10. Antonio
“Happy early birthday, bro!” someone says to Frankie.
The two of them exchange a handshake, and Antonio watches while reclining against a red, leather booth. It’s such a hideous shade, like old clay. Honestly, the decor of the entire bowling spot is atrocious.
There are still Christmas-colored light bulbs strung across the gray ceiling, clashing with disco balls and tall, spiky plants on the floor.
Then there’s the arena itself, with purple lanes and orange signage.
Of course a place this bold dares to offer a twenty-eight-dollar salad with a pound of arugula and half a tomato. The owners should be ashamed.
Maybe that’s why Frankie picked here in the first place, to gloat instead of just wanting to “change things up” as he claimed. He rented out six lanes for some employees, college friends and colleagues to enjoy, but Antonio wouldn’t be surprised if his brother’s ulterior motive is to collect compliments for Sogno in comparison.
But Antonio minds his business and looks at his phone.
HAYLEIGH: Hey stranger.
HAYLEIGH: You’ve been in my head lately, but are you interested in being somewhere else?
Well, alright then.
Hayleigh is a fairly low-key woman Antonio met six minutes after turning thirty-one a few months ago. Her group of friends had prepaid for some champagne to toast to the New Year, and it never arrived. They’d caused quite a commotion, and Antonio saw no other choice but to handle it directly. He’d refunded their money and comped a much more expensive bottle. The gesture satisfied her friends, but by then, Hayleigh made it clear she was more intrigued by Antonio. They didn’t end up leaving together that night; she needed to see her very inebriated friends home safely.
A week after that, though, they had a pretty good time.
“Are you even listening to me?” Frankie asks, standing at a short podium with a keyboard.
Antonio ponders his response to Hayleigh. “Nope.”
“I asked what you wanted your player name to be.”
“What kind of question is that?”
“How ‘bout grumpy jerk?”
Antonio’s ears perk and he immediately finds himself wanting a view of the face behind the voice. He hasn’t personally heard from Alex in three weeks, and since he’d only physically been around her for a total of three days, he surely didn’t think he’d have this kind of reaction to being in her presence again. He gets warm in places he didn’t even realize were cold.
The only explanation is that he’s nervous. He’s run out of time.
He debates getting up, but Alex heads for Frankie first, handing over a hug and birthday wishes. Her hair is no longer in braids, but in a shoulder-length, fluffy, wavy style. Antonio can’t help but wonder if it smells the same.
She has on leggings, with the middle of her green t-shirt tucked into the waistband underneath a bomber jacket that looks very similar to the one lying on his left side.
Alex walks over to him with a smile, and he unconsciously reflects one back. She sits next to him, far enough away that the space between them feels harmless, but close enough that they could touch each other with the right angling, and for Antonio to get a whiff of the sweet scent of her hair.
“You ready to get your ass beat?”
“What?”
Alex cackles and points to the scoreboard, where it now says, “KingFrank”, “LadyLush”, “GrumpyJerk”, and “KoalaKrshr”.
Antonio rolls his eyes and sets his phone on the table in front of them. “Are you kidding me, right now? What the hell does yours even say?”
“Koala Krusher! You can only do ten characters, though. Had to abbreviate.”
“Alex.” He can tell by the look on her face that she’s expecting him to burst her bubble. But… “If you’re gonna pick a name like that, you should really be sure you can back it up, don’t you think?”
Alex grins harder and rubs her hands together. “Oh, I can, Antonio Moretti. I can.”
Frankie comes over from the podium. “Hey, Al, you seen Yuna?”
“Thanks for reminding me. She’s at the bar getting shots. I told her I’d drop my bag off and be right back.” Alex takes off her jacket and leaves the lane, reminding Antonio of her enticing back view.
Then he shakes his head quickly and looks at his brother. “Al? Frankie—”
“Sorry. Yu calls her that, and it just caught on. But look, I’m trying to help you out, alright?”
“How?”
Frankie looks beyond the booth and lowers his voice. “It’s not gonna get any easier to tell her.”
“It definitely won’t if you and your fianceé keep inviting her to hang out like everything’s fine.”
“You’re the one who let almost a month go by!”
“Maybe because I wanted to let her have some peace? She spent the last eight years of her life being miserable. I was supposed to add to that?”
Frankie sighs. “Alright, Tony.”
Thirty days.
That’s how long Antonio planned on waiting to tell Alex the truth. A Komarov-free, Moretti-free thirty days. It’s been twenty-six, and Antonio’s tempted to reset the clock, but now that she and Yuna are fast friends, he doubts that much time will pass again.
In the ensuing silence, he remembers he never responded to Hayleigh. He politely declines her request—well, as politely as he can let down someone who outright asked to hook up.
The ladies return from the bar holding two glasses each, one with brown liquor, and the other with clear.
Alex takes her seat beside Antonio again, just a little closer than before. She hands him a brown glass. “This is the drink of the businessman, right? Whiskey? Neat?”
