CHAPTER 31 JARED #3
"You know, I avoid sparring with him whenever I can. I usually train with his brothers and cousins. We don’t exactly chat. He’s a sick bastard."
"With his brothers… you mean including Mauro?"
He nods, and I feel a little exhilarated because here is someone who might be able to give me information from an unexpected, unbiased source.
"What’s Mauro like?" I whisper, biting my lips to the point of pain.
"Good guy. Nothing like Rocco."
"Good? I wouldn’t say that answer really clears much up—" I start, but at that moment, the doorbell rings.
"That’s Eric with my band," Bay says, heading toward the door.
"Would you mind if I hide out in Tommy’s room? I’m not ready to meet a bunch of new people. I have too much on my mind."
Bay merely shrugs, so I quickly slip into Tommy’s room.
I hear their voices and footsteps, but fortunately they don’t wake my son. I lie down on the little sofa in the corner.
My thoughts are all over the place, so I decide to take a nap for a while. I feel unbelievably exhausted, as if something is missing inside me, sucking away my energy, leaving behind nothing but a void.
I close my eyes and toss and turn for a long time, unable to fall asleep, while Mauro’s face appears before my eyes, the way I saw him last night. Clouded somehow, desperate, angry and hungry, yet at the same time filled with some kind of deep pain.
I remember his touch, the way his arms encircled me, filled with such thirst. That vision sets me on fire, and the longing for his closeness almost twists my guts.
My fingers instinctively reach for the pendant around my neck and clench around its golden surface.
The halves are connected. As if symbolically representing our souls. Joined. We lived apart for years, each with one half, but that’s in the past now. The pendant is whole again.
What about us?
I can’t stand this separation. I don’t want to stay away from him! Good Fate, what do I do? What do I do?
Finally, I doze off, then wake again. At one point, I get the impression that Bay leaves because the door clicks shut behind him. The band must be gone too, and I’m left alone with Tommy, who is still sleeping.
So I go back to dozing.
Eventually, Tommy wakes up. He sits up in bed and calls, "Dada, Dada…"
I immediately spring up and go to him, picking him up.
His little body is warm and slightly sweaty, his damp curls stuck to his forehead.
I brush them back, looking into his eyes.
At some point, I notice that he’s reaching out his hands toward me and grabbing my ear.
"Il… il…"
"Ear?"
I realize that he’s fascinated by the strange change in me. I slept with my hair all mussed up, and part of my ear is sticking out.
"Yes," I say, feeling a bit strange. "Daddy has now… he has special ears, funny ears like this."
Tommy raises both hands and grabs his own ears, pulling on them, little sparks in his eyes. "Tommy, Tommy!" he calls, bouncing a little in a seated position.
"Yes, you… you’ll grow ones like these too when your power awakens," I murmur, kissing the top of his head.
Since he’s still pulling on his ears… rather vigorously, I decide to distract him with an afternoon snack.
Alex has packed the refrigerator with plenty of things meant for Tommy. I take out some zucchini fritters and sweet potato bites and heat them up.
Tommy plays around with an educational toy.
I’d really love to take him out for a walk, but I know perfectly well that I’m too recognizable to simply walk around the streets.
During those last three months, when I lived in Alex’s tiny house, I barely went outside at all, and I shouldn’t now either.
After he finishes eating, I look around and notice that thankfully, Bay has a fairly large balcony.
When I step out onto it, I’m somewhat surprised to discover that the complex is located directly on the other side of the fence, behind which there is a row of small houses, including Alex’s house!
Interesting… so Bay bought an apartment here and lives this close to Alex? It surprises me a bit, but I suppose it’s yet another piece of evidence that despite all the years since they broke up, something is still lingering between them, some strangely intense energy.
As I look around, I also notice that Alex has set up a small portable plastic sandbox for Tommy. I sit down beside it, and together with my son, I start building various things out of the sand using animal-shaped molds.
Tommy is delighted when we make an entire zoo, and I use the cat-shaped mold to pretend I’m climbing up his little leg while meowing.
I watch his giggling face for a moment, then decide to teach him… a few signs.
Yeah. Just… on impulse.
I start explaining:
"You know you can say 'I love you' without words?"
Tommy watches me closely. He’s not even two yet, but I feel my explanations are getting through to him.
I show him the ASL sign for "I love you," extending my thumb, index finger, and pinky. Tommy gets excited when I guide his little chubby fingers into the right position and he tries to copy the gesture.
