Page 65 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“No shit.” I chewed on my thumb. “What about you, though? How’s it been with the house to yourself?”

Angelo sparked a lighter to life in front of his face. “Actually pretty lonely. I miss the constant yelling down the basement stairs to flip the laundry into the dryer. Don’t get me started on the footsteps on the ceiling when I’m hungover at eight a.m.”

I hummed out a laugh. “Now you understand. I don’t get why you don’t just move out, bro. Find a place. I know you have the money saved. It’s a game changer.”

“Soon, I won’t have a choice,” he said, reaching down to snuff out the ash from his cigarette on the stone floor. A habit hepicked up working long construction hours with Dad. Our father had since quit smoking after his doctor scared him straight, but Angelo had yet to drop it.

"How's work been?" I asked.

"Slowing down," Angelo said. "Finally."

"Lucky you."

His eyebrows threaded together. "Owning a business is not all it's cracked up to be?"

"You should know. I've been spreading myself thin trying to stay upright since Pike left."

Angelo blew a plume of smoke toward the sky and turned in my direction. "Why are you doing it alone?"

"It’s complicated." I bristled, glancing over the railing to the group of women by the pool none the wiser. Pop music bumped from the speaker and they were singing together. “I’ve been putting off hiring because I want it to be someone I know, and trust. Turns out my circle is a little too small for that, so it’s been a long six months doing it all on my own.”

"I'm glad I don't have to worry about fucking up anymore." Angelo sighed in relief. "Duran & Son couldn't keep up with the bigger companies anyway. Those contractors are owned by billionaires, and those billionaires own everything else in the city. We couldn’t outbid them, so we got bought out every time. Dad made the right decision throwing in the towel."

My blinks slowed, and I sat up straighter. "What are you talking about?"

Angelo tilted his head at me, tossing his burning cigarette at his feet and crushing it with the toe of his shoe. "About the business closing, Matty. For the last six months I’ve been finishing up our open contracts and slowly letting the tradesmen go. What, did you think Dad just handed it to me after forty years? Yeah, right. You and he are the same in a lot of ways. He would have never retired if he wasn't forced to."

My brain was static. I scrubbed a palm back and forth across my chin trying to process the news. My parents had been feeding me a lie for months about enjoying their retirement and spending time with Natalia and me before our wedding, but didn't think once to include the fact that Duran & Son had gone under. Retirement denotedchoice. According to Angelo my father’s small, family-owned construction company couldn’t stand up to the competition and that was somehow a big fucking secret.

It was understandable that Dad’s pride had taken a hit and he didn’t want to admit that the business was forced out of the market. They had to know that this would all come to light, most likely by their youngest, big-mouthed son.

"Nobody told me that." My jaw clenched. "Why?"

Angelo’s brows furrowed in confusion. "I thought you already knew. Wasn’t it obvious with them down there buying a house?”

All the air in my body stagnated. My gut pitched forward like it was trying to escape my body, and a cool rush fell down the back of my neck. I licked my lips and swallowed a knot in my throat. "Don’t fuck with me right now, Angelo.”

“I know better than that,” he said. “They really didn’t tell you?”

John’s birthday. The briefest mention of finding a place in Florida over conversation at dinner. I gave it no merit, never even thought I’d need to, because a decision like that wouldn’t be made in the dark. I realized that might have been the most fucked-up way for my parents to test the waters around the idea. My head began spinning on an axis.

"I've been lied to for months." I leaned forward to rest my elbows on my knees. I hung my head in my hands and tried to focus on the gray pavement and keep my breathing steady. The last thing I needed was to have an episode in Vegas in front of myentire wedding party. I couldn’t. "Do you know how fucked up that is? Tally is going to feel used. Fuck,Ifeel used. What were we to them, a stepping stone?"

"The intentions were good, Matty, but the execution was shit. I don’t know why they kept it from you. Mom has her own thoughts and plans, and Dad goes along with them. But theydidgo down to visit you. That was the reason for the trip."

"But it changed." I squeezed my eyes shut, tensed my fingers, and then my forearms and biceps, isolating the muscle groups like I’d read to do as an anxiety management technique. "There's really no excuse, Ang. It's typical Mom and Dad bullshit. I could have handled this in doses, I'm sure. Sorry that finding out our family business went under, and that our parents have been house hunting down the road in the same breath, is coming as a bit of a shock to the system."

He put his hands up. "I get it. I'm not condoning the lack of communication. I’m also fucking peeved that I became the unknowing messenger. That was probably their hope all along, to soften the blow.”

"We both got played." My stress evened out and my attention moved to Tally on the pool patio, wondering how I'd break this to her. That our lives would never truly go back to normal after the wedding if both my parents were going to be in Florida, having us accessible, meddling in private, isolated moments forever. I couldn't tell her here. Not in Vegas, not during our one fucking weekend that was supposed to be drama free and perfect and relaxed with our wedding party. It would change the entire mood, and there was nothing that could be done about it from Nevada anyway.

"Don't worry about it now," Angelo said, reading my mind. "I'll talk to them. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for keeping you in the dark."

"Yeah, they knew I couldn't oppose it if it was already done."

The chair shifted like sand underneath me as I sat back and bit my tongue. This was just another thing I would have to deal with, another listed item on the docket. My life was becoming an endless to-do; when I checked something off, three more things materialized at the bottom. Our sticky note wall of clients, TechOp’s installations, my parents, my anxiety attacks, my relationship with my future wife that needed tending to.

There were so many things that needed my attention, but only one that I could actually focus on while we were in Vegas, and it was long past due.

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