Antonio snorts. “I don’t know about that, but it is mine. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He nods at her glass. “What do you have?”
“Vodka.”
“Hm.”
“Oh, my God. No. No hm’s, tonight, okay?”
“It was just an ‘oh, okay, the woman likes vodka’ kind of hm. That’s all.”
“If you say so.”
Antonio rubs his thumb around his glass. “So, how have you been? Now that things are different?”
Alex blinks quickly, as if she’s a bit startled by the question. “Oh, uh…good. Great, maybe? I still find myself thinking it’s all a dream sometimes. How about you? Ivan’s left you alone?”
“Yeah, far as we can tell.”
“Good.” She picks up a menu.
“Don’t bother,” Antonio says. “You’d be better off getting pizza from down the street. I probably will.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“You two ready?” Frankie asks. And thank goodness Frankie asked.
The strikes and thwacks have already started on the other five lanes, as the ninety-minute rental period began nearly twenty minutes ago. So, surely not a time for chit-chat about pizza.
Frankie lifts a yellow ball from the return rack and positions himself to make a throw.
“Don’t choke, babe!” Yuna yells, just as he swings his arm forward.
His toss nets him eight pins, but he still turns with a scowl. “Is that how it’s gonna be? What do you think, Tony? Boys versus girls?
“It would be my pleasure.”
“Hold on,” Yuna says. “There’s gotta be stakes.” She rubs her fingertips together. “I want a kid-free weekend before summer begins.”
“That works for me,” Frankie says. “But what about those two?”
A time machine would be great. If Antonio could jump past the point when he tells Alex everything, that would make life a lot easier. “I…don’t know.”
“Booo, Moretti,” Yuna jeers, now palming a silver ball at the return system. “Pick something.”
“I really don’t—”
“Loser buys the pizza,” Alex offers.
Antonio lets out a short laugh, the relief he experiences feeling contrastingly overwhelming. “Yeah, okay.”
Yuna and Frankie swap sly looks.
Turns out, though, it didn’t really matter what Antonio picked. Koala Krusher lives up to her name. She’s beating him 77-39 by the end of the fifth frame. Frankie is doing a little better, but they’re losing overall.
It’s so embarrassing, that while Alex is looking in another direction, Antonio actually steals her ball (a green-marbled, nine-pounder) and hides it in the pot of one of the spiky plants nearby.
“Antonio Moretti, you cheater!” she yaps, after finding it.
Antonio rests his arm along the back of the booth. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Alex knocks down all her pins within her two tries, and then comes to sit by him, pressing her thigh against his. “I should’ve known you’d be a sore loser.”
“Can’t be one when I haven’t lost.”
Alex laughs. “Optimism is a weird look on you.”
Weird, and ineffective, it seems. The final combined score is 368-317.
Yuna whoops. “In your faces, Morettis! Victory shot, Al?”
“Absolutely.” Alex uses Antonio’s thigh to help her stand, and she follows after Yuna.
Frankie has an annoyingly smug face on. “And now you two are about to go get pizza. Aw, man. This is great.”
It’s so typical he finds Antonio’s predicament amusing. Frankie has always been able to see a glass as half-full because Antonio made sure he could. Ever since they were kids. Antonio was the one who held Donny’s attention, so Frankie had an actual childhood. Antonio was the one who got his hands dirty, and Frankie got to have a squeaky clean business. And Antonio takes on the burden of their family’s darkest secrets, so Frankie gets to joke about pizza.
“I’ll see you later.” Antonio gathers his and Alex’s belongings and meets her at the bar. “You ready?”
She looks at her purse and jacket in his hands. “Oh! Uh, yeah, okay.”
Yuna appears just as confused, but gives Alex a hug. “Bye, babe.”
Antonio and Alex head to the exit, leaving the party behind, though outside is just as lively with people enjoying their Saturday night. Antonio leads at first, but smoothly maneuvers Alex ahead of him as the crowd grows. He keeps a hand on her back until they reach the small pizza shop.
There’s a trace of marijuana in the air, but then it blends with tangy sauce and garlic powder. There are also way too many people in line, and if Antonio were by himself, he would have turned around fifty feet ago. But a bet’s a bet.
Luckily, the line moves steadily. In the meantime, Alex drags Antonio into talking about something he never thought would be a regular topic of conversation for him.
She really is such a nerd.
“It figures,” she mumbles, zipping up her jacket.
Antonio draws his brows together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There are only two kinds of people who pick prime-Sasuke over prime-Naruto.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
“The first is someone who has been a fan since the beginning because of his looks. I’m assuming that’s not you.”
He sucks his teeth.
“And the second, is a psychopath.”
Antonio laughs deeply. “What the hell.”
“I’m joking. But also, kinda serious.”
“He is undoubtedly one of the most powerful ninjas by the end of the whole thing.”
“Exactly. One of. We’re talking about who was better. It’s Naruto. Plus, Sasuke was a jerk to everyone. I get that finding out the truth about his family was wild as fuck. Still, he had so many people trying to help him, and he rejected it. The good help, anyway.”
