Chapter 23
MATTEO
It’s been one helluva crazy day. From getting the email summons from the old man, to hearing him thank us, numerous times, and then to this.
Kissing Elizabeth in Central Park as if we've been together for years. We walk around, holding hands, watching the world go by, and occasionally, I pull her into me and we kiss again.
But every now, in the distant corners of my mind, an uneasy thought surfaces.
What am I doing?
This is not me.
It's not only that she works for me, that the old man hired her, but, I like having control. I like boundaries between work and home. I don’t like blurred lines. I like everything to be neatly contained because I don’t want to live a life which is in danger of spiraling out of control.
I’ve already had the trauma of that as a child when the old man shattered our illusion of a happy family and the dirty secrets came out.
I know what it did to Mama. What it did to us, that feeling of displacement when we had to move from Italy to America and leave our friends and everything we knew behind.
I promised myself I’d never let anyone do that to me again.
But then Elizabeth says something, or loops her arm through mine and snuggles against me, and my heart starts to race again, in a good way.
A rush of energy rips through me, leaving me feeling wired, and weightless, and incapable of thinking about anything except her.
I'm not used to needing someone. I’m not used to softness and strength from others, comforting me. But maybe that's why we click together. We're similar in so many ways.
It’s October, and the air is cool but not cold yet.
The hours pass by in a blur and the evening starts to draw in.
The air smells like leaves and street food and taxis.
It’s just after seven and the park lights glow softly along the paths.
People are still walking dogs, and jogging.
Couples are still sitting on benches, and tourists are still taking photos.
It's busy, but calm. Just like my mind, filled with so many things I need to take care of, and yet, I’m not feeling anxious.
“Hey.” Elizabeth squeezes my hand, and I realize I've gone silent, getting lost in my own thoughts. We're sitting on a park bench watching the world go by.
“Hey.” I squeeze her hand in return.
“Your thoughts.” She looks at me expectantly.
I turn away from her, stare at the ground for a moment, not wanting to go over old ground, but it’s been gnawing away at me. “I'm still thinking about that kidney I might have to donate.”
“You really don’t want to?”
“I don’t like the man.” It's the truth. An ugly truth, but there it is. I turn to face her. “You've met him. You know what he's like.” Except, I'm not sure she does, entirely. She's not seen the parts of him we all know.
“I can see that you don't get on, but ...” she hesitates, “... you have a father, Matteo. You have a family. You don't know how lucky you are.”
She sees another side to this, and she's seeing it through rose-tinted glasses. She'd give anything to have a family. A mother. A father. Siblings.
“It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, believe me.”
“I know, but you could save his life,” she says, just when I think about giving her another kiss.
“I’m not sure I want to. I’m not sure he has a life worth saving.” I sit back.
She shakes her head like she didn’t like that. “Don’t say that.”
She's so eager for me to do the right thing.
Maybe it's my judgment that's clouded. I turn to her again. There's a sadness in her eyes, that makes me flinch. She feels it so deeply, but that’s only because she doesn’t know what the old man is really like.
She has no idea. She doesn't know him, or what he's capable of.
And right now, I don't want to talk about him.
She pauses, reflecting on my words. “Your father does seem harsh,” she says, carefully, “but sometimes, you just have to do the right thing, even if it doesn't feel like the right thing to you. It's the right thing morally, to save your father's life if you have the chance to.”
“There are things you don't know about my father, about how screwed up we all are.”
“No,” she says softly, inching away from me. “I don’t. And I don’t believe for a second that you’re screwed up. Not too much. Your brother, Enzo, he seemed quite normal to me.”
I chuckle. “He is, I think. I’m not sure.” I consider her words. “Maybe you're right. If I can save his life, maybe I should think about it.”
I realize in that moment that I need to see Mama. She knows about the old man’s health issues, but she doesn't know that I could be about to donate my kidney to save the life of the man she despises.
“Dinner,” I say, desperate to change the subject.
“Dinner sounds good.” Elizabeth looks at me. “Now that you mention it, I'm starving.”
We stand, and walk along, arms linked as I try to think of a nice place to take her. “What about Akira?”
“Who’s she?”
I try to suppress my smile. She’s so cute. “It’s a new Japanese place, near the Hudson. Shall we go there?”
