76. More personal than a physical
Chapter 76
More personal than a physical
Luca
I t’s hard to imagine we had a wedding here just last night. The backyard looks like it usually does. I start the grill, crack open a beer, and sit down at a table with my dad and Lil.
I’m not exactly surprised when Dad tells me Mom took off already. But I wasn’t by the news that she’s been cheating on Dad for years, either. Parker found a lot of shit on her.
“I had hoped your mother would at least say goodbye to you before she left,” Dad says, peeling the label off his bottle.
“Honestly, I don’t care at this point. She hardly came out of her room and made a point to interact with Ariana as little as possible, so she can go fuck herself.”
“I’m only going back to Reno for court and to get my things from the house. I owe Ari a set of records, a boat, and the Mustang.” The genuine grin on his face tells me he’s not at all sad.
“I know you filed for divorce, but I didn’t realize you weren’t going back.”
He gestures at me with his beer. “My son is here. My new amazing daughter-in-law is here. My brother and his wife are here. And my hilarious niece is here. There’s nothing for me there. Everything is here, Luca.”
Marco steps outside, waving a pack of hotdogs in each hand. “Okay, Lil and Mia, how many?
“Two,” Lil says.
“Just one, babe,” Mia answers from her lounge chair by the pool.
“Luca, Anthony, which kind and how many?” He holds up both packs.
“Um, three, and I don’t care,” I shrug. “Hot dogs are hot dogs to me.”
“Same, but two for me,” Dad says.
“Ari, two for you?” Marco calls out as my wife walks out the back door.
“Yes, please.”
She’s wearing one of my shirts tied in a knot at her waist over a pair of shorts. As she walks across the grass barefoot, she pulls her hair up into a ponytail. And she’s just as stunning today as she was yesterday.
“Oh, Ariana, come here and look at these pictures, sweetie,” Mia says, holding out her phone. Ari smiles our way before heading toward her mom.
Marco throws the hotdogs on the grill, emptying one full pack but only adding a couple from the other. I look at Lil and raise my eyebrows in question.
“Food holdover. Ari can’t eat the brand the rest of us like. She’s tried a ton of times, but it always ends badly. They’re cheap. Hella cheap. I don’t know why we all like them so much because they’re definitely low-quality pig assholes, but it’s one of the few things they fed her.” My dad’s eyebrows pinch together, confusion showing on his face as Lil continues. “Peanut butter, too. She can eat it in stuff but not by itself. Or on crackers. Or bread.”
I barely contain a growl. “I swear if I find that man—” I shut up and try to shake off the scowl when Ariana stands and starts walking toward us.
“What are we talking about?” She asks as she sits next to me.
“You and food stuff,” Lil says nonchalantly.
Leaning back, Ariana puts her feet up on my lap. Even just that little bit of contact sends a wave of calm through me. I wrap my hand around her ankle, rubbing my thumb back and forth across her skin.
“Oh, I have a lot of food stuff. There’s holdover shit that mixes with my ADHD shit, and it’s hard to sort it out. Sometimes, it’s textures, sometimes flavors, sometimes memory triggers. But the why doesn’t really matter. I just can’t deal with certain things.”
“Black olives,” Dad says, his eyes wide. “You were eating them but then only took nachos from the sides without them.”
Damn, the way her nose crinkles is so fucking cute. “Because black olives are gross on or in things. They’re only good by themselves.”
“Fuck, how did I miss that one?” I ask, pissed at myself. “You did that when we made pizza, too. I didn’t even put it together.”
“Well, you were very annoyed with me at the time.” She puts her feet down and reaches across the table, handing Lil their locket.
“Hey, it’s a nice day. Swim with me before Luca steals you away again,” Lil begs as she wraps the chain around her wrist.
I tug Ari’s chair closer to mine. “What was the bet?” I ask.
Ariana sighs, giving me an apologetic smile. “I thought your mom would stay longer.” Her eyes drop away from mine as she tugs on a bracelet and mumbles, “Even after our thing in the hallway yesterday.”
My brow furrows. “What thing?”
Her shoulders rise and fall quickly. “She said some stuff. I said some stuff.”
“Ari. ”
She huffs and looks up at the sky. “I don’t want to tell you what she said because it’s mean and not true. No one talks about someone I love that way.” Rage builds within me at the thought of my mom upsetting Ariana. My wife sits back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest, frowning deeply. “Especially not your own goddamned mother.”
Some of the anger dissipates. “Me? Fuck, baby. I don’t care what she said about me.”
Her head snaps down, and she glares at me. “I care. She insulted all of us. I let her know that wasn’t cool.”
She chews on the inside of her cheek. Yeah, that’s not the end of the story. “And?”
Pursing her lips, she stares at me for a few seconds before answering. “And that she doesn’t scare me.”
To her credit, she tries to cover her tells. But my girl really does only have a poker face when it comes to poker. Maybe if she was wearing shoes, I would be fooled. But she spreads her toes and then clenches them, the same way I’ve seen her do with her fingers.
“And?”
She rolls her eyes. “Fucking hell. Okay, I might have threatened to kill her. Well, not threatened, precisely. More like insinuated that I could.”
“That’s my girl.” I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and press my lips to hers. Hard. And I keep them there when I ask, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
She pulls back slightly, holding my gaze. “I didn’t want you to know. I was afraid you’d be upset about what she said or how I reacted or… I don’t know, Luca.” Then she pokes me in the chest. “And you didn’t tell me something big, too. So… call it a tie game?” The hopeful smile on her face is adorable. And ridiculous.
