Chapter 4 Lovable
LOVABLE
LUCIO
“This is so good.” Delilah moans softly before shoving the last piece of blueberry scone into her mouth.
Crumbs fall from her lips and drop onto the plate, but she gathers them on her fingertip.
“Your mom is an amazing cook. I’ve never had something so delicious.
” She places her finger in her mouth, sucking the tip, and I’m a complete goner.
The semi-hard-on I’m sporting underneath the table suddenly becomes a huge issue.
I can’t get comfortable, and it’s impossible to think about anything other than sex.
I shift in my seat, trying to find a position to relieve the ache, but nothing helps.
Just when I am about to start picturing something horrific to try to take care of the issue, my ma walks into the room, and all horniness I feel dies instantly.
“I’ll pack some up for you to take home,” Ma says, bouncing Lulu on her hip like she did with her own grandchildren when they were small.
Delilah’s face changes as soon as she hears the word home. Every ounce of pleasure and joy the scones brought her evaporates and dies in that second. Delilah pushes the plate forward, twisting her mouth before chewing on the inside of her lip.
I want to ask her what happened, why she was on the street so late at night, but it isn’t my business, and she isn’t mine to pry into her personal life or about her family.
I know all about complicated families. Hell, mine has never been a walk in the park or like any sitcom family I’ve ever watched on television. Maybe the Bundys from Married with Children, but our level of dysfunction sometimes far outweighs even their insanity.
Ma sets a bag of scones next to Delilah, and her eyes dip to the bag, noticing the bakery label as she reaches for them.
“My ma is an awful cook. Be thankful they weren’t hers.” I laugh and earn the evil eye from my mother. I duck just as she tries to smack me in the head.
“Your father has never complained,” Ma adds, as if his opinion matters the most. Just because my father’s taste buds are dead, doesn’t mean the rest of the world’s are too.
“Well, I better get going. I’m so sorry for intruding, but thank you for the great night’s sleep and breakfast,” Delilah says as she stands from the table and reaches for Lulu who was playing with the pearls around my mother’s neck.
My ma whispers something in Lulu’s ear before kissing her forehead and closing her eyes.
Delilah practically has to pry Lulu’s hands off my mother’s pearls. Ma laughs, eating up every moment of baby she can. “I’m so sorry,” Delilah keeps saying as if she thinks my mother is upset, even though Ma’s clearly enjoying the entire situation.
“Don’t apologize, dear. She’s precious,” my mother tells her and kisses Lulu one last time before Delilah is finally able to wrangle her away from my mother completely.
“She’s not usually so attached to people so quickly.”
“We’re lovable,” I tell her for some odd reason. “I mean, at least my mom and I are. The rest of the family… It’s debatable.”
Ma waves me away, but we both know it’s true. “Oh, be nice, Lucio.”
“How many siblings do you have?” Delilah asks as she rubs Lulu’s back in small, gentle circles.
“Well, three that I know about.”
Delilah’s beautiful face scrunches, and the smooth space between her perfectly shaped eyebrows wrinkles. “Know about?”
“Well, there could be a few I don’t know about. You never know what’s hiding in the branches of our family tree.”
This time, I’m not so lucky to avoid my mother’s smack to the side of the head. “Be respectful to your father.”
“Sorry, Ma,” I say, but I’m not.
My father was a world-class asshole back in the day.
As he grew older, he slowed down, but I know for a fact that he had more than one side piece when I was a kid.
I watched as he cheated and snuck around on my mother.
I promised myself I’d be nothing like him when I grew up.
So far, I’ve kept my word, but I haven’t settled down yet either.
“I like your mom,” Delilah says with her lips turned up in a big smile.
Why women always like to see a mother put her son in his place, I’ll never know.
But every single time it happens in mixed company, it always brings some laughs at my expense.
But seeing Delilah’s face light up again is entirely worth the embarrassment.
“Betty’s a bit crazy.” I stand, avoiding the second shot that was headed my way for calling her by her first name. “You ready?” I ask Delilah as I reach out to fix the collar on Lulu’s dress.
“I can call a cab,” she says softly, watching my hands closely.
“I can’t allow you to do that. I’ll take you home. I won’t be able to relax until I know you’re safe.”
My ma stands behind Delilah and gives me a thumbs-up along with a goofy smile. In her head, she’s already planning our wedding day, and while I like Delilah, my ma seems to be getting ahead of herself.
Delilah bites her bottom lip as her cheeks turn a pale shade of pink. “It’s very kind of you to put yourself out in that way.”
“It’s not a bother.”
