Page 16 of Deviant Desires

The phone rings a few times before he sleepily answers. “What do you want?” He sounds drunk, but I know he’s at home with his wife, probably exhausted from taking care of their baby and living happily ever after.

“I need a cleaning crew and probably to see a doctor.” I stare at my ugly, mangled knuckles. “Do you want me to call Luc or Stefano?” My voice sounds hollow even to myself; it’s the deadness of my tone that gets Raniero out of bed.

“No,” he reassures me quickly. In the background, I hear Calliope stirring in her sleep to ask what’s going on. “I’ll be there soon.” He hangs up, but I hear him telling his wife that his brother needs him before the line goes dead.

Raniero is a fifteen-minute drive away; the first member of the clean-up crew arrives before he does. “Sorry about the mess,” I tell the woman at the door.

She waves me off as she enters with a cart full of supplies. Under her breath, she mumbles something about this hardly being a mess at all. She’s probably used to cleaning up my brothers’ messes.

By the time Raniero arrives, I’m trying to sweep with one hand while Ave Maria plays on surround sound. “Jesus Christ,” he swears as he steps on glass. “What the hell happened here?”

I lean the broom up against the counter and show him my fist. “Things are over between Bambi and me.”

Raniero tenderly grabs my wrist and winces with me as he looks at my hand. “I think it’s broken,” he surmises quickly. “Imelda isn’t going to find Bambi’s body around here, is she? Because she can handle blood, she gets queasy around dead people though.”

I was right, she does clean up worse messes than this for my brothers. “Bambi is perfectly alive next door,” I gesture absentmindedly across the way. “You think you could drive me to the ER? This thing is killing me.”

The trip is short. If it were a nicer night and I didn’t look like a victim of abuse with my puffed-up face and broken hand, I might have walked to the hospital. Instead, I sit in the waiting room with Raniero and tell him what happened.

“She just sat down and cried. I don’t think she knew how to tell me I was a monster that she never wanted to see again. It put me in a dark place. I-I wanted to kill her, Nero.” I remember thinking that as I was throwing shit around in the kitchen, but I was afraid to verbalize my anger. Afraid that if I said the words aloud, I might act on them.

Raniero nods along as I admit to him how I felt. We know the darkest things each other has done; admitting that I felt like killing someone is hardly cause for concern. “You didn’t though. You made a mess of your place and that’s probably going to cost a few thousand to clean up and replace, but you didn’t do something you couldn’t take back. You acted on your anger, but the only person you hurt was yourself. That’s the best possible outcome for a guy like you,” he jokes.

I smile despite myself. Raniero is two years older than me. When we were kids, we butted heads a lot because we both had dominant personalities. But it’s one of the reasons we’re so close now that we’re adults. He seems to know exactly what to say to pull me out of a funk. We might still butt heads, but we understand one another better now.

“I think it’s really over though,” I reiterate to Raniero. “I love Bambi and I probably always will, but I think I have to move on for real this time.”

With uncharacteristic intimacy, Raniero wraps an arm around my shoulder and pulls me into a side hug. “Shit happens, Mat. I know I haven’t always been supportive of this shit with Bambi since your trial, but that’s just because I didn’t want to see you get hurt again. Unfortunately, I think you needed to be hurt again to realize that you have to let her go.”

“Valenti?” A nurse opens the door and calls my name. “Mateo Valenti?” She looks apprehensive when she sees the two of us get up and head her way. It’s the same look everyone gives the Valenti brothers when they see us coming.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Nero,” I clap him on the back with my good hand. “You should have dropped this knowledge on me years ago.”

* * *

6 Weeks Later

I’m sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for my appointment time. The ER doctor told me the cast could come off after a month, but since I was still feeling some pain, my personal doctor decided to keep it on for a couple more weeks.

Learning to use my left hand has been a pain in the ass. In fact, every time I tried to grab something with my right hand and knocked a glass off a table or banged my digits against a cupboard, I swore at myself for stupidly ruining six weeks of my life.

I’ve used this time to recenter myself, whatever that means. Raniero convinced me to see a therapist for a few weeks to get my anger back under control. She said words likerecenterandrecalibratea lot. I didn’t like her too much, but she helped me see past the red-eyed monster within that got angry every time I saw Bambi’s car come home from a long day at work.

My brother also convinced me to move, all four of them, in fact. They showed up one day and staged an intervention. With Calliope’s help, we staged my house and put it on the market. Her background in real estate helped me to figure out how to price my place and what to say in the description when I put it on the market.

Everything was starting to look up. This cast would come off in a few minutes and I’d be free to resume my normal activities. I could play a few rounds of golf with my brothers before the season ended and go back to writing with my dominant hand again. Everything was going to be alright.

My phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I pull it out. The offer on my house came in three weeks ago and we’re currently undergoing inspections. I answer the unknown number thinking it’s the buyer’s realtor or someone requesting access to the backyard. “Mateo speaking,” I answer.

“Hey,” comes a wobbly voice from the other end, “it’s me. We need to talk.”

Hang up,Raniero would tell me. I can hear his voice so loud in my head that it’s almost like he’s here. He’d want me to do what’s best for my recovery. Bambi was like an addiction and I’m still working on beating it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I grind my teeth together and tell myself to be strong.

There’s a pause and then Bambi says, “I’m pregnant.”

“Mateo Valenti,” a nurse calls from the hall leading to my doctor’s office. “We’re ready for you now.”

“Hold on. I’ll be right there.” I don’t even excuse myself from the office, I just get up and walk out. Fuck all the therapy sessions I went to and all the times over the past six weeks that my brothers have said they’re proud of me for moving on. Bambi is pregnant with my baby and there’s no moving on now.

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