“That’s not really the right word.”
“I don’t know, sports are dumb. ”
Dad’s laughter draws my attention. He and Lil are watching us like we’re a daytime soap opera. Lil’s even pretending to eat popcorn.
“Oooo, gimme some!” Ari reaches out and makes grabby hands at Lil, who holds the fake popcorn out to share.
My life is weird. But I wouldn’t change a fucking thing about it.
After lunch, Marco asks me to sit in on the conversation with my dad. If Dad’s going to be a part of the family and the crew, he needs to know about the threat to Ariana.
Which means Marco gives him a much more condensed version of what happened to Ariana. It’s still enough to make my stomach clench and my hands ball into fists.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dad says when Marco’s done. He runs his hand down his face, and I see the resemblance between the two of them for a second. He looks at me, eyes glossy. “That’s why so many men went with to dance class and the grocery store.”
“Yes,” Marco replies. “Things were lax around here for years, but now this asshole’s back, and there’s no way we can let him get to her again.”
“He’ll have to go through me first,” I growl. “He’s not getting his hands on my wife.”
“Luca, that’s what terrifies her.” He holds my gaze across his desk. “She’ll never forgive herself if something happens to you. Any of us, but you especially.”
That panicky feeling is coming on again. The one that makes me need to see Ariana, reassure myself that she’s okay. “Are we any closer to finding him? ”
Marco sighs. “Parker’s working around the clock, but no. Same as before. He’s not using any names we know, printing the photos from a personal printer, and sending the envelopes from three towns over. He’s demanding ten million be wired to him next weekend.”
I suck in a breath. “Ten million? Fuck.”
Marco shrugs, like ten million is chump change. “The money isn’t an issue. Ten million won’t hurt us. But he’ll never stop coming back unless we make him.”
“I’m in,” Dad says. “Whatever I can do. However I can help keep Ariana safe, I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Marco nods. “We’ll discuss this more later, Anthony.”
After we walk out of Marco’s office, Dad stops me with a hand on my arm. “Can we talk for a minute, just you and me?”
As much as I want to get back to my wife, this reconciliation is important. I nod and lead the way to the game room.
“Marco mentioned before that Ariana was bleeding when you met her, and I’m confused about how it works into everything.”
I tell him about that night behind the theater. We still haven’t found evidence that it was connected to Ariana’s biological father, but we’re also still not convinced it wasn’t.
“You knew that night? That you belonged together?” Dad asks.
“I knew she was something special to me, but I couldn’t put the feelings into coherent thoughts at first. It was like I stopped being the Luca I had been before. I became an entirely new Luca that night. She was a shock to my whole system.”
“Did you know about it then? About what happened to her?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not something most people know about, Dad. It’s hard for them to talk about. Ariana is very careful about not letting those scars show. I knew that night she’d been through a lot, that she and Lil are closer than most sisters. ”
“Well, they do seem attached at the hip,” he chuckles.
“Ari, she can’t sleep alone. Not for long, at least. Couldn’t even before that night because of how things were for her before she came here. She and Lil shared a room until she started sleeping in mine, and no, they don’t care if you think it’s weird,” I say with a smirk.
“Well fuck, after everything that girl has been through, it’s a wonder she can sleep at all.”
I send a silent apology to my girl and hope she forgives me for telling Dad more than I maybe should. “She doesn’t always sleep well. The memory acts as a recurring dream sometimes. And she has times when she shuts down. Lil dubbed them hoodie days, and you’ll know one when you see one.”
“So when did you find out about her almost dying?”
“A little over two weeks ago.”
“What did you do when you found out?”
“I cried, drank too much whiskey with Marco, told her I loved her no matter what, and proposed to her the next day.”
“And when you first saw her scars?”
“What’s up with the incredibly personal questions, Dad?”
“Just making sure you’re deserving of that girl. Your mother and I screwed up in a lot of ways raising you.”
“I don’t deserve her. I’ll never deserve her. But I try to be worthy of her every day. The first time she showed me her scars was the night I proposed. I kissed every single one of them, told her how fucking strong, brave, and beautiful she is, then declared my undying love for her again. She hasn’t hidden them from me since then.” We obviously have a sex life. He doesn’t need to know the details of it.
He nods. “Good. You just might be worthy of her one day.”
“You’re my dad, you know. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side of things?” I can’t hold back my grin.
He laughs and claps me on the back. “That girl made you smile when you hardly ever smiled. You laugh now, Luca. A sound I hadn’t heard in a decade. You were a miserable young man, and the fact that Ariana brought you out of that means she’s worthy of you.”
“Unless you have any more awkward and personal questions, I’d like to go find her.”
“I’m sure I have more, but I’ll hold them for now.”
I find her in the kitchen, finishing off a second cup of coffee. Well, I guess it could be a third or fourth cup at this point. Coming up behind her, I lick a drop of saltwater from her neck. She shudders and moans. “Stop that, we’re in the kitchen,” she whispers.
“I fucked you in this kitchen less than a week ago,” I whisper back, right against her ear, and am rewarded with another shudder.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” she purrs, glancing at me over her shoulder and biting her lip.
She shrieks when I toss her over my shoulder and head for the stairs.