I repeat several times, "If you want to tell someone you love him, you can just raise your hand with your fingers like this. But if you have a friend, someone you simply like, you can show it like this."
I point to myself, then place my open hand against my chest and move it slightly toward myself and downward, then point at Tommy.
We practice the sign for a while, and I can see how much Tommy enjoys it. He makes the gesture toward me several times, and his big green eyes light up with joy when he starts getting it right.
At some point, I realize that several good hours have already passed since both Alex and Bay left. I wonder what’s taking them so long.
I take Tommy inside because he’s covered in sand and has gotten it all through his hair, so I decide to give him a bath.
I’m genuinely happy about this simple, everyday task and the chance to spend time with him. I can’t get enough of his little smiling face.
I didn’t even realize how much I missed him during all those days while I was consumed by the madness that happened last week.
But at the same time, sitting here in Bay’s apartment, somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s this sinking feeling of wrongness, the feeling that I pushed Mauro away and didn’t even give him a chance to explain when he pulled out his phone.
I slapped it out of his hand, and instead I just worked myself up over the sex.
Sometimes my stomach actually hurts because I feel so utterly crushed by my actions. Why the fuck didn’t I allow him to say anything?
It was fucking unfair.
Eventually, it starts getting dark, and I know it’s going to be difficult to get Tommy to sleep because he’s so excited that I’m back.
I usually avoid putting him in front of a screen because I don’t believe it’s necessarily good for a child’s mental development, and normally I only do it when I’m taking a shower and need something to occupy Tommy, but I can see how wound up he is, bouncing around, wanting to dance with me and trying to jump on the bed, so eventually, reluctantly, I put on an OmegaCat cartoon for him.
I step out onto the balcony for a moment to get some air, organize my thoughts, and deal with this emptiness and growing pain, but then I notice that perhaps while I turned away for a moment, Tommy knocked several of the molds off the balcony, and they’re now lying on the lawn below the building.
Reluctantly, I decide to go downstairs, looking carefully along the hallway to make sure I don’t run into anyone. It’s already fairly dark, so fortunately I’m not likely to attract much attention.
As I slip outside through the gate, and to keep it from locking behind me, I wedge it open with a rolled-up bundle of advertising flyers I see lying on top of the mailboxes.
I leave the building, walk around to the side with the balconies, collect all the toys, and then hurry back toward the entrance, only to realize that someone must have walked through because the roll has been pushed out and the door is locked.
Fuck! I stare at the panel in frustration because I don’t know the code. A wave of panic rises in me; my child is upstairs alone. He’s occupied with the cartoon, yes, but it’s only a matter of time before he looks away for a moment and something could happen. How could I have been so thoughtless?
I was so caught up in my own problems that I forgot to ask Bay for the code.
And I can’t even fix it now because I didn’t bring my phone with me. Goddammit!
Furious with myself, I look around helplessly, hoping someone will come along, but of course there’s no one in sight.
As I stand there, I notice a black car with tinted windows pulling into the parking lot.
Oh, fuck.
My nerves immediately go haywire. I’ve developed a trauma around dark cars; they all look suspicious to me now.
But to my astonishment, the door opens and Alex gets out of the back seat.
He looks at me and calls, "What happened, Jared?"
Feeling a weakening wave of relief, I immediately rush to him and hug him tightly.
"Dear Fate, I’m so glad you’re back! I went down to collect Tommy’s toys from the lawn, and someone locked the entrance door! I don’t know the code." I let him go, wearing an apologetic expression.
Exactly then, the other car door opens, and a man steps out whose face I immediately recognize.
It’s Ennio Ferro.
I go rigid because even though he’s the man who helped me that time when Rocco kidnapped me, he also worked with Rocco for years, so I have no way of knowing where his loyalty lies.
Seeing my terrified, panicked face, Alex says, "Relax, Jared. Ennio is a good guy."
My eyes jump between them. Why did he give Alex a ride? What happened here?
"He… he’s one of them. The Ferros," I whisper through trembling lips.
Alex gives me a broad smile, and it’s such a startling expression on his usually somewhat somber face that it makes me gape.
"Yes, and even more than that. You’re looking at the new capo of the Ferro family."
"What?"
Ennio glances at him with a raised eyebrow. "It’s not official yet," he adds.
"It will be," Alex mutters with a smirk.