Book 2: Finding Valentina

Getting Older

I feel complete.

I'm here sitting at dinner with my 2 best friends, my dad, my Maggie and the love of my life. Everyone talking and getting along, everyone but Danny, something had happened at that fitting that caused Danny to redraw his invitation to his own brother's wedding.

He sat two seats away from me silently cutting into his steak, while my dad was talking medicine with Luca and Nate talked entertainment with Maggie.

"I need to be excused for a minute." I stated causing everyone to look at me.

"Everything alright, love?" Luca asked with a look of concern.

" Yeah, everything is great, I just need to talk to Danny for a second." I said, now causing Danny to look at me.

I nudged my head toward the living room and he followed me on and sat on the couch in front of me, I could hear everyone continuing their conversations as I settled into an arm chair.

"What happened at the fitting, Danny?" I asked.

He looked up at me and then back down at his hands shaking on his legs, and then just started shaking his head.

" I don't know who he is anymore, and it's not like when we were in high school and we knew Noami had control over what he was doing, this is all him. Camilla can't even pay him to be nice to me." He said.

" Is it because of-"

" I don't know, but why would he be mad at me about that, I just recently found out and if that is the reason why he's suddenly become homophobic then maybe he's been this way the whole time." He said.

" Wait, homophobic? Towards you?" I asked feeling my anger rush  like someone had poured boiling hot water through my veins.

"Yes, towards me, he called me a fag Artura, straight to my face, and today he told me that he couldn't protect me if someone said or did something to me for being gay." He said wiping a falling tear from his face.

"Is everything alright you guys- What's wrong?" Nate asked walking my into the living room.

" He called you what!" I yelled.
This caused for everyone to come into the living room with  panicked looks on their faces.

"What's going on in here." Maggie asked.

I was mad. I was fuming. If this were a cartoon my eyes would be crimson red and steam would be coming out of my ears.

" Marco is a bitch, he's scum, he's pathetic!" I said.

"Oh." Was all that Maggie said and pulled my dad and Luca back into the dining area, like she had known and was just waiting for me to find out and deal with it.

Luca tried arguing to stay with me but my dad assured him that it wasn't the right thing because I was now, "out for blood", and continued to direct him back into the dining room.

" That's not even what hurt the most." Danny said in a lower voice.

" What hurt the most is that he chose Cole over me to be is Best Man. Cole West, his half cousin over his full blooded brother." He said.

At the mention of his name, I felt light headed and nauseated and my heart clenched like someone snapped a rubber band on to it.

" C-Cole? He's here in New York?" I asked feeling my palms start to sweat.

"Artura are you ok?" Nate asked.

The wound on my thigh started to ache as if it knew what was going on, as if it heard Cole's name being mentioned. Did they know?