Angelo said he'll meet me before dinner, that night.
Dinner came and went.
Me and Alberto shared the pizza I made before I fed Coco and put him to bed.
Cleaning myself in the marble tiled bathroom, I thought what was keeping him for so long.
Milan was one and half hour flight.
That would be roughly three hours going and coming back given he left at seven thirty.
It was half past eleven o'clock as I laid in bed, dressed in a brand new chemise I bought, with the money l had left in my card.
I mean, I used rest of card money to pay for the assortment of curtains for the living room, bedroom and guestroom, strictly making sure they match the rest of the interior, some more throw pillows for the living room couch.
I spend a lot from the card, so I was officially broke.
With Alyssa being my wing man, poking at this and that at the decorative store.
She paid for a chandelier that hung proudly from the living room ceiling in spite of my protests and spend the day here while the men hung the curtains and the chandelier leaving just before dinner.
Coralyn and Blaire parted from us, after we were done with finalising the not so wedding but wedding dress.
After a lot of reluctance from our to be bride, she chose a fitted gown that flared slightly from the waist down with a train.
A small train because she isn't feeling fancy and all that
Watching her biscuit Coralyn wept and then moved to a matching Veil.
Alyssa didn't want a veil.
So we passed.
And so we came back to the house, our stomach stuffed with food truck food to an unhealthy amount.
Sighing I turned to face the empty side of the bed.
I dressed up in new lingerie. I think.
The rational part of my brain thinks he's always late and maybe something came up.
Maybe they're having some trouble with the suit fitting and all.
The irrational, petty part of me still questions where is he?
Why isn't he here?
Why didn't he show up before dinner like he said he would before putting me back to bed so lovingly.
I glanced at the reflective ceiling, thinking of thousand reasons why Angelo is so goddamn late.
I think I feel asleep after I heard the bedroom door click open.
I could never sleep with lights all the way out so I had them always dimmed so I could see through my very sleep stained eyes the silhouette of Angelo entering the room.
Reaching to the knob under the bedside table and turn the lights to bright.
"Hey." I whisper, my voice coarse from the sleep as I sit up watching him close the door behind him.
"Hey." The man gives me a lopsided smile, still sporting the ash blue two piece suit with a white shirt, that wore when he left in the morning.
I realise he smells overly sweet and and highly of smoked cannabis.
Pungent and mixed with his cologne.
Striding to my half laying form on the bed, supported by my elbow, Angelo places a kiss on my lips.
He tastes of whiskey and cannabis almost bitter.
"How were you today?" He asks against my lips.
"Good." I smile. "How was your day?"
"Good." He replies placing another kiss on my mouth.
Blinking the sleep away from my eyes, I smile at him.
"I could kill for some food." Angelo sighs straightening himself.
"Pizza?" I ask getting down from bed, feet slipping into the house sandals grabbing the silk robe that came with burgundy chemise.
"Sure." He says. "Let me- let me just shower, I'll join you in the kitchen-"
"I'll bring your plate up." I say grinning and pecking his lips before walking out of the room.
I put two big slices of the olive, sausage and mozzarella pizza with basil that was for dinner, on a plate and put it in the oven, wait for it to ping ready.
Two and a half minute later the yellow light of the oven turns off, using the oven mitts I pull out the plate and put it on a wooden tray add a glass of water and a piece of semifreddo on a desert plate before carrying it up to the bedroom.
Placing the tray on the small table chair setting by the floor to ceiling window, I pick up the cloths that Angelo discarded on the floor.
I wish I didn't though.
His shirt doesn't smell like it does normally.
Like his cologne and the mixture of marijuana. The occasional pungent smell of treasurer cigarette.
There is a strong yet sweet smell lingering along with his.
With a strawberry undertone.
Awfully sweet.
Ignoring the extensively harsh sweet scent, I turn the shirt right way out to put it in the washer when I see it.
A red mark.
Just below the collar, over the right breast.
Sighing I bend to pick up the pants and the briefs, the shirt placed on top of the pile as I walk into the bathroom to put them on the wash basket.
With half a mind to set the shirt on fire.
Is this why he wasn't here before dinner? I think, tracing my finger over the red lipstick mark on the shirt.
Did this made him late?
While I waited for him?
Angelo steps out of the shower, but he halts when he realises me standing by the wash sink.
"Ariel?" His voice soft.
Softer then it has ever been.
I turn to see his face, a towel wrapped around his waist, the other over his shoulder.
I place the suit on the separate basket for dry wash and turn on the tap to warm to wash the short by hand squirting hand soap on the material.
The redness doesn't leave the white surface.
It just spreads.
No matter how much I scrub it between my hands, it just spreads.
"Baby." He whispers.
At this point, I feet blind by the tears jamming my vision.
Angelo places his hands on my waist, our eyes meet in the circular back lit mirror on the wall.
My eyes teary, his guilty.
Looking away I put more soap and scrub harder, wanting this- this-
This fucking stain to leave the fabric.
