Page 45 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“I think my tennis days are a little behind me, Ren. I’m out of practice,” I say.

“Then I’ll finally have a chance.”

A warm, tentative heat floods my chest, chasing off the artificially flavored chill that sits in my belly. Is Ren…joking with me? I search his face like he might rip off a mask and throw it aside.

He’s been different since we made love. His edges are blurred, his glances more lingering and less glaring.

Except for the night I confronted him about Marlow. Then, he was a different man altogether. No relation to the one sitting across from me now, neglecting his salted caramel swirl. He stabs at his ice cream methodically, like eating it is a chore instead of a treat. Feeling bold, I reach over, like I used to, and swipe a spoonful out of his cup and plop it in my mouth.

Ren stares at me. His eyes darken, but I can’t name the emotion on his face. It’s not anger. He gives me no reaction.

“…No? You’re just going to let me get away with it?” I ask, trying to be playful.

“I’ve let you get away with worse.”

The butterflies in my stomach suffer a mass extinction event.

We finish our ice cream in fresh silence, waterboarded by a bubbly love song shaking the shop’s walls.

Ren walks me along the sidewalk, a hand on my lower back. As we walk, the shape of the day is starting to form in my mind. It’sa show. A time capsule of the past, revisiting all the things we used to do. A literal walk down memory lane.

Ren curls his hand around mine, and the grip almost hurts. We linger outside the bar where we used to drink—underage, and both of us with plenty of expensive liquor we could have stolen from home. But the alcohol wasn’t the point. It was just the getting away with it. Playing pretend.

Maybe that’s what we really like doing? Playing make-believe.

Ren walks to the door.

“I don’t think they’re open,” I say. It’s far too early for a bar to be operating. But Ren goes to the doors anyway, bringing me along with him. He pulls out a key.

My thoughts short-circuit as he opens up the bar and lets himself in, locking the door behind us and disabling the security system as he goes, like it’s second nature.

“…You own this?”

“I own a key.”

“What, did you pick up a side job? Does the family business not pay the bills anymore, so you started bartending—”

Ren doesn’t rise to my teasing. He walks behind the bar and slides two clear glasses across the bar top. He motions for me to join him, draws me deeper into the half-dark of an empty bar with the stools and chairs all perched on the tables. Stealing a bottle of bourbon, Ren smoothly hops back over the bar. Hetakes down a couple of the stools and pours us both two neat shots.

The room is so monumentally quiet. Like a morgue. I almost miss the pop music of the early 2020s blaring at me from every direction, drowning out my thoughts.

“Sit,” he orders. I sit, but I don’t drink, swirling the liquid in my glass. A physical representation of my swirling thoughts, around and around.

“…Why do you have the key, Ren?” I ask.

The house near the East River. This bar. It’s gone beyond coincidence now.And he waited…

“They were going out of business,” he says. “I made a few investments to prevent that from happening. In exchange, I got a key, and an open-door policy whenever I wanted it.”

“…Right, because locally owned family businesses are just so special to you.”

“This one is.”

I wish the lights were on. A strip of LEDs behind the bar throws a faint orange glow across us, but it only deepens the shadows on his face.

“Do you not drink anymore?” he asks, when I do nothing but hold my glass.

“…I haven’t exactly had a booze budget.”

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