Chapter 8 #2
"Chit-chat," Mateo replied, swaggering over to her and giving her a kiss on the head. "Work stuff."
“I had this idea to change the name of TechOps to something punchier, something that reflects the brand direction,” I said. “What do you guys think about Duran Duran?”
“Very nostalgic,” Mateo deadpanned, shaking his head. “We can workshop it.”
"Your mom said dinner is ready." Tally picked up my shirt off the patio chair and threw it at my bare chest. "What are you making?'
"Birdhouse—"
"Mailbox," my brother and I announced simultaneously.
Tally glanced between us, jutting her lip out. "That's not suspicious at all."
"Mailbox—"
"Birdhouse," Mateo and I tried again, still getting it wrong.
"Whatever secret thing you're building," she said pointedly, "put your shirt on and come inside to eat. I want to hear about house hunting."
Natalia turned on a heel with Mateo, and he looked back, glaring at me in warning as they disappeared into the kitchen.
I rolled my neck, taking a deep, extinguishing breath.
House hunting? It’s going great. We've been to three showings and each has gone as badly as the last. Oh, and now to boot, I’m also having deliriously realistic sexual fantasies about your sister who I am supposed to hate while I walk through the appliance section at Home Depot.
No, that wouldn't do.
Unfortunately, Mia's hesitancy about me wasn't as far-fetched as I'd thought, and being impossibly attracted to her was a problem I really did have to face.
Inside, my father was in his place at the end of the long dining table, my mother to his right, while Mateo took a seat at the opposite head and Tally dropped in on his right side as well.
There was a heaping bowl of still-hot spaghetti in the center of the tablecloth, enough sauce for three weeks beside it.
I decided to squeeze in next to my mother, while the sixth seat at the table remained empty, noticeably. I was a very apparent fifth wheel.
"Looks great, Ma," I said, folding my napkin into my lap. My mother stood and started dishing food onto my dad’s plate, as she always had, and Mateo and Natalia reached across to fill their own, which gave me a small twitch of happiness. Something so small, and yet undeniably noticeable, as Tally didn’t fold into that ancient expectation of plating her husband's food, breaking the strange cultural tradition.
My mother tried to dollop a spoon of pasta onto my plate and I took over while she sat back down slowly with an eyebrow arched.
"How are things going with Mia?" Natalia asked, sprinkling a generous helping of parmesan cheese onto her pasta.
"Fine." I avoided her eyes, toiling with the salt and pepper shakers. "Still working on it."
"He saw a house right down the street a few days ago," Mom blurted. "Gorgeous place. It was this same house we're in right now, floor plan, backyard, everything."
"Right, because every house in this neighborhood is a copy and paste, Mom. The contractors came in with a blueprint and said go fucking crazy."
"Don't swear at the table, Angelo," Dad scolded, words muffled around a forkful of food in his mouth.
"You didn't like it?" Mateo asked. I hit him with a clouded stare. As if he didn't understand the need to get far away from our parents. He left at eighteen and never came back.
"Not what I was hoping for." I stabbed a piece of meat off a serving plate, still glaring at my brother, and a smirk lifted the corner of his lip.
"Well, it's coming up on a month," Dad reminded me. "Don't be too picky. Starter home."
"There's no such thing as a starter home anymore." I huffed. "The economy is never going to work in our favor again."
"When we bought the house in the Bronx it was sixty thousand dollars," Mom said proudly. "Needed some work, but we did our best. Rome wasn't built in a day."
"You bought a house for the same price as the truck I'm driving, I don't think you can really add your two cents to this," I said bluntly.
"Anyway, it's not the money. It's the principle.
I don't want to settle. I've been one way my entire life, and I want to break out of that. Start doing something new."
"How are the online classes?" Mateo asked, changing the topic. "Helping at all?"
"Angelo is street smart, not book smart," Dad said.
"They're going fine." I shook my head. "It’s annoying to have homework in my thirties, but the basis of understanding is there. You need me to do it, I'm going to do it. Though it’s not leaving a lot of room for anything else these days between work, home, and school."
"He needs a woman," Mom pressed in a tone more giddy than I was comfortable with. "A nice Italian girl, someone to show him around town, get him out of the house. He's boring, he doesn't even play Scrabble with me anymore on the weekends."
"Don't even leave the spare room unless it's to eat or take a shit," Dad added with his attention still on his dish.
