Chapter Twenty-Five
Max
I am in the middle of explaining the rules Cal gave me—all of them, with editorial commentary—when Becca sits down on the guest room bed, makes a show of peering around the white room, looks at me, and asks:
“How big is this apartment?”
“Don’t.” I point at her as I say it.
“I’m just asking.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m assessing the square footage of your new life.” She bounces slightly on the mattress and smiles like a menace. “This bed is incredible, by the way. It’s like lying on a cloud that someone then covered in another cloud.”
“Becca.”
“I’m just saying.” She holds her hands up and shakes her head.
“I’m not going to make it weird. I drove like two hours with Bart and forty-seven of his favorite toys and I am simply taking in the environment.
” She looks at the ceiling, then at the window, then goes up on her knees to gaze at the city laid out behind it.
“Max,” her tone is dramatically exasperated.
“I know.”
“Is that a river?”
I know she isn’t actually asking.
“I know.”
“He bought this apartment for the—”
“I know,” I say, louder than necessary and throw myself next to her on the bed, covering my face with my hands.
Bart's head comes up from the floor where he’s already made himself at home, which he did within four minutes of arriving.
“Can we focus? I need to tell you the rules before Cal gets back.”
Cal arranged for her to come to Providence for the weekend, apparently, which I found out when Becca texted me from the road asking if she needed to dress like she was meeting the mob, and what, exactly, that entailed.
She sent a picture of what you probably get when you search ‘fancy mob wife’ on the internet—complete with a skin-tight black dress and fur coat.
When the law school thing became a real decision I made—a clothed decision—it was clear I’d need more of my own things and Bart if I was going to stay here. I missed Becca and Bart so much more than I realized, too. And Cal knew both of those things before I did. Of course he did.
“Right, right, the mob rules.” She crosses her legs and gives me her full attention, which with Becca means her eyes are wide and she looks like she’s watching something exciting happen on television. “Go ahead. Tell me the mob rules.”
She looks practically giddy.
I sit up and tell her. She listens, mostly without interrupting, which is a Becca record.
“Okay,” she says when I finish, ticking them off with her fingers. “So. No last name, no solo trips, no snooping, and when he says jump, we say how high.”
“He didn’t say it like that.”
“But that’s the gist.”
“That’s a reductive interpretation of a reasonable safety protocol given the circumstances.”
She blinks at me and sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, capturing a widening grin. “You really like him.”
I open my mouth. Maybe to protest, but before I can decide what to say she interrupts me.
“No, don’t—” She waves a hand. “You don’t have to confirm it, and you can’t hide it, I can see it. You just used the phrase ‘reasonable safety protocol’ to describe agreeing to follow mob rules without asking questions. That’s a woman in love, Max.”
“That is a woman who is trying to be rational about an unusual situation.”
“Mm.” She picks a piece of lint off her sleeve. “I brought Bart and your stuff for school. So, you’re going back?”
“Cal convinced me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does the best convincing.” She waggles her eyebrows.
“So, I start in a couple weeks after the holidays,” I continue, ignoring her innuendo.
“That’s so great, Max, really. You deserve to finish! I’m so proud of you,” she says it genuinely and reaches out to squeeze my leg. “Where is Cal now?”
“Meeting with Nico. His brother. About the—” I make a vague gesture.
“Territory dispute.”
“Right.”
“That you helped him think through.”
“I was just applying what I know about—”
“You helped the mob boss figure out his mob problem.” She covers her mouth with her hand. Her eyes are shining. “Max. Oh my God. You are literally living inside an episode of—what’s that one show? The mob one with the big, balding Italian dude?”
“I’m living inside a very complicated situation that I am choosing to approach with optimism and pragmatism—”
Becca falls sideways onto the cloud-like bed, laughing without sound, her whole body shaking.
I roll my eyes to the ceiling and wait.
“Are you done?”
She kicks her feet.
“No,” she says to the ceiling. “Give me a minute.”
Bart gets up and puts his chin on the bed next to her face, and she wraps an arm around him, still laughing, and I look out the window, see the river and try to keep the smile off my face.
The door to the apartment opens down the hall. Cal’s voice, low, talking to someone, probably Gio. The sound of his footsteps, which I have apparently already learned, because I know it’s him before he appears in the doorway.
He takes in the scene—me, sitting on the bed, arms crossed, expression neutral. Becca—flat on her back, wiping tears from her eyes. Bart—already running over to Cal where he leans against the doorframe.
“How’s it going?” he asks while leaning down to pet the fluffy baby of a dog that looks up to him like he invented treats.
“Great.” I roll my eyes back to Becca.
“Amazing,” Becca says, again to the ceiling.
“Your apartment is incredible, your bed is incredible, and your girlfriend is the funniest person I’ve ever met, and she doesn’t even know it.
” She sits up. “Hi. I don’t think we were ever officially introduced—other than the street and the bar.
I’m the best friend. I’ve heard literally everything about you. ”
Cal looks at me. The word ‘girlfriend’ hangs in the air next to her wild lie about me telling her everything about Cal.
We didn’t discuss our relationship, but it’s probably not far off and it sounds nice. Even if it is riding on a joke from Becca’s mouth.
“She hasn’t,” I snap, poking her with my foot. “She is exaggerating.”
“I’m not,” she notes cheerfully.
Cal’s mouth does the thing where it pulls to one side, and it makes me warm inside. He looks at Becca with the careful, curious expression of a man encountering someone who he suspects might be an equal force of nature.
“It’s good to finally meet you—officially,” he says, and I know he means it. “And my house is your house.”
Becca points at him. “Don’t be charming to me, I’m on to you.
” She slides off the bed. “Now show me the kitchen, because I need to know what we’re working with if we’re all living here and Max won’t let anyone order delivery because ‘the address can be traced.’” She does my voice badly. “Which, fair, but also I want noodles.”
Cal looks at me again. His expression is helpless in a way I have never seen on him and find deeply delightful.
“This way,” he says to Becca, and she follows him out.
I stay on the bed for a moment. The river glitters outside. Bart has followed Cal and Becca out into the kitchen, and everything feels so normal.
I think about the fact that a month ago, I got on a plane that didn’t go to a regular airport.
I think about the trunk with the biometric safe and a pilot who didn’t want to shake Cal’s hand and the moment on the plane stairs when I was deciding whether to stay or go.
And how there was only ever one answer, even if it took me a minute to catch up to it.
From the kitchen I hear Becca say something that makes Cal laugh—a real laugh shocked out of him no doubt—and something in my chest does a thing.
A jumpy, happy thing that makes this feel so right and perfect and wonderful.
And I just know that even after I finish school in six months, there’s no way I’m ever leaving.