Page 74 of It's Always Sonny

“At least I can fly,” PJ says.

Nonna laughs wickedly.

She rounds up Mary, and soon, all of her adult children are following, along with PJ and me.

We fall in line together several feet behind the others.

“Nonna is my hero.”

“She’s taken you hostage. That’s the Stockholm Syndrome talking.”

PJ drives her elbow into my gut and then she looks down at my leg.

“You’re limping harder. What happened?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s worse. Is it the cold? Or—” she slams her eyes shut and winces. “You ran to help me.”

“Yup, and I’d do it again.”

“But your job—”

“Is a job.”

In my periphery, I see her head snap to the side. “Is everything okay?”

I sigh. “It’s all fine. I’m being ungrateful.”

“You? Not likely.”

“I am. I’m being ungrateful. I have everyone’s dream job, and it’s all thanks to you and the work you put in to my training freshman and sophomore year, and here I am complaining about being filthy rich?”

I’m disgusted with myself, disgusted with the resentment I feel even thinking about my job, disgusted that I can’t keep that resentment out of my voice when I’m trying to impress the woman I love.

“Sorry,” I say, wanting to erase the last thirty seconds from her mind. “I didn’t have a chance to meditate this morning, and I’m off my game.”

PJ shivers, and I want to put my arm around her, but I don’t want to make a misstep. “You know, I started meditating.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I started doing yoga and I end with a meditation every day. Part of my whole ‘winning the morning’ routine.”

“Winning the morning? That’s my thing. I talked about it on a podcast a few months back.”

“Oh, did you?” she asks so innocently, I know she knows.

Which means she listens to my interviews. Satisfaction fills me.

“Anyway,” she continues, “my chiropractor told me I must suck at it, because my muscles are tighter than a bongo drum.”

I laugh. “Maybe you’d be happier doing another exercise. Say, kickboxing.”

“Are you calling me aggressive?”

“Are you going to hurt me if I say yes?”

Nonna turns around and calls to us over her shoulder. “I have some old Tae Bo tapes you can borrow, sis.”

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