Page 46 of Mob Knight

“Joey, don’t be like this.”

I grit my teeth to keep from snapping at him and saying something I can’t take back when he’s already said way more than he can ever take back.

“Cormac, go home.”

Chapter Twelve

Cormac

I have fucked things up every which way from Sunday. I couldn’t have made more of a mess if I’d tried. I’m completely unaccustomed to these feelings of jealousy, and I let them get the better of me, which is also something I never do. I don’t allow emotion to rule unless it’s a sense of calm, which I’ve cultivated over the years even when situations tempt me to panic.

That’s exactly what I just did. I let jealousy make me panic and made me speak without thinking. I’m an utter fool, and now I’m standing by myself looking at Joey’s door that didn’t even slam in my face. Just the opposite. It closed with cold indifference, or at least that’s how I felt because she didn’t look at me again after she told me to go home.

Not even a slight glance from the corner of her eye. It’s as though she forgot about me before she even got all the way inside. I have no one to blame but myself for this because she’s right. I took a perfect evening and sent it to shite. It’s not something I can recover even if she forgives me, and I doubt that’s possible at this point. But even if she did, it doesn’t changehow I ruined this. That when she looks back at tonight, she won’t just remember what we shared at Obsidian.

To me, it was the most pleasurable, erotic, soul-defining night of my life. I was with Deirdre for three years and never felt about her what I just did with Joey. It wasn’t the most structured or planned scene I’ve ever done, but I felt like she took a part of me tonight, and that’s why I got so jealous so fast. It felt like I gave her a piece of me that left a hole that jealousy filled with thoughts of Pablo.

I believed that little boy when he said Pablo lied, yet when she started to mention his name, and it was connected to a sex club, all sound reason flew right out my ear and down the hallway out to the street. She was asking me, not telling me, that Pablo was a member. I’m certain her surprise was genuine, yet I completely ignored that—or overlooked it—or didn’t see it until it was too late. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, but I let envy and hurt rule the day. There’s never been a fool greater than me.

I chastise myself the entire way home. There are things in life I’ve regretted, but I usually tell myself regrets are useless. I can’t go back and change the past. I can try to right wrongs and do better in the future. But a fuck load of good that does me when Joey wants nothing to do with me. There won’t be a future between us for me to fix, and that’s almost the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.

Only bullet wounds and a few stabbings have hurt more. I don’t know how to fix this, and as I lie in bed, I don’t know whether I should even try. It’s not Pablo’s bullshit that makes me wonder whether it’s worth it. I don’t want to upset her more by insisting on something she clearly doesn’t want. However, if there’s even remotely a chance to make this right, I don’t want to pass that up.

Should I text her and apologize? Thank her for one of the best nights of my life? Would she even believe me if I included that last part? She might think I’m just saying it to manipulate her.

We don’t know each other well enough for her to be confident that’s not what I’d do. I’m certain she now believes I’m no better than Pablo since my objection was him being a manipulative little fuck. She probably thinks I’d do the exact same thing, since I’m certain now she believes I’m no better than he is.

I’m not any better than he is.

That rankles, and my doubts and self-loathing are almost all-consuming. I wonder if there’s any chance for me to make things up to her. I fall asleep with that on my mind, and I wake to it.

I realize how massive a fool I’ve been, and what a mistake I’ve made. But just realizing my stupidity isn’t enough. I gave her last night to cool off, but it wouldn’t surprise me if not texting her only made it worse. I consider what to say as I brush my teeth. I text her after I get dressed.

Me

I had an amazing night with you. Then I ruined it by becoming jealous. You’ve given me no reason to be. I let somebody who’s been tormenting me since we were kids get in my head for no reason. I regret that. I’m sorry for ruining the night for you. I should have been a bigger person than that but I wasn’t.

I think I’ve said enough. If I say more, it’ll feel like I’m trying too hard. I want it to be sincere. I don’t want her to feel as though I’m manipulating her.

I finish getting ready, waiting to see if she’ll respond. The minutes tick by as I head into the kitchen and round up the fruits and vegetables I soon blend with ice to make a smoothie. I add in some organic fiber and protein powders to round it out. I’m likea hobbit; this is first breakfast. I’ll have something later when I get to Dillan’s house where we’re all meeting this morning. He’ll have something ready for all of us.

We all know I’m the awkward one in the family because I’m entirely organic and practically vegan. I read an article and saw a documentary when I was a kid about processed foods and what they do to you. Ever since then, I haven’t been able to dredge up an appetite for anything that started out as pink sludge. No matter how delicious I’m certain it allegedly tastes, it’s just not for me.

I head down to my car, and I’ve still heard nothing back from Joey. I have to respect that she doesn’t want to hear from me anymore, and she may not accept my apology. I hope she does, but it’s unreasonable for me to expect her to. I look at the passenger seat as I climb in and think about how she rode there just last night. There’s still a whiff of her perfume in the air, and it’s better than any air freshener I could possibly have.

I doubt that’s a romantic thought she’d appreciate, but then again, romance was never supposed to be part of our arrangement. Not being a jackass was. I have no one to blame but myself for fucking things up. And boy, did I ever fuck them up.

It makes me wonder what she’s up to this morning and what her routine usually is. We were out pretty late, but I’m certain she got a full night’s sleep. I slept like shite. It wasn’t for lack of hours. It was lack of a quiet mind. Even when I was asleep, my brain kept ticking over this situation, and I dreamed about all the ways we could be together. I dreamed about all the ways it could end even more spectacularly, horribly than it did last night. I suppose it’s a blessing in disguise all she did was close the door in my face.

I shoot off a dictated text to Dillan as I approach the neighborhood everyone but me now lives in. It’s funny how, as ateenager, you can’t wait to get out on your own and live in your own home and do things your own way and not be like your parents. Yet, as everyone in my generation has married, they’ve all moved back to the same Queens neighborhood we grew up in.

None of them have moved in with our parents but have purchased homes on the same streets as bratva and Mafia families. Thanks to some gerrymandering and school district lines, we didn’t go to elementary or middle school together, but we wound up at the same high school. Many of us played on the same sports teams together all the way from peewee and little league up through high school. It was times like that when we put aside family rivalries to stomp our rival teams. When we were really little kids in those peewee and little league sports, we competed against each other just as often as we were teammates.

In that stupid movie,Goodfellas, Ray Liotta’s character says Saturdays are for wives and Fridays are for girlfriends. That’s hardly the case in any of the Four Families. There isn’t a man who would stray from his wife no matter what. He’d take a bullet before he’d ever betray his wife.

So, Friday night lights and Saturdays and Sundays were family days where the leaders of the four major families put aside the loathing and came together to watch their kids compete. The only family that didn’t have a dad there was the Kutsenkos.

They had their uncles, but their father was killed in the Second Chechen War before they immigrated to the U.S. The rest of the families all had their patriarchs cutting up orange slices and handing out juice boxes. Massimo Mancinelli even drove a minivan.

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