Page 99 of Massimo

“Great,” she muttered.

“Get whatever you want for tonight and tomorrow. Just don’t get anything we can’t eat in the next 24 hours.”

She didn’t pick apples and bananas, though. I was the one who got several of those.

No… she got junk food. Two bags of potato chips and a box of powdered donuts.

“That’s what you call ‘good’?” I asked as I stacked the food on the counter beside the cashier.

“It’s a hell of a lot better than tuna fish,” she said as she scrunched up her nose.

“We need protein.”

“Well, it looks like you’re buying a shit-ton of it.”

“I’m a big guy.”

She leaned in and whispered naughtily, “Yeah… how big?”

“GO… AWAY.”

She sighed and walked over to the front of the store as the cashier rang me up.

When he was finished, I paid in cash. I didn’t want to take a chance that Fausto could trace my credit cards.

“Oh my God!” Lucia suddenly squealed – not in anger, but delight.

I looked over to see her standing in front of a gumball machine, the type that dispensed plastic bubbles filled with trinkets and fake jewelry rather than candy.

“I love these things! I haven’t seen one since I was a kid!” She looked over at me, a huge smile on her face. “Can I have some coins?”

I looked at her for a second and got lost in her eyes.

She could be so incredibly annoying sometimes…

And then, without warning, her eyes could sparkle…

And her smile shine with joy…

It was enough to –

“Massimo,” she barked. She snapped her fingers like she was trying to break me out of a trance. “Earth to Massimo. Come in, Massimo.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, then slipped the cashier a five-euro bill. “Can you give us change for whatever that thing takes?”

I gave Lucia a handful of coins, and she inserted one and cranked the metal handle around. When the bubble came out, she opened it – and saw it was a keychain.

“No,” she announced to no one in particular as she tossed the keychain and bubble on the floor.

“Pick that up,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving me off as she inserted another coin and turned the handle.

The second bubble yielded several pieces of bubblegum. She popped them in her mouth and began chewing as she tried again.

The third bubble yielded a sticker of a scorpion. Or what I thought was a sticker.

“Oh, cool – a tattoo!” she cried out, and held it up for my inspection.

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