“No, and her brother and her aren’t close. All I know is he’s in California. I don’t even know what city. I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry.” Her hand goes to my chest.
I look away from her, unable to take the tears in her eyes. I’m floating on the edge of sleep when I feel her hand on my cock. “No.” I push her away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Her hand is back.
I’m not hard. I don’t want her. I want Christy. Christy, who left and isn’t coming back. Christy, who whispered the word forever and was gone like a thief in the night, taking my fucking soul with her.
Her wet mouth is on me. I’m still not hard, still don’t want this. “I can make you feel good. I just want to make you feel good,” she whispers as her mouth moves on me.
Fuck, she’s not even doing it right. Christy’s mouth felt so much better—no, don’t even fucking think of her. She left and she’s not coming back. Whatever it was, I was a fool to believe in it. My hand goes into the fake blonde hair and I move her on my cock. Needing the release, needing to feel something after being numb for the last four days.
Only when I come pleasure runs through me for all of a few seconds. As soon as it’s gone, I hate myself. I hate Lisa for fooling me into thinking I could feel something. Fuck, that’s not fair to her, not fair at all. I blink once, twice, and drift into sleep.
When I wake up, it’s to find Lisa lowering herself onto me. I push her off. What the fuck?
“I’m sorry, Tony. I just wanted to make you feel good.” I stumble away from her.
I make it into the empty apartment I keep in the building. I fall into bed and wake up to a warm body beside me. For five seconds, I wonder if it was all a bad dream. It’s Eve, Joseph let her in. Closing my eyes, I lose myself in her. I’m a bastard. I have never been as punishing as I am with her. I don’t know who I’m trying to hurt, her for not being Christy, or Christy for not being here.
The scotch I have in the place runs out after the first day. Eve leaves crying two days after I wake up next to her. I put out a call for someone else and a new woman comes. I send her away the next day. Then a new one, and then another, until they blur together. None of them give me the release I really need. All of them leaving me aching for Christy, and I hate her, them, and myself.
***
Tony
“Pop.” Dominic is above me. He smacks my cheek. “Come on, Pop. Enough of this. It’s been two fucking weeks. You can’t keep this shit up.”
“Go away,” I groan as I reach for the bedside table and the scotch I have there.
Dominic picks up the bottle and holds it out of my reach. “Pop, I need you. This shit with the Serbians is boiling up. I need you to watch my back.”
“You need me?” I try to push up out of bed.
“Yes, they called a meeting. I don’t trust those fuckers for shit. I need you there with me.”
I shake my head. “No meeting. It’s too dangerous.” No way is my son walking into a fucking meeting with those bastards.
“Johnny thinks a meeting is a good thing. Unless you can think of something else it’s going to happen.”
Fuck. “Let me take a shower.”
When I look in the mirror, I flinch. I haven’t shaved since she left. There’s a bunch of gray in my beard. What the hell was I thinking? Thirty years old, of course, she didn’t want to get stuck with me for the rest of her life. The beard stays to remind me.
***
Tony
Three weeks later
I’m in my office reading when my cell phone rings. It’s Alicia. “Hello, Tony. I hate to both
er you, but I heard from Dante and Enzo about this amazing lasagna your mother and their dad used to make. I was hoping to get the recipe from you. As a surprise for Cesare.”
Such a sweet girl. “It’s not something we wrote down. I can bring over everything and teach you how to cook it.”
“Please, that would be amazing. Thank you.”
“I’ve never been able to deny a beautiful woman anything. When would you like to do it?”