Page 49 of Caught Up

I sighed. “I’m not okay with it, but I don’t think Junior is either. You should have seen how scared he was as a teen, knowing he was about to graduate and go into the family business. He tried to hide it from me, but I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice whenever he talked about his dad. I spent half our time together trying to make him laugh just so he’d have a break from all the doom and gloom. I don’t think he would have chosen this life for himself if given the chance. And this might sound kind of fucked, but growing up in the old neighborhood, the mob was just something you accepted as part of life. Nonna and Nonno Bianchi owned the corner deli, and I used to do my homework at the counter while they worked the store. Every other Friday, some big goon would come in, and Nonno would hand him a brown paper envelope full of cash.”

“Protection money?” Taylor asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Protection against them breaking their kneecaps if they didn’t pay on time.”

“That’s the cliché,” I agreed. “But the reality is more complex. Everyone in the neighborhood knows each other. Their kids go to school together, they sit next to each other at Mass every Sunday. If people can’t pay, the mob is good about letting it slide. Within reason. And that protection money isactuallyprotection money.”

“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

“The store was broken into once when I was in middle school,” I said. “Someone smashed out the glass on the rear door, took all the cash from the register, and trashed the place. Instead of calling the cops or their insurance broker, my grandparents called the man who collected their money. By the next afternoon, the store was cleaned up, all the cash was replaced, and the new back door was practically a bank vault. My grandparents were promised it would never happen again, and even after they retired and my older sister took over the store, it hasn’t.”

“Shades of gray,” Ryan said.

I nodded. “Nothing is ever black and white. Not even the mob. All that to say, no, I’m not okay with what Junior does, but it’s not enough to push me away either. And it’s not like I plan to marry the man, so in the long run, I won’t have to go through an existential crisis about it.”

Ryan studied me. “So it’s just going to be a casual hookup?”

“This feels more like...I don’t know. Maybe making up for lost time? Exploring the spark between us that we didn’t get to before?”

“I get that,” Ryan said. “As long as you’re being careful.”

Taylor grinned. “Double wrap it if you have to.”

Ryan swatted her. “I meant be careful emotionally.”

Taylor swatted them back. “Iknow that. I was talking about her heart, not his dick.”

Thwack.“Why are you like this?”

Thwack.“Because if I wasn’t, you’d never laugh, yougoth-assbitch.”

I leaned forward and smacked Taylor’s thigh.

“Hey!” she cried. “What was that for?”

“I felt left out.”

She hit me back. Ryan hit her. I hit Ryan. Why? No idea. It just felt like the right thing to do. Soon, a slap fight broke out that roused Walter. He got between us and started barking excitedly, becauseYay! Playtime!

“Oh, great,” I said. “You woke the baby.”

“Us?” Taylor and Ryan chorused.

Eventually, everyone settled down, and we retook our seats. Walter elected to lie half in my lap, his eyes open and shifting among us in case more fun sprang up. I started petting him, hoping he’d relax, and looked over at Taylor.

“I noticed you haven’t posted anything in a few days. You okay?”

She drew her knees to her chest and shook her head. “I haven’t really felt like posting. That cannibal really freaked me out, and I’ve been getting more shitty comments than normal.”

My heart ached for her. I’d been there before, so, so many times. We faced a constant barrage of comments with words like slut, whore, and every other derogatory word under the sun, and most of the time, we just had to accept it as part of the territory. We’d even done a decent job reclaiming the words for our own, to the point that I didn’t even bat an eye when I saw them anymore. Instead, I found a way to use someone’s misogyny against them, firing back responses like,My sexting channel is open if you want to see what a whore I’ll be for you, and then I watched the dollars stack up when they entered thepaid-forchat.

But not a day went by that I didn’t get at least one absolutely disgusting comment either from a sub or social media troll that totally crossed the line—the block button was my best friend in those circumstances. I’d had random upticks like Taylor’s plenty of times over the past several years, where it seemed like every other person thought that just because I was a camgirl, the basic laws of human decency no longer applied to me. This line of work definitely wasn’t for the faint of heart, and a lot of the friends I’d made early on in my career had long since given it up to pursue other lines of work or settle down and start families. I was beginning to wonder if Taylor was next.

“Take as much time as you need,” I told her. “Your mental health has to come first.”

She sent me a sad smile. “Thanks. I’m still good to pay my share of rent and everything.”

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