Is This Happiness

77

I thought he was getting better. Even opening up more. He did just an hour ago. Telling me about the diner and his favorite cake. It was the small things that mattered.

He was an observer, not a speaker. Fuck, he let me touch his credit card. His credit card. He gave me his credit card.

Stefano rarely used his credit card.

"The card." I whisper, feeling a tug in the pit of my stomach. My mouth opened and closed, thinking of the possibility. It made sense, he gave the card to me so he could keep track of us. He would know exactly where we were when I used it.

Either meaning he did it because I was watching after his only son. Or when something like this went down, he would know where to find us.

"Did you lose it?" Luca asks frantically.

"If I buy something it'll charge the card. He'll know where we are, we have to go." I bounce up from the cushions, holding my hand out and helping him out.

"Shouldn't we go back? What if they go back and we aren't there. They could be at the police station or the hospital already." The last place Stefano Genoves would ever be, so no, I don't think so.

"Your dad, he doesn't like a crowd. Or police, hospitals scare him. I'm sure Giselle left a candle burning or something. It could have caught a curtain, they're fine that's what matters. We'll charge the card and see what happens. We can go to the station if they don't come okay?"

I start to nervously form lies the longer I spoke.

"All my stuff is gone." I don't look down at him, knowing his teary eyes would make me even more upset than I already am.

I had to charge this card somewhere fast.

Stefano wasn't the kind of man to be messed with. He is always one step ahead of everyone else. What happened in Boston really caught him by surprise. It wouldn't have just happened again like this, and after he promised me no one would find us here.

This must be his doing. But he wouldn't just explode a house and Luca's things.

There were so many questions.

"I've seen him charge it before and it sent an automatic notification to his phone, let's just hope he has it with him." I pull at his wrist, furthering back down between the two homes again. We make it back to the sidewalk seconds before his body leaped out in front of mine.

"What if they got hurt." I frown, taking a deep breath out of my mouth.

"We can't think like that. I mean, his car wasn't there." He told me to leave. I ignore the burning pain in my chest from hearing his words.

"Maybe they went to get desert too and they dont know about the fire. We need to go back, listen to me Carmen!" He liked the chocolate cake from the diner.

"We will go to the diner. Your dad mentioned he liked their chocolate cake. Don't worry, they're probably there right now." Right up ahead was the diner. How fucking irnoic.

"What do you mean? The diner doesn't have chocolate cake." He asks me with a confused look on his face.

I like going to this diner.

I don't look back. Quickly crossing the street and making it up to the glass door. My eyes scan the diner, and they aren't here.

"A water to go." I demand, wrapping my arm around Luca's shoulders and pulling him over to an empty booth nearby. I choose one away from the entrance or any windows. Having him slide in before I sit down right next to him.

"I hate water." He complains from next to me, grabbing a packet of sugar and fiddling with it from the end of the table.

"You aren't drinking it." I tense each time the bell hanging above the door chimes.