Chapter 29
Dario “Dash” Mangiacavallo
Vincent’s property was smaller at only five acres, but the house was huge.
Made out of that metal building stuff, it was two stories tall with four bedrooms, four baths, and four thousand square feet.
The outside a light tan trimmed in black, the inside was modern rustic with a mixture of shiny wood accents and white marble with a faint gray swirl.
Hardwood floors combined with plush, beige carpeting, country style furniture that looked nice but was also cozy, and a minimalist approach to decorations gave the place a warm vibe that had always made it feel like a second home.
Tired of listening to me whine about being trapped in the bed, after a week, he’d come home with a wheelchair. It didn’t help my ego, but at least I wasn’t staring at those same four walls day in and day out. It gave a small sense of freedom.
Sitting under the two story tall easement that would one day hold his RV, I was slouched, my elbows on the arms, my fingers twined over my stomach.
Though he was still in pain, his ribs far from healed, he was hunched over a couple sawhorses, cutting some two by fours.
Apparently, when he first bought the property about a year after getting out of jail, he was told the lot next door would never be sold.
While we were in Georgia, construction crews had shown up, breaking ground to build a new home, so, as soon as he got home from taking Piera to school, Vincent began building a ten foot tall privacy fence. Angrily building.
I pulled a slow breath through my nose and heaved it out the same way, my head tipped to watch.
After that first night here, falling asleep in his arms, he’d pretty much kept his distance, choosing to stay in one of his guest rooms upstairs.
He’d told me some lame excuse about wanting to be near Piera in case she woke up in the middle of the night and got scared, but I knew that was bullshit.
She’d spent the night here many times over her life and knew every inch of this house.
He was avoiding me. Every time we took a step forward and things seemed to smooth out, he did a one eighty and took two backward, erecting a wall between us.
It was becoming a nasty habit that was getting old, fast. Why he was doing it, I wasn’t quite sure.
If anyone should be hesitant about the changes happening between us, it should be me, not him.
After all, he was used to the gayness, I was brand new.
I also wasn’t too sure why it pissed me off as much as it did. Every morning I woke up in that bed alone, however, I got angrier and angrier.
The electric saw whizzed louder as he pulled it away from the wood, then hummed to a stop.
Swiping his forearm across his sweaty brow, he tossed it to the work bench, picked up the slat, and took it to the side opening to lean it against the wall.
Forty down, about four hundred more to go, unfortunately.
If I could, I’d get up and help because this was going to take him forever.
I’d suggested he call on the help of Wads or Einstein, but he’d refused, saying he didn’t want anyone here for a while.
“So, what’s the deal with you?” I blurted, surprising even myself.
He cast a curious glare and shook the saw dust off his sweaty arms. “Huh?”
“Why are you avoiding me?”
A sneaker squeaked on the cement floor with his sudden halt, eyes bulging. The color draining from his face, his Adam’s apple bobbed heavily. “What are you talking about? I’ve been taking care of you every day for over a week.”
“You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about, Vin.”
He huffed and shifted his weight to one leg, his hands on his sides. “Because it’s the right thing to do, Dash.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, we ain’t in danger no more. Jack is dead, the cops ain’t after us, and neither are the Serpents. We’re home now, so everything can go back to normal.”
Scowling, I scoffed and splayed my hands out. “What, exactly, are you implying here?”
He clucked his teeth and went back to the sawhorses, grunting as he hoisted another two by four on the tops.
Hooking the end of his tape measure to one end, he dragged it along the length, plucked the pencil tucked behind his ear, and marked ten feet.
As he released the button to let it automatically roll back into the case, he grumbled, “It means, we ain’t gotta live in death mode no more. ”
“Death mode.”
Aggravated, he threw his arms out so his hands slapped to his sides.
“When we was in Georgia, we had no idea what the hell was gonna happen to us. We lived every day out there like it was our last cuz we had no way of knowing if we could actually get to Jackyl before he got to us. When you think you’re gonna die, you do stupid things. ”
I did a doubletake and my stomach sank. “Stupid things?”
“Yeah, stupid things.”
“Like what, exactly?”
“Like me thinking I was falling for you and you thinking you’d actually wanna be with a man.
You’re a proud homophobe, Dash. Why you think I never told you what I was really about?
Now, all of a sudden, things are different?
Get the fuck outta here, we both know that ain’t true.
We thought there was a good chance we was gonna die and it made us do crazy things. ”
He turned his back to me, picked up the saw, and turned it on, drowning out anything I might have said in response.
Truth was, I had nothing to say. What if he was right?
After all, I was still mourning Mary’s death, and I had gotten turned on watching Violetta and Tyler fucking.
A woman with a beautiful pussy and amazing tits.
I was lonely, missing my wife when everything started with Vincent.
Had we leaned into one another intimately because we were running on adrenaline, trying to survive?
Could our newfound connection be a form of trauma bonding?
Angry with his response, I braced myself for the pain, heaved my weight to my feet, and grunted, shuffling for the house.
By the time I was reaching the door, the saw cut off and he shouted my name, finally realizing I’d left the wheelchair.
Ignoring him, I made my way through the house to the master suite and locked myself in, collapsing to the mattress.
I rested against the headboard and closed my eyelids, my teeth gritted.
He had to be right. Like he said, I was always the first in line to have something snarky to say about gay men. Gay women had never bothered me because who couldn’t use an extra cunt or set of tits? An extra dick, however, and something inside froze with a trace of fear.
Cursing under my breath, I snatched the remote from the nightstand and cut on the television over the armoire. Whatever. He was right, it was best to act like nothing happened. I wasn’t gay and we were back in the real world. It was time to move on from Mary and what happened in Georgia.
As soon as I was strong enough to take care of myself, I was taking Piera on an extended vacation, far away from Alabama, Vincent, and the Serpents. Hell, I might even go back to Italy and never come home.