“Hey, yourself.” I carried the coffees over to her, and she took them out of my hand and set the bag of muffins next to her on the bed. I took a quick kiss from her and then walked over to the other side of the bed to climb back in. “Let’s just stay in bed today.”
Willow handed one of the coffee cups to me. “Yeah, like your brother would ever go for that.”
“He doesn’t have a choice. I told him to leave me
alone. I’m spending the day with you, and I’ll be home tomorrow.” I felt Willow’s gaze settle on me. I glanced over. “What?”
“You told him that, really?” she asked, her voice spiked.
“Yeah. I just chewed him out for the way he acted yesterday and told him I’d be home tomorrow.”
A grin started small on Willow’s face but grew until it was a blinding smile. “Thank you.”
It was the first time I’d chosen her over them. “No, thank you.”
She closed her laptop and set it on the floor. “Well, if you’re not working, I’m not either.”
Even though I could probably have sex with Willow every second of every day, I enjoyed lounging around with her as the morning carried on into the afternoon. We found some shitty reality television to watch and make fun of. It was amusing to see what some people considered to be problems. We enjoyed a couple of the latest blockbuster movies that Willow was shocked I hadn’t seen. In my life, I didn’t often have time to go and catch a movie. One of the ones we watched starred her friend Sasha from back in California, which kickstarted a strung together list of stories about their friendship, to which I gave all my attention, if not because it was nice to hear what Willow had been up to in the six years since I’d seen her because she got this wry wrinkle to her nose whenever she spoke passionately.
Of course, sex was something that happened naturally. I would have been fine lying there all day with her, but as our fourth movie dragged on, Willow’s hand whispered down my chest and over my stomach to massage my groin. Her skilled fingers undid the button and zipper before dipping inside to pull at my anxious length. She sunk her head down and found me beneath the sea of blankets and pants, though its standing firm at attention made it pretty easy to find.
She tasted me, timidly at first, with growing confidence each time I let a groan tumble across my lips. She’d never sucked me when we were together back in high school. I desired it, certainly, but she was so precious in my eyes that I didn’t think I should ask it. She’d told me she hadn’t been with anyone other than me, so I had to wonder where she developed the skills that had her tongue flattening and molding itself to my shape, while the back of her throat contracted and released around my head, sending stabs of pleasure ping-ponging all around me. It wasn’t until I warned that I was close that she climbed on top of me and pulled me into her.
I held onto her waist as she rode me in slow, lazy movements, like molasses out of a tapped tree. We breathed in each other until we were colliding against orgasms, moaning and breathless. I didn’t even remember falling asleep, but I woke up sometime later with Willow still lying on top of me.
I rolled her over to her side, used a wet cloth from the bathroom to clean us up, and then climbed back under the covers and pulled her close to me. She stirred while I drew her close, and she looked up at me through those captivating blue eyes, and my whole body shook.
I loved her so much more than I thought possible.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Sure,” she replied.
“When are you going back to California?” The thought made me ache. I didn’t want her to go.
She didn’t respond right away, and I didn’t rush it. However long it took her to answer, or even if she didn’t answer at all, I didn’t care.
“Do you want me to go back?” she asked, and I scoffed.
“No. I don’t even have to think about it. If I had my way, you’d never go back, I’d have you with me all the time. I’ve told you many times before, but allow me to say it again. I love you, Willow Morietti. When you finally let me show you my feelings, it was like it hadn’t been six years since I’d been with you last, but only six seconds We’d just pressed pause, and I was so happy you let me press play again.”
Willow went quiet again, and once again, I didn’t pressure her for any response. She’d admitted in passing to Ricky that she still had feelings for me, and I had to think that she wouldn’t have done all the things we’d done for the past few weeks if she didn’t feel something for me, but she hadn’t reciprocated love yet. Would it be nice to hear? Of course, but it wasn’t necessary. I could settle for feeling her love. I didn’t need to hear it.
Finally, she took my face in her hands. “Look. I’m not going to make you any promises, because I honestly don’t think I know much about what will happen to me anymore. I can’t promise forever. I can’t promise success, but for now, I’ll stay in Philly. I can work from anywhere, and when I desperately need to be somewhere else, I can fly out for a couple of days and come back.”
Elation was flooding into me by the gallon as she spoke, but I stayed quiet and listened.
“I won’t ever be okay with what you do. I don’t have anything against your family. In fact, I consider them my family, too, but I just have a fundamental issue with that life. I don’t want to hear about it. I’m trusting you not to land yourself in a position like either of our fathers. I want to be with you. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m okay with taking every day as it comes.” She kissed me softly. “I love you, Alessandro.”
19
Willow
In the wake of everything that had taken place with Alessandro and his brother, and amidst their hunt for the people who threatened Marco, I decided it was in my best interest to go back to stay with my mom. To my surprise, my mom was actually really happy to hear I was staying for a while and would be staying with her. She told me that she wanted to do all sorts of mother-daughter stuff, and her back was to Ricky when she said it, so he caught the wind and bolted. I made sure to text him a big fuck you as soon as I could.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of her sudden desire to spend time together. The day after I came back from staying in the beautiful hotel with Alessandro, she decided that she wanted to start a garden. It was something that she enjoyed doing before money became the center of her world, and I didn’t want to discourage any part of her that might be getting back to normal, so I agreed to help her. She used to let me help her with her gardening when I was a little girl, so there was a small sliver of me that was excited to get to relive that joy.
We headed to a nursery in downtown Philly. If we went early in the morning, it was easier to get some rare and exciting plants. We bought a whole car-load of flowers, vegetables, fruits, and some small shrubs for decoration, plus several bags of the best kind of mulch and soil. After that, we headed to a home improvement store for plywood and paint. We found a good spot in the expanse of the estate’s backyard. We sanded and stained the plywood and then painted it in a deep, burgundy color. We took a break for tea and finger sandwiches while we waited for the wood to dry.