Page 57 of Alliance

I curl into him, soaking up his warmth. He should go, or I should leave him alone, end whatever’s happening between us. I try to push the idea of a future together from my head.

But I know I won’t.

I won’t push him away.

I live for these borrowed moments, these seconds where we pretend that nothing exists but us.

I’m covered in his fire.

He lit a match and everything around me was set ablaze. I can’t go back to normal, I can’t pretend that everything is okay.

I can’t give up Ignazio Vaccola.

And I don’t want to.

Chapter Twenty-Three

MA SETS A LOADED PLATEof food in front of me. Spaghetti piled high and a chicken cutlet, everything covered in her famous sauce. Normally her cooking has my mouth watering but today my stomach clenches.

“Ignazio?” Her hands smack the bony sides of her hips. “What’s wrong, why do you look like that?”

I frown at the comment, at the insinuation that something about my appearance looks out of the ordinary. Though, she may be on to something. I feel less okay today, less put together. My clothes look more wrinkled than normal, my body aches, and my shoulders roll forward.

“What’s wrong, Uncle Naz?” Anthony slurps a noodle through his lips before he asks the question. There’s a bit of red sauce smeared on his lips and he looks at me with innocent, naive eyes.

What’s wrong? What’s wrong is that my chest aches and my head won’t stop spiraling with the idea of Lana being pushed around, used as a punching bag while I sit here enjoying dinner.

I flash back to my childhood, and instead of Anthony across from me, it’s Elly, and there’s no food smeared on her face, just an empty plate in front of her. Ma sets down a casserole dish, inside is some grayish sauce with spiral noodles. The top is sprinkled with crushed potato chips, probably that half a bag Elly brought home from a friend’s house.

Elly turns her nose up, sniffing and pulling her head back quickly. “Ew!” she shouts. “What’s that?” she asks.

Ma sighs. “Tuna noodle casserole.”

Dad left three nights ago with the car. Ma hasn’t left the house in those three days. Normally, she goes grocery shopping on Saturdays. It’s Monday, but the fridge is still empty, the pantry bare. I don’t want to ask. I think she prides herself on us not noticing. Not realizing that we’re poor and Dad is gone for fuck knows how long.

She’s scraped up whatever was left in the pantry. Tuna, ninety-nine cent noodles, a can of soup, and potato chip crumbs. My stomach clenches.

The food in front of me now is so different. There’s so much more of it, the ingredients newer, better. So much has changed, and money did all of that.

I can’t worry myself about where the money came from, what hands it was traded through before it landed in my pocket. All that matters is that it’s here. That it put food on the table, kept the water flowing through our pipes. Money changes everything. A fact my family refuses to acknowledge.

Elly comes out from the hallway, plopping down at the end of the table. “Looks great, Ma.”

Ma mumbles a self-deprecating thank you before untying her apron and sitting at the other end of the table.

“So,” Elly starts, a slight smile etched on her lips, a pink color to her cheeks. “I have news.” Her eyes look to me. “I got a new job.”

“That’s great,” I tell her. My sister has been trying different jobs for years. She was a barista, a cashier, parked cars at the airport—a little bit of everything. “Where at?” I ask, spiraling the noodles around my fork.

“It’s in New York,” she says softly, her eyes watching for my reaction.

New York.

New York City?

Why the hell would my sister accept a job in New York? Anthony’s only ten, she wants to move him that far away from Ma, from me?

“What?” I choke on the noodle I had just brought to my mouth. “What are you talking about?”

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