Chapter Twenty Six
Vince
Carly is in my old bedroom when I get back to it. She’s not angrily packing her bags, her blue eyes flashing with anger and betrayal as I saunter in, like I imagined in my head. She’s flat on the bed, fingers laced across her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. Her phone is on the bed beside her, making me think she’s looked at the picture a few times.
I’m glad she didn’t leave. I don’t have the energy to chase her right now.
I expect I’m in for a fight I also don’t have energy for, but as soon as Carly turns her head and sees me, takes in the set of my shoulders, the look on my face, she scoots back against the pillow and pats the bed beside her.
“How mad are you?” I ask, as I climb on the bed beside her.
Carly smiles faintly, without humor. “I’m not mad.”
That’s worse. “How sad are you?”
“I’m sad for you, not me,” she says, simply, guiding me to lay my head in her lap. Her fingers move through my hair and I close my eyes, already feeling a little bit of comfort seep back into me.
“Whatever it looked like, it wasn’t that,” I assure her.
“I know.” Her fingers continue to work through my hair, but her tone is so even. How can she be so unaffected by this crap? Just seeing Mateo hold Dom makes me lose all of my shit, and Carly sees pictorial evidence of me pining for the family I can’t have with the girl I risked everything to keep but somehow manages to keep her head on straight.
“I feel like I’m sinking,” I tell her, opening my eyes to look up at her.
She swallows, nodding her understanding. “I won’t let you sink if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to, but I can’t…” I shake my head as much as I’m able with my head in her lap like this. I don’t know how to explain it.
Carly sighs. I feel it, since I’m in her lap. I hear it, and I feel bad for being responsible. She’s nothing but good to me at every fucking turn, and I repay her kindness with this bullshit.
“I figured it out,” she tells me, running her hand along my cheek before pushing her fingers through my hair again. “Mia’s the substance from your home planet that makes you weak. You may be my Superman, but she’s your kryptonite.”
“I’m a shitty fucking Superman,” I inform her.
“Nope,” she disagrees, more firmly than one would expect given this conversation. “It’s not your fault. You can’t control it. Logically, that shouldn’t be true. There are ways to control the power you give people over you, I’ve mentioned that before, but this… this is something else. It’s a toxic cocktail. Too much is being fired at you all at once and you can’t dodge every speeding bullet. Your cousin knew that. That’s why he made you come back to this familiar place, full of painful memories. That’s why he’s assaulting you with every instrument of emotional torture he can use against you. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more coming tomorrow. He really is a diabolical bastard.”
“He wants me dead,” I state.
“I know,” she says, softly.
“He usually gets what he wants.”
Carly shakes her head faintly, her gaze a bit vacant. “Not this time.”
“I still have to make it through four more days, Carly.”
“You need to stay with me,” she states. “Stop wandering off and letting him get you alone. Did he leave a trail of breadcrumbs to that bedroom? I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“No, that was my idea,” I admit.
She narrows her eyes like she’s not quite convinced. “We have to be more diligent.”
“I wanted to see Dom while I had a chance. Mia mentioned last night she’d let me today, but I forgot when we stayed out last night. Now Mateo told her she’s not allowed to be alone with me anyway.”
“She’s soft-hearted. She’ll try to talk him out of it. He’ll let her. She’ll think she won, but it was his plan all along. Not to mention, since he told her that in front of you, it’ll make you think she’s defying him for you, which will feed your proneness toward the emotional response. It was a play, saying that in front of you. He didn’t mean it. He needs you alone with her—that’s when you’re weakest. That’s when your emotions take the wheel and give you stupid ideas. Why do you think he left you an opening to talk to her after dinner last night?”
“You don’t think Mia knows…?”
She shakes her head dismissively. “Nope, he doesn’t need to tell her. He knows her patterns. He can play her against people without ever letting her know he’s doing it.” Her lips thin with self-directed disappointment. “I’m reluctantly impressed by the way he operates. He’s horrible, but he’s very thorough.”
“I don’t know, I never understand him. I don’t know how you…”
“Distill his thinking processes?” She shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I can’t be sure I’m hitting every nail on the head, but I think I’m close. He’s logical. I’m logical. I have a wide streak of sentimentality I haven’t witnessed in him, but it could be there. I’m sure I don’t see the side of him Mia sees. Maybe that’s where his sentimentality lies. Maybe she’s his Laurel.”
I smile faintly. “Just Laurel, huh? Have you lost your sentimentality toward me?”
