7. Sicily #3
He walked away, leaving me in a room that was fit for me, in colors and details and art, but here in my bloodied gown, I had never been more aware that I was alone in a house that was not meant to be mine.
I hadn’t slept well. It didn’t feel like my bed to sleep well in.
I missed my sister, Matt, Elena, even my mother and father. I was homesick, and I slept for no more than forty minutes at a time before the muddle of Milan and the attack woke me in a fit of gasping breaths and cold sweat.
That didn’t stop the bed from being warm and so soft that I could’ve never moved again, but the familiar scent of coffee sparked the desperate need for something normal.
Still in my bright pink pajama shirt and shorts, because I was absolutely not changing for Adriano or Milan’s sake, I padded barefoot through the hallway until I reached the kitchen to find Adriano and a pot of coffee fit for fifty people.
The kitchen was as grand as the rest of the house, empty apart from obvious essentials like two espresso machines.
The counters were white marble and clinically clean, but the rest of the room followed the same warm, sunlit kind of white, and it made me want to be there despite it not being mine at all.
It settled my homesickness a little to see Adriano in gray sweatpants, a crumpled black T-shirt, and hair like a bird’s nest as if he was not the boss’s Consigliere but just Adriano.
“Morning.” I yawned.
He smiled at me from across the kitchen, not giving two glances at my pajamas, and continued pouring his cup of coffee. “Morning. You sleep okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He feigned a scowl, taking another matching mug from the cupboard. “Liar. You look like shit. Sit down.”
I scoffed, taking a seat at the kitchen island beside the one occupied by his laptop. “You must charm a lot of ladies with that attitude.”
A look crossed Adriano’s face, something between surprise and a hidden emotion that I couldn’t name, but it was darker. I didn’t push; I suspected that whatever Adriano was hiding behind that mask was not up for discussion, especially not with me.
He stayed silent as he set the mugs in front of us, throwing creamer, milk, and sugar onto the counter like this was a coffee buffet. A small droplet of milk dripped onto the surface, and I noted how Adriano wiped it instantly.
“Okay, what’s the deal?” I sighed.
“Deal?”
“Are you both insane clean-freaks or…?”
“I’m not,” he said with a look of feigned offense. “But Milan is, and I respect that.”
A question rose in my throat, and before I could stop it, I blurted, “Is he just a clean freak, or is it more than that?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard.
He paused what he was doing with several boxes of colorful, chemically sweetened kids’ cereal, like he was buffering, before carrying them over with two bowls.
“Your problem, Sicily, is that you ask questions that get you into trouble. That’s none of your business, and though he shouldn’t be ashamed or hide it, you—" He caught himself babbling and sighed, closing his eyes momentarily. “You’re his wife; of course you deserve to know.”
“OCD?” I threw out.
Adriano nodded once. “Autism, OCD, antisocial behavior, complex PTSD… Don’t tell him I told you.”
I hadn’t expected such a long list of diagnoses, but then again, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. I busied my hands with two kinds of cereal and excessive amounts of milk just to give myself a moment to think.
People said he had issues.
“Have you known him for a long time?” I asked.
“Since we were five.” Adriano smiled. “He was my next-door neighbor; my father was Hugo Lucca’s Consigliere.
He’s my brother in all but blood. I knew he was different from the moment we had our first conversation through the hole in the garden fence, but I didn’t care.
He listened, and he was physically incapable of bullshitting me, so I loved him right away. ”
The love emanating from this man was astonishing.
I could feel it in my heart, how much he would do for Milan, how hard he trusted that Milan would do the same for him.
This didn’t feel like friendship nor brotherhood; it was something more, soul deep.
I wondered how much Adriano knew about Milan’s past, whether he knew about the things his father had called him, whether it was his father who had given him this complex PTSD.
“That’s why he thinks you wouldn’t be in hell then.”
Adriano threw his head back as he laughed.
It was full and happy and unrestrained. “You’ll learn to translate Milan.
He won’t ever say that you’re a good person, but he will say he doesn’t believe you would go to hell.
He won’t have the words to say he can’t understand your anger, but he will tell you repeatedly to stop saying the word fuck. ”
I laughed with him, but I was deep in thought about who my husband was inside.
How could I learn more about him while also being someone I still liked, and he didn’t hate enough to kill? Those two factors seemed to clash, and perhaps it was impossible to believe that Milan and I could ever coexist in a way that made us both happy.
“Look, about yesterday.” Adriano’s gaze landed on the floor like that was where his shame sat.
“I’m sorry I was such a dick. Of course you deserve an explanation for what happened with the Camorra at your own wedding, I just—” He paused, looking at the door like he expected someone, Milan, to come in.
“I just don’t know what I’m allowed to say and what he wants to talk to you about himself. ”
I shook my head because this entire thing was a disaster waiting to happen. “He doesn’t want to talk to me about anything.”
“He will, you just have to give him time. I think you’ll be good for him.”
“And what about me?” I whispered. “What’s good for me?”
His smirk created more questions than it answered. “Don’t discount him just yet, Sicily. If all else fails, you’ve got me.”
Even if Milan couldn’t be the husband I thought I’d have one day, Adriano was turning out to be the friend who would get me through this crazy arrangement, and I could live with that.
For now, at least.