Page 101 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“You didn’t think that I might have an opinion?” I pinched my shoulders to my ears. “New York has been your home for your entire lives, and don’t try to tell me you’ve grown bored of it, or you wanted to retire somewhere warm. Even if you decided you love it here after the last six months, that wasn’t the reason you came. Angelo told me everything.”

“Angelo doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We did come here for you two,” Dad said, gesturing toward Tally and me.

“Then why lie?” I leaned my hands on the back of the couch. “You didn’t retire from Duran & Son and pass the torch to Ang. You closed up shop because you couldn’t keep up. There’snothing wrong with that, Dad. You’ve done hard, solid work for decades. I don’t know why you couldn’t be honest about it with me. With us.”

My father’s face warped, and Mom’s lips thinned.

“Business dried up and you were planning on moving here to be close to us, and you knew how I might feel about it, so you didn’t tell me. I’ve been living my own life, and now I’m going to be married and starting a family and you didn’t want me to have a choice.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to be close to us, too?” Mom asked. “Especially now. We want to be in your life for big moments. To help Natalia when she needs it. To be the kind of grandparents that see the kids more than once a year.”

“But this is more than that. This is manipulation. And guilt. I love you both,” I pressed. “I want you in my life.”

“We both do,” Tally added. She reached up and laced her fingers through mine at the top of the couch.

“But I’m not a teenager. I’m not the eighteen-year-old that left for the Army. Hell, I’m not even the same man I was a year ago. You can’t make decisions for me and expect me to fall in line. You can’t expect no pushback, no dialogue, no boundaries. We should have had a conversation about this. I shouldn’t be hearing it from my brother like an afterthought at my bachelor party. What you’ve done is wrong on so many levels, and it’s going to take time to gain that trust back. I know it’s happening, and that’s something I’ll come to terms with, but I couldn’t let this go without telling you both how I really feel about it.”

This was the first time in my life I’d had a conversation with my parents that felt like I was the lecturer. My voice was rising and falling, that anxiety knocking on the inside of my chest. I was fighting hard against the principles with which I was brought up to make it clear that things were going to change.They needed to, not just for my sake but for Tally’s. I was protecting what was mine.

The air was explosive. Thick and tense. My father’s throat bobbed but he wasn’t the argumentative type; he let my mom do the talking and sat back stoically, processing. She was the matriarch, the one pulling the strings knowing anything she decided would be supported. That’s how it always was, and that’s how it’d likely be with Natalia and me. It was about trust.

“I’m sorry our timing wasn’t the best,” Mom said softly. Surprising me. Tally’s fingers tightened around mine. “You’re right, we should have discussed it. Maybe in the back of our minds we assumed that it was something everyone would benefit from, and being your mother, making decisions for the entire family has been more than half of my life.”

“You did your job,” I assured her. “You did it well. There’s no need to grip so tightly. I might need a kick in the ass sometimes, but I found the right woman to do it. Trust me, there isn’t a damn thing I can get away with. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Natalia laughed quietly, and her lips grazed my knuckles with a kiss.

“We made the wrong decision by hiding the house from you both,” my father added. “I think we were so excited about the possibility of being around more that we only saw it from our perspective, which is having our son back.”

A knot formed in my throat. “I’ll take blame for not coming home as often as I should have. I forced you to hold on as tightly as possible to the way I used to be. Your kid and your responsibility. It might take time, but you don’t have to carve out a space in my life, because you’re already there. I regret making you feel like you had to. We could have avoided all of this.”

“I think this goes without saying,” Natalia added, “that you raised the best man in the world. He’s caring, and soulful,selfless, open-minded and hearted. He makes everyone around him better. He would never turn his back on your family,ourfamily. I promise to take care of him forever.”

My fingers slipped into Tally’s hair, then ran down her neck and back up, and she leaned into the touch. “I think it’s great that you bought the house. Really.” I was as sincere as I could be. This wasn’t abadthing, it was an adjustment. We’d been warming up to it since January. “As long as you call before you stop over,” I rushed out. “No more surprise visits.”

“We learned our lesson,” Dad said jokingly. “No more surprises.”

“You can enjoy the fruits of your labor, finally. If Angelo accepts the job I offer him, he might find his way down here, too,” I said. My parents perked up, exchanging a shocked but elated glance with one another.

“You offered him a job?” Dad sat up. “Doing what? He doesn’t know anything about cybersecurity.”

“I can teach him,” I said. “If he’s willing to put in the work and get serious about a career with me. He’s still young, smart, and I’m not worried at all about his reliability.” Not after lying in a holding cell all night so I didn’t have to, but we’d keep that to ourselves.

My mother left my father’s side and waddled to me, wrapping her short arms around my waist and shaking me back and forth. “That made me the happiest mother on the planet just now.”

“The Barrys next door are going to be so thrilled,” Tally chirped. Then she and my mother shot off talking about the neighborhood, interior design and garden landscaping, my mom’s brand-new dream kitchen, and throwing a housewarming party once we got back from our honeymoon. My dad reclined in the chair once more, shooting me a wink and turning the game back on.

Grade school joy sparked in my chest where a weight had been lifted.

chapter thirty-nine

Natalia

Mateoand I both agreed to take a short hiatus after the wedding to enjoy married life, go to a beach that wasn’t Pompano, and focus on each other fully. Which meant three weeks of long nights, content filming, and finishing the projects we were contractually obligated to.

During the day when his parents were home, Anna and I had coffee together. I showed her how to use Pinterest for all of her decorating ideas, and built her a wall of boards for things like recipes and holidays. She broke out the ironing board that was collecting dust in the hallway closet to teach me a skill I’d never bothered to learn. When I was younger the dry cleaner took care of it, and when I was in my early twenties, I wore wrinkled clothes or threw rumpled outfits in the dryer for an extra cycle hoping that would magically fix them. One day, I showed her how to use the streaming remote, because she’d only ever had cable, and Spotify so the radio wasn’t her sole option. She came home from the store with a floral spiral notebook the next afternoon and sat at the counter writing all the meals Mateo grew up eating in perfect cursive with ingredients and measurements and left it next to the stove for me.

Most of the time, though, Anna and David were busy like Mateo and I were. After the wedding they still had to go back to New York and sell their house and pack it, which would take a few months. Angelo would be there to make the transition as smooth as possible, but things were moving at a pace that both scared and thrilled me. When they were out of the house I worked in the privacy of a quiet bedroom.

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