Chapter 8
chapter eight
Mateo
I had an inkling of how badly Frankie was going to fuck me by up and leaving Florida with Ophelia. Logistically, letting my co-owner and only employee quit without a proper two-week notice was going to leave me in the doghouse as far as my clients and my sanity were concerned no matter what. And no, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. As a matter of fact, in the end, I had been the one to kick him in the ass and drive him to the airport to go chasing her onto her flight—and I would do it a thousand times over. That didn’t mean in the back of my mind I didn’t know how much backwork and scrambling was going to be needed to replace him.
Pike and I as partners were a well-oiled machine. We’d been that way since Delta. I called the shots and he was the driver—or the pilot in our case. TechOps was more of the same. I did the clerical shit, marketed the business, talked my talk, and then showed up with Pike and he operated the mechanics.
I’d spent two weeks interviewing potential replacements for him and gotten a revolving door of newly graduated frat boys with not a dollop of cybersecurity experience or eagerness to learn a new skill. I had no problem training someone—software was software—but I would never let fresh meat go out on their own and risk tainting the name I built without proper guidance. I was proud of the things I’d accomplished in life. The military, TechOps, our cam business, Natalia. But what I couldn’t train was uninspired , unwilling , or unmotivated .
The radio in my car mumbled a rock song as I idled in the parking lot on my first and only break of the day. Losing track of time at work meant lonely meals at three in the afternoon and calling Frankie to fill that void with complaints.
“They’re a bunch of do-nothings, Pike.” I balanced my phone on the dashboard and unzipped the lunchbox on my lap. The first thing I noticed was the napkin folded at the top and covered in Sharpie. Made with love, from your momma xo.
“You gotta hire someone,” Pike said. “Pick the one you dislike the least.”
I quickly crumpled the love note napkin in a ball and tossed it in my center console. “The one I dislike the least has a fucking mullet. It’s 2024, and the kid looks like he’s gonna break out in a dance number with his buddies on the top of his high school bleachers.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s about integrity.” I opened a food container filled with short stalks of celery, all lathered through the middle with peanut butter and dotted with raisins. I closed the container. “What other rash and unintelligent decisions are you making when you already have a mullet?”
“What other choice do you have?”
My head dropped back against the headrest with a thud. “I had two interviews, a new client consultation, and three installations already today. My mother has called me twice to tell me she found eggplant on sale, the second time because she forgot she told me the first time. Last night I fucked Tally wearing a tail and covered in blue paint that stained my balls on top of all that, oh yeah, we’re planning a fucking wedding!”
“I want to know less things about you.”
“Too bad.” I dug into a plastic sandwich baggie and pulled out one corner of a ham and cheese that had been cut in four. I shoved the entire piece into my mouth. “You’re my best man. It’s par for the course.”
“I meant to tell you, I adore these cute little groomsmen boxes you sent us.”
“Fuck off, you know I had nothing to do with that.” Tally wouldn’t take no for an answer. Even when I explained that men don’t need the same fanfare and a group text with a date and a time would do just fine to get my four groomsmen to the altar when they needed to be there. She took the liberty upon herself anyway, and I’m too smart a man to fight her.
“Particularly the ‘I couldn’t tie the knot without you’ tie. Very punny, man.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Tally is very creative. I agree. The girls got the same ritzy bedazzled bullshit with hair ties and wine glasses.”
“Nah, this has you written all over it,” Frankie said. “The rest of the guys loved it, Cap. Don’t worry.”
“Right, I’m sure they’re not all dying to hold it over my head for the rest of my life, too. When you guys get married, you’ll see. And I’m going to be the first fucker in the group text to say I told you so.”
“Hold that thought.”
“No, come on. I’m trying to enjoy my lunch here?—”
The line cut out and I sighed at the screen. I ate one more quarter of a sandwich before a message came in from Frankie to all my groomsmen. Angelo, Tyler—aka, Echo—and his brother Sam, who we called Wink.
Pike
I just wanted to thank Cap for these tastefully put-together groomsmen gifts, and say I will be there to tie your knot anytime, brother.
Me
You’re a dickhead
Wink
I’m pouring one of these little nibs of alcohol out for you to mourn the loss of your sack
Pike
I personally will be drinking all the tiny bottles of alcohol
Echo
There’s shit inside this box? I’ve been using it as a Squatty Potty.
Me
Fuck every single one of you, from the bottom of my heart
Angelo
I haven’t checked the mail since Mom and Dad left. What am I looking for?
Me
You should probably check the mail before USPS sends someone to the house for a wellness check
Pike
There’s beef jerky and Jameson in it
Wink
Mine had a handwritten love letter with a lipstick kiss
Me
In your fucking dreams
Echo
Don’t get testy, Cap, it's very thoughtful and not at all homoerotic to send your friends presents. Also am I the only one who got a vibrating cock ring?
Me
Tally put a lot of time into those and I’m gonna tell her you fucks are making fun of them
Pike
We love Tally
Echo
Tally is the best
Wink
An angel
Angelo
What they said
I tossed my phone in the passenger seat and stared out the windshield. A sprinkle of rain began dotting the glass and leaving lazy rivulets of water behind despite blue skies.
