching her.
I hate feeling this exposed, but I have no choice when talking with my brother. He knows too much about me.
Gino laughs, which furthers my embarrassment.
“Do you see why she might not like you?”
“She cums every time I take her to bed.”
“So? Women cum with weird rubber toys shaped like rabbits. Getting her to like your personality will be a lot more difficult. Especially for you.”
“If you’re so great, where’s your girlfriend?”
Gino hits back way too quickly. “I haven’t asked Nicki to drug her yet.”
“I did not ask Nicki for this and if you ever suggest that again, I’ll tell dad what you did in Naples two years ago.”
He doesn’t laugh that time, but I can’t stay smug for long. Gino might have a point about winning Geralynn’s heart. Have I screwed up too badly? Am I still holding onto my old bigoted ways?
“How exactly do you expect me to help you?”
He sounds only slightly frustrated, so I decide not to push my brother even further. I desperately need his help, even if I want to get a few digs in.
“How do I prove to her I care about her?”
“Who?” Gino presses me. “You can’t even tell me who you love or anything about her. No woman wants to be a mobster’s secret.”
“Wouldn’t it be enough to just love her?”
“Don’t be stupid, Renzo.”
He’s right. It’s the type of advice you can only get from another guy and fuck, maybe it’s as simple as that. I can’t keep acting like a fucking idiot. I can’t force Geralynn to love me.
I ask my brother the hardest question for me to put into words and it’s something that I never considered before this moment. “How can I stop?”
My stubbornness and pride have ruled every interaction I’ve ever had with Geralynn.
My brother might have seen through the ways I tried to push her away throughout all the years I’ve known her, but he’s right to suggest that Geralynn might want to hold me accountable for those actions. Sex isn’t enough.
That thought should have occurred to me earlier, but fucking Geralynn awakens so much fiery energy within me that I assumed she was having the same transcendental emotion-shifting experience.
Each day we’ve spent together since Nicki sent us on this messed up pregnancy mission has been enveloped in pure sexual bliss.
But it’s not enough because I’ve been such a dick.
I hid all my feelings so deeply inside me that I don’t even know how to express them outside of the bedroom.
I’ve fallen so low that I need a phone call with my brother Gino to find my way out of this shit.
Dad would say that it’s what family is for, but it just goes to show how far Geralynn has weakened my stoic resolve.
“How many times have you insulted Geralynn? I know you like her, but I’ve heard you call her a fucking ‘mop girl’... What the hell is wrong with you?” Gino sounds genuinely confused by me at the end.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“You always liked her. Since we were… sixteen. Maybe seventeen.”
“I wasn’t a pervert, Gino.”
I hate looking back on those days. I had plenty of girlfriends and I didn’t have an inappropriate crush on Geralynn. I’ve been protective of Nicoletta because I always knew she would become my responsibility. Gino annoys me when he’s supposed to be helping me, which I find incredibly frustrating.
“Can you stop being a prude? It’s normal to fall for your sister’s best friend. It’s very Upstate New York.”
“I didn’t… I… Can we stop this sentimental bullshit? I need to get back to Geralynn.”
Gino chuckles again, which I try not to let annoy the hell out of me. My brother enjoys getting under my skin and I’ll remember how difficult he made this for me later.
“You’re both competitive and stubborn.”
“Is this the part where you help me?” I ask my brother, reminding him that this phone call is about helping me and not pissing me the fuck off.
“Let her win. That’s what you need to do and I think you know it.”
“What do you mean by that?” I don’t want him to say it out loud, but there’s some truth to what Gino says. I don’t want to hear it out loud, but Gino doesn’t care if he hurts my feelings or not. We both want the other to grow more resilient.
“Give her a new contract that makes Nicki’s look like child’s play.
Then you have to let her go.” Gino says it as if letting go of Geralynn after getting her pregnant with my child would be so easy.
Let her go. I feel like there’s a hippo sitting on my fucking chest. Let her go.
So never see Geralynn again? Fall for another girl?
I don’t even want to look at another fucking woman right now because I just want to get back to her and convincing her that we belong together.
Maybe my twin brother doesn’t understand me. I don’t want this to end with Geralynn walking in the other direction. I want her to come running towards me.
“I can’t let her go.”
“I know. That’s why you have to do it.”
“Why did I call the dumbest person in our family?”
Gino laughs. “Insulting me won’t get your girl, Renzo. Trusting me will.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“I’ll let you fuck the next chick I take home from the bar to take your mind off things.”