A sound mixture of sob and choke leaves my mouth as grit my teeth turning up the temperate of the water so it burns my hand while I try to scrub the ink off the surface.
Fucking get off.
I feel his hands on mine as he takes the silken material off my hand, turning off the water.
I don't know what to say.
Why am I like this?
Angelo gets a hand towel and uses it dry my seared palms with the softest touch.
"It's not what you think." He offered while turning the water in and turning the knob on cold placing both our hands under the concurrent stream of water.
I don't offer him anything.
Not even a 'tell me what I should think, Angel?'
But than again, I've always been the imperfect and stupid one, haven't I?
"We had a party for Lorenzo." He offers, rubbing his thumbs over my palms as the cold water sooth the almost scorched palm.
"It got wild, we ended up with dancers and drugs- its nothing baby."
After Angelo is satisfied he turns the tap off and uses the towel to pat my palms dry.
"It's nothing." He reassures putting away the small towel and making me face him.
Stupidly the tears were still leaking out of my eyes.
Cupping my cheeks he makes me look up at his face.
"It was nothing, alright?" He asks.
Is he reassuring me or himself?
Nevertheless, I nod as he swipes his palm under my eyes.
"Come feed me." He says gently. "Sí? I haven't had dinner."
We walk back into the room.
Angelo claims his seat on the chair before the plate, drinking a sip of water before taking his time to savour the meal before moving to desert.
All the while, I sit on the sofa like chair opposite to him, curled up, my head resting on the backrest.
Head repeating his words over and over again.
It was nothing, alright?
It was nothing, alright?
It was nothing, alright?
It was nothing, alright?
It was nothing, alright?
What ever it is, the irrational part of my brain thinks. It's alright.
Whatever it is, it's alright.
But it's alright enough to leave a mark and get smudged but never leave-
"Baby?" His voice makes me jump slightly as I realize I had my eyes closed.
Angelo had finished the meal along with the somewhat ruined desert.
"Tadpole-" He begins.
But, I quickly collect the tray and leave the room, with a view to put the things into their places in the kitchen.
I wash the plates, put them in the strainer. Wash the glass, the desert spoon and wash them again-
All sorts of scenario plays through my head in a painful imagination.
It hurts.
Dancers aren't a big deal.
I'm a dancer.
No kind of dancer is a big deal in a party.
Then why does it feel so so painful?
So fucking painful in my chest.
I leave the plates on the strainer after their second time wash and slowly walk back to the bedroom, knowing Angelo was there.
Probably ready to say that it was nothing again
And that I was over reacting.
And that it wasn't my place to react or over react.
Whatever Capo Bestone Giovanni has in his shirt shouldn't bother me.
I shouldn't cross any kind out boundaries but acting as if I was-
I don't dare to complete the sentence
"Ariel." Angelo's voice makes me steady on my feet.
He was quick to catch me just ad I was about to sway.
I didn't realise, I was swaying.
Stupid Ariel.
"Baby." He breathes, his face scrunched up in worry as he supports me with one hand around my waist.
I tell him I am fine and I can walk.
My voice low.
He helps me to the room, sits me in the bed.
Kneeling before me, he cradles my cheek on his palm.
"Okay?" He asks.
I nod.
Angelo pours me a glass of water from the pitcher resting on the bedside table.
He has changed into a grey pair of silk pajama bottoms, chest bare.
I drink a sip of the water.
"I presume a doctor's visit is in order, tadpole." He says gently.
"I'm fine." I shake my head putting my feet up on the bed, getting ready to lay down.
"You've been feeling this way for a while, now-"
"What are you hinting?" I ask.
"That you're not well-"
"I'm not fucking up again, Angelo." I whisper.
"If that's why you want to take me to a doctor." I add.
"I'm not saying that-"
"I am fine." I force, tears threatening to leave again.
"Fucking fine I am. Wonderful, even!"
"Okay." He utters trying to gauge the direction of my reaction.
Facing away from him, I lay down on the bed.
I am faintly aware of Angelo walking to the bathroom and coming back, dimming the lights and getting on the bed.
Facing me, he pushes the hair off my face tucking the locks behind my ear.
"Baby?" He calls, I feel his other hand, taking my left one in his.
"Sweetheart?" He whispers.
"Open your eyes for me, baby." He adds.
My lip wobbles.
Why do I feel so hurt and betrayed?
He said it was nothing, didn't he.
Dancers get handsy sometimes.
How do you expect a women giving a man a sensual dance without arousing herself?
I aroused myself countless times before when I gave privates.
How can I blame him?
"This is not how I wanted tonight to turn out, tadpole." He says softly.
"I'm sorry." I whisper.
I feel him slide something in my middle finger.
A ring.
I low sob breaks out of my chest.
"Shh." He whispers, pulling me close to his body and placing my head firm against his bare chest, cupping my head.
"Shush."
I can't-
"What is this?" I ask him in a whisper.
"Diamonds?"
"Sí." He whisper.
"You're making up for that with diamonds, Angelo?" I ask more hurt then I was a minutes ago.
