Ares: Where's the pink?
I put myself in her phone as Ares and she's listed as Aphrodite in mine. As long as she knows Ares is me and I am him, I don't mind reminding her about Portland.
That I'm the only man she's ever had sex with. The only one she ever will.
Aphrodite: Since you kissed the cotton candy lip gloss right off my lips at my birthday, I don't think it's having the effect I thought it would.
I knew she was wearing pink to irritate me.
Ares: I don't hate pink.
Aphrodite: Oh, really?
Ares: The women who wear pink are too innocent. They have stars in their eyes.
So I don't fuck them. If a woman is wearing cotton candy lip gloss, she's too young and probably too innocent for me. It's simple math.
Math that got shot to hell with the woman on the other end of this text conversation.
Aphrodite: You are ridiculous.
Ares: What's wrong?
Aphrodite: Nothing.
Ares: What happened?
Aphrodite: Seriously? You think I left the pink off because I'm suddenly jaded? The stars went out of my eyes a long time ago.
Considering how much she and her cousins text, Róise uses almost no acronyms and her texts are long. Because she thinks I'm too old to know what the textspeak means?
Cazzo. I am not worrying that my arranged marriage fiancée thinks I'm too old. If anything, she's too young.
Ares: I don't recognize you like this.
She doesn't text back.
Ares: Tell me what is wrong and I'll fix it.
I delete the last four words. What the fuck is wrong with me? I am not her knight in shining armor.
Still no answer.
I figure I pissed her off, but five minutes later, the alert tone I assigned to her number chimes.
I grab my phone and check the text.
It's a picture. She's wearing a baby pink top now and glaring at the camera like she wants to smack someone. Probably me.
I smile.
~ ~ ~
I'm not smiling several hours later as Salvatore and I dump the last of three dead bodies onto the drive behind our godfather's home.
They're wrapped neatly in industrial plastic cling wrap. Angelo insisted on installing a wrapping machine in the secret subbasement of the Oscuro Building. I'd seen a machine like it wrapping luggage at the airport, but never a human body.
I've got to admit it's efficient for those times we transport bodies instead of disappearing them in the chemical bath under The Box.