"You know I'm right here?" I jabbed. "Am I not allowed to adjust to being in a new place? I mean, for fuck’s sake."
"Angelo!" Mom said sharply.
"I only got here a couple weeks ago, and I'm immediately thrust into a new job, college courses, buying a house—"
"Building things in the backyard." Mateo swept his fork wistfully toward the back door and I shot a look in his direction again.
"It is a lot," Natalia acknowledged, coming to my aid. "You're right, but your mom is also right."
Traitor.
"Maybe go out somewhere, find a watering hole or something. We can suggest some spots downtown," Natalia continued. "I have friends that would be interested."
"Friends," Mateo enunciated.
"Friends that I could…find online, in internet corners…?” I asked snidely and Nat’s cheeks turned a bubblegum shade of pink.
"Find him a friend, Natalia." Mom clapped her hands. "I mean, look at this face." She pinched my bearded cheek and smacked a kiss on my skin. "He's so handsome."
"Sooo handsome." Mateo batted his eyelashes and I kicked his shin beneath the table.
"Enough about me." I put my hands up in a finite motion. "What are we naming this baby?"
My mother gasped, even more overjoyed with the change in subject. "Baby Anna, for a girl," she suggested.
Mateo turned to me quietly, a fake smile plastered across his face. "Touché, brother. I won't forget this."
"Don't hate the player, hate the game," I whispered back.
The remainder of dinner was uneventful. Natalia and my mother spent an hour listing off different, traditional, vowel-centric children's names that all sounded like the same syllables mashed together.
After we ate, my mom prepped several containers of food and labeled them with sticky notes as lunch options for me and my brother to take to work for the week, and Mateo and Tally left in an understandable hurry by six p.m.
That gave me enough time of remaining sunlight to stain my wood pieces in the backyard and let them dry overnight so I could actually assemble them into something more functional for Mia.
I showered, played a guilty game of Scrabble with my mother so she couldn’t complain that I hadn’t, and went to bed where I stared at the ceiling long enough to start overthinking.
Getting out of the house wasn't a bad idea.
Meeting people, and meeting women, specifically.
That would probably make the most sense for me, to shake this god-awful infatuation with a girl I would have headaches over for the rest of time.
Mia wasn't the right one; she couldn't be.
It didn't work that way. Who would tie the souls of two sisters to two brothers?
This wasn't a fantasy novel, it was fucking South Florida in the age of Gen Alpha, where there were influencers in their cars eating twenty thousand calories in one sitting for views. Life wasn't romantic anymore.
It was a farce.
I was horny.
That was reality.
Instead of lying in scratchy sheets with my parents down the hall and a victim complex because I was assimilating at the rate of a snail, I could go do exactly what they said to do. Make friends.
And who knew the lay of the land in Coconut Creek better than Mia?
It was just a text. It was completely innocent, a way to prove that I could be cordial with Mia Russo after getting unceremoniously shot down. She probably wouldn’t even answer.
That’s what I was telling myself, anyway.
For the first time since our professional relationship began, I took out my phone and found her contact that had been burning a hole in my pocket since our group chat in Vegas.
Me
Hey, it's Angelo. Had your number from Vegas. Was wondering if there's any local spots you would recommend for a beer and a burger? Figured this didn't warrant an email.
It was just about 9 o’clock on Sunday, but as soon as the text sent, a "Do Not Disturb" indicator flagged across the message screen. Well, that settled that.
Still, I stared at it for way too long, imagining she was in the mood to be disturbed, particularly by me, after Friday night.
She might have kicked me out, but there was something lingering between us that begged for closure.
Whether that be another slammed door, or something that would soothe us both in a different way.
I cursed under my breath, tossed my phone aside, and flew out of the boxy wool blankets. I didn't need Mia to show myself a good time. Mateo was right, there were a hundred girls that would love my wood. I just had to find them.
My teeth were brushed, a clean button-down tucked into my jeans and a splash of oil dabbed into the wiry, unkempt curls of my beard, and I was nearly out the door to drive around aimlessly searching for a bar when my phone chimed.
In one swift motion, I was plucking it off the bed and opening the text. Too quickly to be cool about it, but thankfully, there was no audience.
Mia
Meet me at The Mackerel on Grove.
I snatched my wallet and keys and headed out the door with a dumb smile on my face.