"Buying me, are you?" I accuse pulling away from him and shimmying the ring off from my finger.
"This is a price?" I ask shoving the band at him. "Are you buying me?"
He's silent at my outburst.
"Say something!" I yell, ugly tears stream down my face.
"This is not a price." He says finally after moments of thick silence.
"I'm not buying you, Ariel."
"Then why plaster me with diamonds?" I ask. "Why now?"
"Because I saw the god damn ring and thought of you, damn it!" He yells, sitting up.
"It is fucking illegal, isn't it?" He shouted and threw the ring across the room.
"There." He rasped. "Gone."
He leaves the bed.
He leaves the room.
I lay there, tears silently streaming down my face.
Why can't I help how I feel?
What do I feel after finding lipstick stain on his shirt then a ring on my finger?
Bribe?
Reassurance?
Sorry?
Why am I like this?
I turn on the lights, wiping my face.
In the next fifteen minutes, I spend on my knees looking for the ring.
I don't even know what it looked like.
Under the chairs, under the table.
The bed with the flashlight on my phone.
Fifteen minutes turn to twenty.
Thirty.
An hour.
Nowhere in the room, there is the glimmer of the diamonds.
With tears in my eyes, I still look for it, on every corner, desperate to find the band.
"Please." I beg as run my palm along the floor hoping for the feel of it under my palm.
Nothing.
"Please. Please. Please." I beg, wiping my tears roughly as I walk to the farthest corner of the room.
Getting on my knees looking for the band running my palms over the floor when finally I see it before the window.
I pick the ornament up, quickly as if it'll be lost again, examining the delicate diamonds resting on the white gold band.
Several marquise shape diamonds make a leaf like pattern over the white gold till it forms a band around the finger.
It's gorgeous.
Wiping my tears away from my face, I run out of the bedroom.
Angelo was in his office, the door not all the way closed, the glowing fluorescent lights from inside the room flowing into the dark corridor of the house.
Opening the door slightly, I find him on the phone, his eyes down as he spins the circular paper weight on the table top.
Making my way inside the well lot room, I stand beside him, as she thrones himself on the chair.
Looking up he, he whispers an "I'll call you later" into the phone and tosses it roughly on the table.
I hand him the ring, silently putting my hand forward.
The one he slid the ring on, the first time.
"What do you expect of me?" He asks.
"You want me to put it on you once more?" He adds.
I look down, my hand drops to my side.
I hear the clink of the ring being put down on the table.
"Doesn't it feel like a bribe anymore, Ariel?" He asks.
"Don't you feel like I am buying you, again?"
"Or did you love them too much to stop yourself from wanting it?" He hisses, pure venom dripping from his voice.
"Go to sleep." He snaps.
"I've had enough of your bipolar disorder." Adding it to his previous words, he turns himself to the computer.
Feeling embarrassed, despicable, cheap, I stand there for a while.
He doesn't turn to me.
Or even acknowledges me standing there.
So I back off.
I want to go home.
"Would you tell Alberto that I want to go home?" I whisper to him like the shameless women I've turned into.
This time he turns to face me.
"What do you want, Ariel?" He asks harshly. "What the fuck, do you want?"
"I want to go home." I say.
"This is home." He says turning himself to face the computer again. "Go to bed."
"How is this home?" I ask.
"How is this home when you come home with stains on your shirt and reassure me it's nothing?" I whisper.
"How is it home when I feel your gifts are a bribe for me to stop crying?" I add.
"How is this a home when my apologies make me feel cheap? Like someone who loved them too much to stop herself from wanting them?"
"How is it a home when you've had enough of me?"
"I've spent an hour to look for it after you threw it." I whisper.
"I don't care if they're diamonds or gold or road side pebbles. As long as it's you bringing something for me, it's more expensive than gold or diamond or the moon."
"We don't even understand each other, so it's better for both isn't it?" I ask.
"For me to leave?"
Angelo turns his face toward me, a small smile playing on his lips as he grabs my hand pulling me on his lap.
"There you are." He says using his palms to wipe away my tears.
"There, baby." He says when a fresh batch starts. "Shush."
He slides the ring back on to my finger and examines how I sport it.
"No other hand would make this look as lovely as yours do, sweetheart." He whispered.
"You got scared, didn't you tadpole, hmm?" He asks caressing my cheek.
I place my face on the crook of his neck.
"Shush." He hushes me again when I wrap my arms around his neck and cry.
"I'm sorry."
"I am sorry baby." He apologizes. "I should have waited."
I nod.
"Should have waited till you felt better, sí?"
I nod into his neck again.
"It was a banter, I wanted a reaction but not the one you gave me?"
"Which one did you want?" I mumbling against his cool skin.
Let's get under the covers, Angel.
"The yelling." He says. "The cussing, the angry one."
I nod.
"I am sorry I hurt you." He says. "I am sorry my words hurt you."
"I deserved it." I say truthfully.
"The only thing you deserve darling, is the world." He says.
____________________________________
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Forgive me for typos today and I is late. So sowey
-November