It’s not like it’s a hassle to spend a little extra time with a beautiful woman. Even if she has a baby, I still like her. There is something that draws me to her. Maybe it’s the sadness in her eyes and my always wanting to fix things that make her more alluring.
“I already installed the car seat, so we’re ready to roll.”
“Oh,” she mutters, cocking her head to the side. “You have a car seat?”
“My nephew’s. Ma used to babysit, so she had one in the basement. I dug it out while you were sleeping.”
To a sophisticated woman who uses a car service to get around, we probably seem like a bunch of middle-class crazy people.
Here, she spent the night above a South Side bar in a part of town very few people in her economic class even drive through for fear of losing their lives.
My ma’s apartment is a decent size, but a complete throwback to the 1980s, complete with her love of plastic coverings on all the furniture.
We are not her people, but Delilah didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
“If you’re ever in the area again, please drop in and say hello,” Ma tells Delilah as she gives her a hug.
“I’d love that, Betty.” Delilah smiles and wraps one arm around my mother with poor Lulu smashed in the middle.
I’d love that too…and that shocks the hell out of me.
Delilah lives on the North Side in one of the largest high-rise buildings on the lakefront.
Swanky doesn’t even begin to describe the place or the neighborhood.
There isn’t a beggar on the corner, hustling to sell water or some other small item to pay for their liquor later, like in my neighborhood.
Everyone walking on the sidewalks is in a business suit or some variation.
“Thanks for the ride, Lucio. I really appreciate your help and kindness,” she says as she gathers Lulu from the back seat of my sister’s Jeep.
“It was my pleasure.”
I want to say something else, but I can’t.
We barely spoke on the way to her place, or at least, not about anything substantial.
I didn’t learn much about her in the thirty minutes it took to head up Lake Shore to her condo.
We kept everything general, and I was okay with that.
I didn’t want to pry and come off like an asshole.
I knew she was already embarrassed about the phone call last night, and I didn’t want to make her any more uncomfortable with the entire situation than probably she already is.
Delilah stands outside the Jeep on the passenger side, holding Lulu, and she smiles at me for a moment.
I want to ask for her number, but hell, she’s a mom with no time for an asshole like me.
What mother from the North Side, swimming in cash, wants to date a South Side guy who owns a bar?
I’m not hurting for money, but I’m probably not the type she was brought up to marry.
“I’m going to wait here to make sure you get in,” I say instead, trying to be a gentleman like my mother raised me to be.
“We’ll be fine. The doorman will let us in.”
“I’ll feel better if I stay and know you’re safe,” I tell her, memorizing her beautiful lips and deep blue eyes.
She backs away slowly with her eyes locked on mine, maybe trying to remember every inch of my face too.
A few seconds later, she turns her back to me, and I shake my head, chastising myself for being such a fool.
I always ask women for their phone numbers.
Never had an issue with it before, but there’s something that stopped me today.
Hell, I still don’t know if she is married or single, and the lack of a wedding ring means nothing in my book.
She looks over her shoulder and gives me a small wave before pushing through the revolving door, disappearing.
“Way to be a pussy, asshole,” I grumble to myself and tap against the steering wheel, trying to stop myself from running after her.
My ma has hated every woman I’ve ever brought home. And while Delilah isn’t a girlfriend and just happened to wander into my bar, Ma took to her immediately. Well, she took to Lulu, and that’s all that seems to be needed to win her over.
Not that I need my mother’s approval, but it makes shit a hell of a lot easier when Betty likes the girl sitting across from her.
My ma may be a tiny thing, but her mouth most certainly is not.
I can’t live out the rest of her life with her hating the woman I decide to marry.
I would rather spend eternity single than listen to Ma go on and on about my poor partner choice.
My phone pings from the center console, and I lean forward to see my mother is sticking her nose in my business…again.
Ma: Get her phone number.
I type out my reply, erasing and retyping it three times before hitting send.
Me: She’s already gone.
Ma: How could you mess this up so badly?
Me: She has a kid.
Ma: That means she’s stable and a good choice.
Clearly, my ma doesn’t know some of the girls from the neighborhood who have children and are more off their rocker than many of the people in the mental ward at County Hospital.
Popping a tiny human out of your vagina does not mean you’re a good person, normal, or stable.
It only means you got laid and nothing more.
As I slide my phone back into the center console, I notice Delilah coming out of the revolving door with Lulu on her hip and tears streaming down her face. I rush out of the Jeep and stalk toward her, calling her name.
When she sees me, she cries harder, practically falling against my chest as I touch her arms. “I got you,” I tell her.
Whoever her family is…they are pieces of trash. I grab Lulu from her grip and wrap an arm around Delilah’s back, ushering her toward the Jeep and away from this place. “Let’s get out of here.”