Page 13 of Salvatore

I don’t typically watch Donnie during the day, but Vito called me to tell me she was freaking out over Vin and wanted to see me. I came, because despite Donnie’s faults, she’s a friend. Maybe the blow’s making her more paranoid, or maybe it’s the shit going down with the other bosses. Whatever it is, she’s scared to lose Vin. But her fear is going to drive him away if she keeps it up and where’s that going to leave her? On the street for sure, with no one to take care of her.

Shit.

I slam my driver’s side door and crank the engine, pulling onto the main road. As I leave the upscale neighborhood, I try not to think about Donnie too much. There’s nothing I can do to help her when she’s so unwilling to help herself. I’m already putting as much as I can into the trust funds I set up for Apollo and Gianno and investing what remains so, one day, I can open that MMA gym I’ve been dreaming about. I can’t support Donnie, too, especially with how much she’s pissing away.

Worrying about what’s going to happen to her eats at my gut. But the closer I draw to the high school, the easier it is to let my frustrations with Donnie go and leave her problems behind me.

Gianno and Apollo have spent every weekday afternoon for the last two weeks with Aedry. It doesn’t seem like a long time, but already I see a difference in their grades and in their moods. They’re not as cranky or as needy. I think the individual attention she gives them has helped. Not that I’ve spent these last few years ignoring them. I’ve taken them to the movies, baseball games, vacations, shit like that. But days off away from Vin have been rare since the summer ended.

I haven’t been around as much lately. Not as much as I want and, based on how they’ve been slacking, probably not as much as I need to be.

I pull up to the rear of the building, where all the buses usually idle, to the right of the teacher’s lot. The three of them step out as I set my Range Rover in park. Gianno says something I can’t quite hear, but it’s something that causes Apollo to grin and Aedry to throw back her head and laugh. I’ve never seen a woman laugh like her. It’s like her whole body feels it. She doesn’t care how loud she is, or that she’s twisting to the side and holding her belly like it hurts. She just puts it all out there. The women I go with, it’s like they have to stay in control, always worried about how they’ll look if they stray past their well-rehearsed poses.

Aedry’s laughter fades, but she keeps her smile when I roll down the window and nod her way. She waves briefly, but then turns to my brothers to hug them goodbye. It’s something she does all the time now, and something she asked me for permission to do, so long as it was okay with them and I was present. I agreed, not thinking too much about how she believed it might help them. She spouted some theories, not that I gave them much merit. But seeing the effect it’s had . . . I get it now.

The first time she offered, Apollo stiffened and seemed to force himself to accept it. He’s not used to affection. The last time he was hugged was at our mother’s funeral. He hated all those strangers telling him they were sorry, and touching him because they felt he needed them to. They didn’t understand that the only thing he needed was our mother back. We all did.

Except, however awkward and hard it was for him to accept Aedry’s show of affection, he did, appearing to relax as she collected him in her slender arms.

Now Gianno was different. Being the ladies’ man that he thinks he is, no way was he turning down the opportunity to touch a beautiful woman. But the way Aedry embraces him is very motherly and I think it screwed with his mind the first time. He cocked his head when they separated and looked at her like he was missing something. But then he smiled in a way I hadn’t seen in years. He didn’t smirk, like he usually does, because he thinks he’s too cool to smile, or in that way that tells me he’s up to no good. No, this was a real smile, making him look like a kid and reminding me how young they still are.

My brothers like her and that’s . . . good. They need a woman like Aedry, not women like I bring to my bed?and definitely not someone like Donnie and what she’s become.

Aedry laughs again when she releases Gianno, taking a moment to muss his hair. “See you next week, okay?”

“Bye, Miss Aedry,” they both say, before jogging toward my ride and climbing inside.

“Hey,” I tell them.

“Hey,” they say back. Yeah. We’re all about the love.

Apollo drops his backpack on the floor and starts to buckle his seatbelt when a guy about my age hops down the steps and hurries to Aedry. I frown. “Who’s that?” I ask.

Apollo pauses. “Some dick trying to get in her pants.”

“What?” I ask, keeping the window down.

“Mr. Tavers. He’s the basketball coach and our gym teacher,” Gianno adds. “But, yeah, he wants to fuck her.”

“Watch your mouth,” I growl, mostly because I don’t like what I’m seeing.

The guy steps closer to Aedry. Aedry steps back, putting some space between them, but keeping her smile. The guy says something and motions in the direction of his car. Aedry loses her smile and shakes her head, saying something else and returning to the steps.

“Asshole,” Gianno mutters. “May have to key his car.”

I don’t hear the last part or maybe I do and don’t care. I’m too busy wondering why this idiot can’t take a hint and why it’s pissing me off to have him so close to her.

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