Page 80 of Skin Deep

He offered me a glass of whiskey once we were inside, but I declined. He put the bottle to his lips and downed some. He wiped a hand across his mouth, his eyes meeting mine.

“You ready for that shower?”

I shrugged. A shower? A fight? I felt like I needed to be ready for both. But he wasn’t going to initiate what happened next. I took slow steps toward him, and when we were face to face, I touched his cheekbone, where a bruise had formed.

“Worth it?”

He grinned, but it came across as a smirk. “Yeah. Every bruise. Every cut. Every drop of blood.” He took my hand, stopping me from pulling back. “I. Refuse. To. Share. You!”

“I refuse to shareyou!”

“For once in my fucking life, I have something that’s mine.”

“You are sharing me! With her memory. It’s deep in the bones of this place. It is painted on the fucking wall!”

We started to shout at each other. I wasn’t sure if we were making any sense. I heard his words, but I wasn’t truly listening to them. I wanted my words to be louder. My hurt to come first. I wanted him to take a sledgehammer to the wall—to show me what he’d do for me. He followed her scent all over the world, but he’d let me go. He was still fighting for her!

He’d told me he would always be with me, my one call, no matter what our love turned out to be. Fuck that! For once inmylife, I wanted to be enough. I wanted what she had. And I wanted it more than anything with him. But I refused to do this again. I refused to love a man who never felt like enough of anything was enough.

I’d had enough of that. But how many times had I convinced myself of that? Then went back?

Harrison pulled away from me, almost violently. He stormed away from me, heading outside. When he came in, he had a sledgehammer in his grip.

He pointed at the butterfly. “Will this do it? If I wreck someone’s childhood memory? Would that be enough?”

“Would that make me enough?” I said, sticking my chin up. It trembled with too many emotions to even name.

“You wanted to name our dog after your lover and this—this works foryou? This will make me enough for you? Then fuck it all—” He brought the sledgehammer back, but before he slammed it into the wall, I shouted at him to stop.

“What do you mean?” I said slowly, even though my chest heaved. “Name our dog after my lover?”

“Your lover,” he said. “Mac Macchiavello. I saw you. I saw you hugging him when you left me.”

“You mean Amadeo,” I said.

“Is that what you call him?”

“That’s what my family calls him—we all do.”

Amadeo had plenty aliases, because of who he was and what had happened to him. My family kept his identity a secret, and sometimes, who he was to us got lost in translation. My entire family was big, and it took time to figure out who everyone was to everyone else.

Harrison narrowed his eyes. The sledgehammer came down to his side.

“That’s great for him,” he said. “A nice nickname for a piece of shit.”

“No. You are not understanding. He’s familyto me—my first cousin.”

The sledgehammer fell out of his hand. His eyes narrowed, but then I could see light had dawned.

“His mam was the daughter your grandfather lost.”

“Sì.” I nodded. “Noemi.”

“She committed—” He stopped there. He didn’t need confirmation. Everything was falling into place. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged. “It somehow got lost in translation.”

“You didn’t think to clarify?”

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