“I don’t know about so many. But he didn’t trust anybody. Honestly, he was kinda right not to, don’t you think?”
Alex shrugs. “I think it just goes to show how our lives can take different paths based on the choices we make. Naruto had every reason to turn his back on his village, too, and he didn’t.”
“He also subscribed to the delusion that the power of friendship would always prevail.”
“It’s not delusion. He understood that strength didn’t just come from raw power. Selfishness makes you short-sighted and more susceptible to corruption.”
“I don’t remember signing up for a lecture,” Antonio says, and he realizes it may have come out more curt than he intended, as Alex toys with her ear.
“Sorry.” She avoids his gaze and doesn’t say anything else, but her silence doesn’t last for long. As they step closer and closer towards the front of the line, some song about a sunflower playing within the pizza shop becomes more distinct, erasing any trace of awkwardness she displayed. Alex sings every word and rift as if she wrote them.
Antonio realizes this must be the Alex who was trapped in that lamp.
“Can I get a slice with olives, please?” she asks, once they finally reach the register.
Antonio’s eyes balloon. “Olives?”
“Let me guess, Meat Lovers for you?”
“Just pepperoni, as life intended.”
Alex smirks while Antonio pays, and the cashier directs them to the side for pickup. An industrial oven opens and shuts, teasing them with the bubbling cheese of the orders ahead of them. Three openings later, they receive theirs on shallow paper plates.
Alex takes a bite before they even leave the shop. “Mmmm, you were right. I would have been so mad if I’d spent twelve dollars on fries with aioli ketchup.”
“Told you. Where’d you park?”
“Three blocks in the opposite direction. Back towards the bowling place. I should have just spent the money on a ride. I hate driving downtown.”
“Downtown…on the highway, where else?”
She lets out one of her cute laughs. Not the hyena one. “Honestly? Everywhere. I can’t wait until teleportation is a thing.”
They head off in the direction of her car. Walking, talking, and eating is quite a project for Alex, so the start of the trek is a silent one. Antonio moves her to the inside of the pavement, though. They finish their slices by the middle of the second block, and Alex takes some hand sanitizer from her purse and squirts some in their palms.
“Hey, umm…would you wanna maybe hang out, again, sometime? Just us?” she asks, looking straight ahead.
Aw, fuck. Antonio struggles to say something. “We…can’t. We can’t.”
“Oh.” Alex laughs sadly. “Okie dokie. I guess I misread the…”
“Alex, I—”
Alex stops walking and faces him. “Antonio, it’s fine. I’m a big girl. I can handle hearing no.”
His guilt coaxes out a fragmented truth.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
She scoffs faintly. “What, you secretly married or something?”
Antonio shakes his head.
“Kids?”
“None.”
Alex gasps. “Is it about Ivan?”
Antonio can’t answer as quickly for that one, remembering she doesn’t know about the money he forked over to fulfill her debt.
“It is, isn’t it? I always thought things went way too easy.”
“I…that’s not—”
“What?”
He rubs his forehead.
“Antonio!”
“Can I please get you to your car, first?”
Alex glowers and stomps off. Antonio can hear her breathing the entire time, and he doesn’t think it’s just because they’re walking again. This is the most enraged he’s seen her, zigzagging between passersby and even leaving him behind at the final crosswalk with three seconds on the timer.
When he arrives at her car, she’s leaning against the passenger door, still fuming.
“How are you this upset before I even told you anything?”
Alex unfolds her arms. “Because I’m tired of feeling like I’m not in control of my life, Antonio. So, please—just tell me what’s going on.”
Antonio runs his hands through his hair and peers at his reflection in the car window. “You were right. About the list. It wasn’t enough.”
“Then what else did he want?”
“The drive only covered five hundred thousand. That means you were still short two million.”
“Antonio.” Alex covers her mouth with her hands.
“It’s fine. It’s taken care of. I promise.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
Antonio travels back to that night he’d claimed to be open to answering all her questions. He’d wanted to tell Alex everything then, as evidenced by his feet carrying him to that “super secret spot”. Maybe because subconsciously, he thought bringing her there would make it easy to tell her the truth. It didn’t.
He doesn’t want to keep her in the dark much longer.
“Because. You and I…our families… We have a long, complicated history.”
“Bullshit. Why would my dad act like he never met you before?”
“It’s not the Agneaus I’m talking about. It’s the Foxes. But we shouldn’t” —Antonio looks up and down the block— “have this conversation here. Can I come see you tomorrow?”
Alex unloads a massive breath. “Okay. But it has to be later. I have something to do in the morning.”
“Okay.”
They walk around to the driver’s side and Antonio opens the door. Things are wordlessly somber as Alex settles in the car. She immediately pulls off once Antonio is back on the pavement.
As he travels back to his own vehicle, he passes a hole-in-the-wall playing that song about the sunflower.