Tally and I got engaged over Christmas and it was like it set a ticking time bomb for the inevitable conversation with my brother. The one where I told him that my best man was actually Pike. To be fair it wasn’t only him I was being a pussy about relaying that information to. I was more terrified of my mother’s reaction.
Angelo’s response was a toss-up. He could either care too much or not at all, and I wasn’t proud to say I had no clue which side of that coin was going to hit the pavement.
I came back home from deployment after four years on and off in the Middle East and the punky kid who was always snooping around my bedroom and sneaking into parties on my coattails had gone from a well-intentioned nuisance to a full-on public disturbance. Drinking, smoking, stealing my parents’ car and totaling it when he forgot to put the parking brake on and it rolled into the fucking Hudson. His actions were inconsequential, because like he always said, he wasn’t going to college anyway, and Dad couldn’t fire his own kid.
Nobody ever expected him to be better. There was a part of me that thought my decision to go into the military cemented my brother’s fate. Mom and Dad were forced to let me go, so they were holding on to Angelo for dear life. Anything he did was naught compared to me leaving and starting a life in a new place where they weren’t a part of it twenty-four-seven. I was the one who got the guilt trips and the sad phone calls, the when are you coming to visit’s and the you wouldn’t even recognize us anymore’s .
He and I had grown apart, and I was worried that choosing him as a best man out of obligation to my parents was a recipe for disaster. The Angelo I knew wasn’t responsible enough for the task, and his inability to step up to the plate didn’t only affect me, it affected Tally and our entire wedding, too.
There was no use putting it off. I picked my phone back up off the seat and called my brother. The line rang twice before he answered.
"Ayo."
"Hey brother, get you at a bad time?" I could hear the click of a lighter and a drag of breath, almost see the bright red burn at the end of a Marlboro. A terrible habit that he couldn’t seem to kick even twelve years later and after my mother begged him to. Eventually she gave up trying.
"Almost done for the day on a jobsite.”
"Are you ever gonna quit those?"
"It's this or drinking myself to death." There was a smile in his voice.
"You're sober?"
“No.” He coughed out a laugh. “Fuck no.”
“How's business?"
Angelo was quiet for long enough that I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure the call was still connected.
“Something wrong, Matty?” he eventually asked.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you're calling me. You don't ever call me. And it's the middle of a work day. Let me guess, Mom and Dad finally got to you. How far are you from the ledge right now? Do I need to call someone?"
It was my turn to laugh. "How'd you know?"
“Between us, these last couple weeks have been the most peaceful of my entire life. I hope they don’t come back.”
“It’s the constant hovering. Dad walks around here in his underwear in the morning and I have to keep Natalia in the bedroom until the coast is clear to save her the torment. That's what I'm working with. Like we're guests in our own home."
"I stay in the basement. Unless I smell food."
"I know it was always like this, but it’s like quitting something cold turkey and then diving right back in with no warm-up."
Angelo was walking outside; the familiar sound of beeping cars and distant city sirens followed his heavy steps. "They haven't changed. You have."
My throat contracted around some invisible rock as I swallowed the urge to hang up the phone. "Hey, listen. The real reason I called was because I haven't had a chance to talk to you about the wedding. This is important, so just hear me out. You know that you and Frankie are both my brothers. He and I spent a lot of time together in Delta, and we've been through some shit I couldn't even explain to someone who's never been there. Then we were living together until a month ago, so we’re as close as it gets. You're my blood, you're everything to me, but I figured with the time commitment and the distance, plus you being busy with Duran everyone loves Frankie. How could you not? Believe me, I get it.”
"You do?"
"You’re making the right choice.”
Guilt flushed over me, head to toe. My fingers tightened around my cellphone. He was supposed to be giving me a hard time. I had prepared my body for a fight. Now all this energy was whizzing in a circle with no outlet and the stress I’d anticipated was humming beside it.
"Are you sure you're not sober?" I asked.
"I still live in the basement of my parents’ house in the Bronx."
"Good point. I just thought this conversation was going to go differently,” I admitted. “You’re very relaxed in comparison.”
"I don’t know the first thing about weddings, and I’m terrible at public speaking. To be honest, being the best man sounds like a nightmare," he said. "Don’t feel bad about it, Matty. I’m just happy you finally called. I missed your girly voice.”
I might have changed, but Angelo was exactly the same. Where maturity was concerned at least. He loved cracking a joke at my expense, or whenever the conversation got too serious. "I’m sorry it took so long." I paused. "Love you, man."
"Love you, too." Angelo sniffed. "Yeah, all right."
"I’ll talk to you soon."
"Later."
Mom and Dad couldn’t hold this against me if Angelo wasn’t upset about it, even though they might try. I could rest easier knowing I had one less thing on my plate after that phone call. That didn’t mean putting my brother in a house full of Russos in Vegas was going to be easy, but it did mean he wasn’t coming into it with a chip on his shoulder.
More pressingly now was TechOps. If Tally saw me crack under the pressure of keeping it afloat by myself she would drop everything to help me, and I couldn’t let that happen. She had too much to deal with, and I didn’t need to add to that. I needed to be her anchor right now. That wouldn’t work if I had to worry about training a newbie to pick up Pike’s work and prove that I could trust them. Being a perfectionist was a blessing and a curse, and if I was going to end up doing all the work anyway, I might as well just do it by myself.
It would be my little secret. My burden to bear.