“Never heard of it.” She whips out her cell phone and looks it up. Then chokes. “What?”
She doesn’t like it. “If you don’t like Japanese food—”
“Not at those prices!” She stops, and stares at me, shaking her head. “You don't have to impress me, Matteo. I don't need to be wined and dined.”
“I'm not trying to wine and dine you—”
“I'd be happy sitting in the park eating a hotdog.”
A pedicab rolls past us at that exact moment, strings of tiny lights wrapped around its canopy.
“I have a better idea.” I raise my hand, catching the driver's eye. He immediately brakes.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth says when she sees it. She starts laughing.
“Oh yes.”
A few minutes later we're sitting side by side beneath a blanket in the back of the pedicab while the driver pedals us through the park. The lamps flicker on one by one.
“Like it?” I say, turning to her. Surprise knocks the wind out of me when I catch her looking up at me like she's forgotten the rest of the world exists.
“I ...” she starts to say, but I don't let her finish. I bend down and capture her lips with mine.
She moans softly against my mouth, and now that we're sitting, slightly shielded, feeling like we have a tiny piece of privacy, our kiss deepens, turning hotter with every passing second.
My cock strains against my boxer briefs.
When we come up for air, my hand rests on her thighs, and I stop, then look down. “Is that a belt or a skirt?”
“A mini skirt,” she says, turning all coy. “Like it?”
I answer her with another kiss, my tongue exploring her sweet mouth. Her fingers slide into my hair, curling gently at the nape. We both start breathing harder than we should be and when we pull apart, her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes shiny.
We sit in silence, holding hands, trying to regulate our breathing.
“Hotdogs?” I ask Elizabeth.
“Yes please.”
I tell the driver to head towards a hot-dog cart and a short while later, he stops beside one. Elizabeth practically jumps out and I follow. We return later carrying hot dogs loaded with mustard.
“You know,” she says, climbing back into the pedicab, “this probably cost less than one of the appetizers at your fancy restaurant.”
“Probably.”
The driver sets off again and we eat as the pedicab rolls through the winding pathways beneath the trees. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I devoured this.
“I could do with another one,” Elizabeth says, having devoured hers quickly. I wipe a dot of mustard off her lower lip. I start to tell the driver to head back to the cart, when she stops me.
“Probably not a good idea to have a second one. I'll be too full then.”
We sit back, holding hands again.
“I wouldn't mind another kiss, though,” she whispers.
Naturally, I oblige. Our mouths crash together and the kiss turns fevered, our tongues fighting for dominance.
Heat courses through my veins, my dick is uncomfortably harder than ever, and my testosterone gets the better of me when I find myself palming her breast, under her jacket but over her sweater.
I immediately pull back. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She stares straight ahead and puts her hand deliberately over the hard line of my jeans.
I cry out because it's unexpected, the way her touch shoots straight through me.
I like it.
She keeps it there, not moving, but still. I ask her if we should head back. My voice is hoarse, because I’m trying real hard not to come inside my boxer briefs. Her touch is electric, and keeping my thoughts on something other than her hand on my package is almost impossible.
“Head back?” she echoes.
“We’ll get a taxi. I’ll drop you off first.”
“Thank you. That was the best date ever,” Elizabeth declares.
I glance at her. “Date?”
She points a finger at me. “You said that, not me.”
“I distinctly heard it come from your mouth first.”
She grins, and I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful.
One moment we're making out in a pedicab like we're parting forever, and the next we’re in a taxi, her hand in mine, neither of us saying much. Every now and then I look at her like I can’t quite believe I’ve spent almost an entire day with her, and loved every second of it.
Soon we're outside her apartment.
I follow her through the communal door to her door, giving a side-eye to the apartment across from hers. “Will Arnold be in bed?” I don’t relish the thought of running into him again. The guy looked at me like I was a thug that last time.
“Hopefully, and it's Arthur.”
She unlocks her door and walks in. I stand, hovering around outside, looking in. It looks warm and familiar. Her laptop lies open on the coffee table. The magazines I gave her are strewn across the couch along with her hot water bottle.
Suddenly I don’t know what I’m doing here. It’s late, and I should head back home. “I don’t want to go home,” I say before I even think about it.
She pulls me in. “I don't want you to go home.”