Page 70 of Mafia Toy

And I was scared. Scared of getting my heartbroken. Terrified of scaring her off.

I didn’t want to lose her. Not now.

“Constantino mentioned that you’ve been trying for a baby,” she whispered.

Dropping my head between my arms, I stared down at the padding underneath my body. Constantino had told Sage we’d been trying to get pregnant. Had he mentioned how much, how long, how many different fucking things we’d tried, and still … I had been useless in that too?

When Constantino’s brother, Pietro, asked about it, Constantino always told him we weren’t ready. But the family kept pushing it, which only stressed me out more. Constantino had even gone to an fertility doctor to see if he could do anything, but everything was okay on his end.

It was me.

“Yeah,” I whispered, the tears building in my eyes, “we have.”

“I can’t wait,” she said.

“You can’t wait?” I asked, lifting my head.

She rolled onto her back and grinned. “Your kids are going to be so cute! I can just imagine a whole bunch of little Lailas and Constantinos running around your house in the city, driving you crazy.”

Warmth spread through my chest, the tears in my eyes getting hotter. But unlike every other time I thought about the stress ofnotbeing ableto have kids, I found myself smiling, feeling hopeful.

What would life be like with a handful of young kids running around the house? Constantino would offer to hire a nanny, but I would want to raise them myself. Sage could help me. We could create art all day. And—

I swallowed hard. All this wasifSage was still with us.

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I whispered honestly. “I just want to have a family that I can care for.” Because I never had one myself. I wanted kids who would come running to me when they fell off their bikes, who would hug my thighs to feel safe.

It was something I never had, and I vowed to devote my life to my family.

“I want a girl,” she said.

We fell into a relaxing silence until Sage glanced back over at me.

“You should put on some sunscreen too,” she said. “The sun is strong.”

While I didn’t use sunscreen often, I handed her the bottle. She sat up, squirted some into her hands, and rubbed it across my shoulders. I closed my eyes once more, relaxing further under her touch and smiling.

Sage wanted a girl.

She’d be a good mother to her too. I held back my tears. And I’d bet she would find an amazing husband to raise her daughter with, someone who would support her through anything, someone who would inspire her to follow her dreams, bring her out on dates and not ditch her for his friends.

God, what was wrong with me?

She leaned down closer to me. “Do you think Constantino would put any on?” she whispered in my ear, wiggling the sunscreen bottle at me, peeking up at my husband, and stifling a giggle.

We both knew he wouldn’t; he had been reapplying his tanning oil every thirty minutes.

“Only if we squirt it at him,” I hummed.

She laughed into my shoulder. “You do it.”

While I hadn’t been serious about squirting my husband with sunscreen, I sorta wanted to do it now. He would freak the hell out, probably think that a bird had shit on him because I had never done something so silly before, but—I grabbed the lotion—why not?

From this angle, I could see his eyes closed underneath his sunglasses.

I slowly stood up and pulled Sage up with me, moving closer to her to whisper in her ear. “When he gets up, run. Fast.”

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