“Of course not, but I wasn’t programmed with a Vince weakness. I’m compelled to take care of Laurel. When I take care of you, it’s just because I want to. I’m not obligated to. If I wanted to stop, I might feel bad, but I could still live with myself. Keeping you safe is only my responsibility because I want it to be. It’s not like that with Laurel. Even if it cost me everything else that mattered to me to keep Laurel safe, I’d still do it.”
“You’re a great sister,” I tell her.
“I try.”
“I bet you’ll be a great mom, too.”
Now her hand pauses on its journey through my hair. “I hope so.”
My mind wanders back to Dom. I block out the last image, him giving Mateo love and adoration the bastard does not deserve. I think of him curled up on Mia, fast asleep, his little mouth hanging open.
A moment passes before Carly speaks, but I think she’s been watching me the whole time. “What do you think our baby’s first milkshake will be? Since you want to sell the Vegas house anyway, we can stay in Connecticut. We can buy a pretty house, save up to open Wild Aces. I want a nice, big kitchen. We’ll bake your favorite cookies and make batches of spaghetti sauce with Laurel.” Gasping excitedly, she says, “Ironic bottles. We can even get the baby an ironic bottle so he or she isn’t left out of our mug tradition.”
I smile faintly, envisioning Laurel and Carly flanking me at the table with their brookies, a baby across from me, sucking on a “Festive AF” bottle full of milk.
“We should stop and pick up another Superman doggie before we leave. Our baby can have one to match Dom’s.”
The mention of Dom wipes the smile right off my face. “I don’t want Mateo raising my son. I don’t know if I’d do a great job, but I know he won’t.”
Instead of agreeing, Carly says, “I don’t know. The baby is obviously very important to Mia. He’s no second class citizen because he’s yours. I think Mateo is smart enough to mind his boundaries when it comes to a mother and her child. If he didn’t want to raise Dom, he could have communicated that to Mia when they found out she was pregnant. He’s powerless against that baby now that it’s here and she loves it. He can take on the rest of us, but not her son. It would only hurt him to let her have the baby and treat it poorly. It would depreciate Mia’s feelings for him. She’d come to hate him, eventually. He doesn’t want that.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I understand that, but it’s in his best interest to treat Dom well so I think he will. The point is, Dom is Mia’s baby. I know it sucks, I know it feels unfair, but consider what she had to go through. That was her first baby, and she probably didn’t even get to feel excited about it when she found out. It was probably traumatic for her. Now this feels that way for you, and it sucks; I wish you didn’t have to feel it, but this is a consequence of the very bad behavior you exhibited. I know you’re sorry, and I’m so proud of you for getting there, but it doesn’t negate anything. You’re frankly lucky that she even wants to let you spend time with him. She’s not obligated to.” To take the sting out of her reprimand, she takes my hand and places it on her flat tummy. “Someday we’ll put a little Carly-Vince baby in here and you’ll get the all-access pass. We’ll have a baby of our own. But it’s not Dom. Dom isn’t ours. There’s no way I can see that you could even be a part of his life. Look at your emotional state after being here for one day.”
I roll my eyes. “Good thing you’re cool with me being a mess, huh?”
She grins, leaning down to brush her lips against mine. “You’re the sexiest mess I’ve ever stumbled upon. Here, raise your shirt and remind me why I’m doing all this.”
I grin, lifting my shirt so she can run her fingers over my abs.
“There it is,” she teases, winking at me.
“You Prices and your hot guy weakness.”
“Hey, all guys are a pain in the ass. We should at least get something nice to look at while we’re dealing with all the bullshit that comes along with you.”
“I’ll have to remember to hit the gym in the morning so I don’t lose your love.”
“See that you do,” she says, with mock solemnity. “Though, actually, I should go with you. That’s our strength right now. If you so much as go to the gym alone, Mateo can put Mia in your path. If you’re going to see Mia, I need to be with you.”
I nod my head, dragging my shirt back down. “I like that plan. You can be my protector,” I half-joke.
“I’m your partner,” she corrects. “If he thinks he can shake me with pictures of you and Mia with your baby, he has another thing coming. Mateo’s kryptonite may zap you of your strength, but it doesn’t do shit to Lois.”
I grin up at her, grabbing a fistful of hair and yanking her down to my level. Before I brush my lips across hers, I tell her, “I love you, you little badass.”
“I love you, too. Now show me those super abs again.”