Page 11 of Without Me (Men of Inked 5)
She still had her arms crossed, one shoulder slumped. Yep, she knew I was lying. I could read her as well as she could read me. Even though we had the biggest age difference, there was something about Izzy and me that just clicked. Since we were best friends, she was going to be pissed off that I hadn’t told her about Max.
“I’ll be back before Ma has the food on the table next Sunday.” I grabbed my phone and went back to my Facebook search, but kept an eye on Izzy.
“How convenient,” she said quietly, but loud enough for me to hear.
“Shut it, Iz,” I snapped. Not my shining moment. There would be hell to pay for being snippy with her.
She turned as James began to snicker, giving him her full attention. “Jimmy, did I even invite you here?” she hissed.
He slid his arm behind her back and pulled her toward him. “You know you did. Put the claws away, love. Your brother is old enough to do what he wants. Stop being so damn nosy.” He grinned at Izzy, stroking her stomach underneath her shirt.
“This is family business.” She pouted but didn’t say anything more.
“How about the weekend after? I think more people would come if we made it an all-day event,” Joe said.
“Yeah, whatever,” I replied, too busy trying to find Max.
“Anyone have plans that weekend?”
“Nope. Sounds good, Joe,” Mike replied as he pushed off the couch. “I’m so damn hungry. I’m going to check on Ma.”
“Izzy?” Joe asked.
“Yep. It’s good.” I peeked over my phone to see if she was still giving me the stink eye or if she had already forgotten it.
I caught her glaring at me. Nope. She hadn’t forgotten. There was something about Italian women. I swear to God, they had a filing system in their head. There wasn’t a thing they forgot. Especially when it was a fuck-up. Izzy didn’t forget easily, and I was in her crosshairs.
“Dinner!” Mike yelled from the kitchen just as I got to King Corona, the place where I met Nita and Malia.
“Fuck,” I muttered before I turned my phone off.
Ma was known for flipping her shit if we used any type of electronic device at the table. Sometimes I’d get away with it, but it depended on her mood. As I walked into the dining room, I tucked my phone in my pocket.
Before I could sit, Izzy grabbed my shirtsleeve. “I’m not stupid, Anth. You have some shit to tell me later. Got me?” She glared at me as she fisted my shirt.
Looking down at her hand, I said, “I’ll tell you tomorrow before work.” I was trying to give myself a sliver of peace for the rest of the day.
“Fine,” she snapped, releasing my shirt and sitting in the chair James had pulled out for her.
When he pushed in her chair, he looked at me and shrugged. I shook my head and rolled my eyes as I sat down. I noticed that everyone sat in pairs except for me. I was alone. The way I’d always wanted it to be. But for some reason, it bothered me today.
“Suzy,” Ma said as she placed the giant bowl of angel hair pasta on the table. “You get the first serving.”
Suzy licked her lips and rubbed her hands together. She’d grown huge over the last so many months. How in the hell a woman as small as she was had expanded so fast was beyond me. Everyone clamored to feel the baby when it moved, but I didn’t. That shit was creepy. Straight out of the movie Alien. I thought for sure it would break through her skin and try to kill us all. The one thing I knew for sure was that Suzy now ate more than any person at the table.
“I’m starving, Ma,” Suzy whined as she rubbed her belly.
“Aren’t you always,” I mumbled as I laid the napkin across my lap. When I looked up, Joe was staring at me.
“What the hell is your problem today, Anth?” he asked, resting his arms on the table.
“I don’t have one. I’m hungry too, but no one’s offering me the first serving,” I grumbled as I stared back at him, placing my elbows on the edge of the table.
“Get pregnant and then you’ll get served first,” Suzy teased as she stuck her tongue out at me.
I opened my mouth, about to say something, but when I glanced at Joe, I changed my mind. I had pissed every one of my siblings off at some point since I’d arrived. I needed to eat and get back to my cyber-stalking.
Out of spite, Ma came to me last with the bowl of pasta. “Want some, sweetie?” she asked as she stood beside me, holding the spoon.
“Please.” I gave her my best “I’m an angel” smile.
