24. Rico #2
It’s hard to say which option sounds worse—spending Sunday with my wife or dealing with Mama after Dom tattles.
Both feel like medieval torture, though Mama might actually be more fatal.
Then again, my wife was a mafia princess.
She probably has a burial site picked out.
How the hell did I end up in a situation where both my mother and my bride qualify as threats to my existence?
Defeated, I power down my system while my brothers hover like vultures, making sure I don’t escape through the vents.
Dom even walks me to my car, displaying his best protective chaperon side.
If he tries to buckle my seatbelt, I will crack his nose.
Mercifully, he stops at the curb, watching me get in the car, then as I drive off.
I wouldn’t put it past him to tail me to make sure I go home.
Joke’s on them. I sent the latest security logs to my home server before they even reached my office.
Let them celebrate their imaginary win. I’ll “spend time” with my wife the same way I spend time with my tax documents—stored neatly in the same location, occasionally glanced at out of obligation, and otherwise ignored unless there's an audit. We’ll share the same three-thousand-square-foot structure while I barricade myself in my home office like a ghost with Wi-Fi. Quality time and all that.
I pull into the garage at noon. Noon. On a Sunday.
Normally, I’d stay at the office until four, then head straight to my parents' estate for dinner.
Not playing house like some domesticated Labrador.
But here I am—living proof that marriage turns even the most rational men into pathetic ones known as husbands.
The Lexus I bought for Vinnie to chauffeur Allie is gone.
I know she’s been shopping all morning, just like I told her.
My phone buzzed every hour with purchase notifications—Chanel, Bloomingdale’s, some furniture store I’ve never heard of.
No texts, though. Which, frankly, feels like a success.
Maybe retail therapy is the key to a quiet life since my house is officially empty.
I almost whip out my phone to gloat—Look, brothers, your grand intervention was a waste of time because my wife isn’t even home. But then I spot the coffee pot.
A blue, crinkled Post-it. My contribution to the required "daily fact" she ordered. I figured if I had to play the game, I’d at least weaponize the rules.
But now there's writing on the back, in neat, defiant cursive: I will make grilled cheese on a Wednesday because mid-week cheese just hits better.
Cute. In the same way a toddler throwing a tantrum is adorable—loud, unreasonable, and mildly entertaining if you’re not the one responsible for cleanup.
Instead of heading straight to my home office, I detour to the bathroom, peeling off the remnants of the day. The shower is scalding, precisely how I like it—hot enough to burn away the evidence of a wedding I didn’t want and a reality I’m actively ignoring.
Once I’m clean, I remake the bed, pulling the duvet taut—none of this loose thrown over bullshit my wife does, apparently. I’m just pleased we won’t be sharing a room.
Back in my office, the monitors flicker to life, drowning me in code and numbers.
It’s not until the unmistakable scent of seared meat and garlic curls into the room, insidious and impossible to ignore, that I realize I’ve been sitting here for hours.
I flick the cover off my watch. Almost seven.
I hadn’t bothered checking the security feed or listening for the garage door.
Noise-canceling headphones—the only true marriage I believe in.
But now I look. Lexus in the garage. My darling wife is home, apparently channeling her frustration into culinary pursuits. Good. Maybe she’ll burn off that sharp tongue while she’s at it.
I stand, stretching until my spine cracks, and wander toward the kitchen.
I stop just short of the threshold. Allie’s at the stove, her back to me, stirring something that smells like it might actually be edible.
But it’s not the food that grabs my attention—it’s the denim.
Skin-tight, curve-hugging, crime-against-my-self-control jeans.
Jesus Christ.
I’m a man. Not a monk. And the way those jeans cling to her hips, framing an ass that looks like a particularly vindictive god sculpted it, is testing every ounce of my restraint.
The urge to leave teeth marks along the seam is alarming.
I don’t bite. I’ve never wanted to bite.
But here I am, contemplating property damage because my wife decided to weaponize Levi’s.
She turns, catching me mid-ogling. Her grin? Pure sin. I’m fucked. “Oh, look who’s emerged from his cave. Here to share dinner with me, or just lurking for sport?”
The arrogance in her voice is a slap and a caress all at once. My cock twitches. Annoying. Unacceptable. And yet, does it anyway.