She and Pop were the only two I hadn’t pissed off yet. I’d do everything in my power to keep it that way. But I still caught the slightest glare aimed at me as she dug the spoon into the pasta.
She placed two heaping spoonfuls of angel hair on my plate before she set it on the table and took her place next to my father.
“How’s Thomas doing?” Pop asked James as he picked up his fork.
Pop never started to eat, even if his food became cold, until my mother had sat down unless she told him otherwise. I’d always thought he was pussy-whipped too, but now that I was older, I thought it was a sign of respect. It was the one thing that stuck out the most when I looked at them.
After I dug into the pasta, bringing it to my mouth, I stopped. I literally froze with my mouth gaping open and my fork hanging in midair. Suddenly, I realized that my thinking process had been altered. Out of nowhere, I’d started to think like my family.
Max.
She
had given me more than pussy. She’d changed my thought process. When I’d fucked her, it had to scramble my brains. I never thought like this. Now, my mind was a cluttered mess of pussy bullshit. I almost reached down and grabbed my dick to make sure I hadn’t left that behind when she’d kicked my ass to the curb.
“What’s wrong?” Joe asked.
I blinked, clearing my eyes of the “what the fuck” haze I’d fallen into. “Nothing. I just remembered something,” I replied, stuffing the pasta in my mouth.
“You looked like you saw a ghost,” Izzy added as she gave me a dirty look.
“Just thought I left my house unlocked,” I said, my mouth full of food.
“Surrrrre,” she heckled me before turning her attention back to her plate.
“What did you say about Thomas, James?” I asked after swallowing. I’d missed his response when I’d zoned out.
My brother had been gone for what had felt like forever. We were all anxious to see him again. James was our only link to him. Without James, we wouldn’t have had any information. He wasn’t able to tell us much, since the DEA forbade information sharing, especially with family.
“He’s doing well,” James replied after he choked down a mouthful of food. “We’re both hoping for it all to be over soon.”
“That would be fantastic,” Ma blurted out as she put her hands together in prayer. “God willing.”
“He misses you all terribly.”
“I can’t imagine what he’s going through,” Pop said as he wiped his mouth.
“It’s hell, but he’s getting through it,” James replied.
I didn’t know much about working undercover. Just the small things Thomas had shared with me before he’d left. He’d promised he would come back home, but even if he were a superhero, he couldn’t make that promise become reality.
The dinner table and every holiday had felt empty since he’d left. I’d never admit it, but I wanted my brother home. We had always been a fivesome, and being a foursome didn’t feel right. We spent out youth trying to pick up women together.
He didn’t get as much pussy as I did, but hell, I was a pushy bastard. Being in a band and having my voice alone could make the ladies drop their panties and bend over. It was the one thing Thomas didn’t have. He might have been able to flex his giant muscles, but he wasn’t as hung as I was and he didn’t have my ability to sing.
I ate the rest of my meal in silence. There wasn’t much to say. I had Max on the brain and the rest of the family had happy shit to talk about. Most of the conversation revolved about Suzy and the baby. Ma could only be described as giddy about the upcoming birth. I didn’t remember her being as excited as she was now even when Izzy was born.
There hadn’t been a baby in the family in well over twenty years. The only thing I could think of was all the crying. They’re cute, but they shit themselves continuously, they always cried for food, or they were asleep. Babies didn’t have many uses. You couldn’t play with them. You just had to hold them and wait until the next time they cried for attention.
As soon as I cleared my plate, I excused myself from the table. I needed to get back to my scavenger hunt to find Max. If I could make contact, maybe I could avoid a crowded weekend in Ybor City, prowling the neighborhood like a creep.
Not that internet stalking wasn’t creepy, but it was the only thing I had to go on without showing up at her door. Before I plopped down in my chair, I pulled my phone out and checked my messages. I didn’t know what I was hoping for, but the blankness of my screen made me scowl.
I searched Facebook for King Corona and started to scroll through their page. There were hundreds of posts, but I checked each one. I looked for Malia, Nita, or Max as I read each post one by one. As my eyes began to burn and I thought about giving up, I saw it. Malia. Even though I’d hoped to see a comment from Max, I’d take any lifeline to finding her.