I don’t dignify her sass with a response, just nod and step into the kitchen, ignoring how the aroma seems to bypass my nose and swirl around in my stomach, which is itching for something substantial to fill it.
I could say it smells good—hell, it smells like the closest thing to heaven I’ll ever experience without a DNR on file—but compliments are a slippery slope.
Hand one out, and suddenly people fish for more.
Best to set the expectation early: silence is golden.
Still, my stomach growls loud enough to betray me. I clamp my jaw shut, mentally willing it to shut the hell up.
While she plates the food, I glance around.
No plates on the island. No quick, transactional dinner at the counter, like civilized strangers.
Instead, there’s a recent addition to the house: a long wooden dining table, the kind you see in luxury catalogs labeled Rustic Chic with a price tag that could fund a small revolution.
It’s set for two. One setting at the head, the other directly to its right.
Close. Intimate. Smack in the middle of my personal space. I detest it already.
Clever. She didn’t just buy a table; she bought herself a battleground.
My gaze drifts back to her. She’s wiping her hands on a towel, watching me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. Which is problematic, considering half my thoughts involve bending her over said table at the moment.
“I figured we should eat like ordinary people. Unless you prefer to hover in doorways and silently criticize me. You seem proficient at that.”
Touché, thief. Touché.
“It’ll be ready in five minutes.” Allie stirs something in the pan, wholly at ease in my kitchen. Like she didn’t just move in twenty-four hours ago and start rearranging my life one overpriced dining room from hell at a time.
I glance away from her to the wall and freeze.
A clock. Massive, rusty-ass clock, the size of a manhole cover, tick, tick, ticking like a countdown to my imminent mental breakdown.
It looks like it was salvaged from the Titanic and sold to suckers who mistake corrosion for character.
People actually pay thousands for this crap? Evidently, I married one.
My eyes shift to the center of the table, and I nearly choke.
Tulips. Lively, cheerful, fresh. It’s not enough that my wedding looked like a flower shop vomited all over it; now my house is hosting a botanical funeral.
Those petals are already wilting, dying a slow, tragic death under the weight of their own beauty.
I grind my molars, forcing myself not to comment. Maybe if I stand here long enough, the furniture will vaporize. Or I will. Either works.
“Can you be useful and grab the wine from the fridge?” Allie doesn’t even glance at me, like delegating tasks to her husband is already second nature. Domestic tyranny, established in record time, no less.
Wine fridge? I own a wine fridge? When the hell did I buy that?
I drink scotch or whiskey. Straight. No pretentious swirling, sniffing, or notes of blackberry and oak.
The fridge is built into the center island, who knew, inconveniently, between me and my wife’s delicious ripe ass.
Even I can’t deny reality when it’s standing right in front of me in skintight jeans.
I opt for the long route around the island, avoiding the temptation to admire the view. Leaning down, I open the fridge and find several bottles neatly arranged like she’s been organizing this invasion for months instead of the literal hours she's been in residence.
“The merlot,” she says, still not bothering to glance my way.
Nothing says celebrating a sham marriage like drinking a wine named after misery itself. I grab the bottle and drop it onto the island with a dull thud, stepping back as she turns from the stove.
“Glasses too.”
Glasses. Right. I don’t own wine glasses. I barely own plates. Owned plates, singular. One of everything—plate, bowl, fork. But now? The table’s set like we’re hosting a dinner party for two, complete with place mats and cloth napkins. Cloth. Napkins. Is this what hell looks like?
She flicks a finger toward the cabinet next to the wine fridge, like she expected my ineptitude. Sure enough, rows of red and white wine glasses line the shelves. Because apparently, drinking wine out of the wrong glass is a crime.
I grab two glasses and the bottle, hauling them to the table like they weigh more than the existential dread settling between my shoulder blades.
Every step feels like I’m trudging toward domestic damnation.
It’s been twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours, and I’m already setting the dinner table like some housebroken husband who forgot what freedom tastes like.
What’s next? Weekend farmers’ markets? Couples’ cooking classes? Matching Christmas pajamas?
If I look like Alex or Dom—smiling, comfortable, content—I’ll throw myself off the roof of our downtown office building. It’s only forty floors.