Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Maybe he can explain it to me, too,” I mutter.
She laughs. “Are you going to be okay, cara? Do you want me to come over?”
“My sisters are here with me, but thank you. I’m glad you’re not mad at me.”
“Of course I’m not mad at you. Us women need to stick together. My son will come around—just give him time.”
Give him time . . . I swear if I hear that one more time, I might lose my mind.
“I’ll give him time,” I agree, thinking that he’s got all the time in the world. I did wrong. I messed up by keeping something from him. But shouldn’t he have at least taken the time to listen to me when I tried to explain things to him? He should have known after all the times I tried to talk to him about the shop that I had a good reason for doing so.
“We’ll talk soon, cara.”
“Soon.”
I hang up, then dial my mom’s number.
“Honey,” Mom whispers. I squeeze my eyes closed. “Are you okay?”
“Fawn and Mac are here,” I answer without answering.
“Good. I’m coming into the city. I’m getting ready to leave now.”
“Mom, you don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” she affirms. “I love you. I’ll be there soon. We will talk then.”
Great.
“Okay,” I agree. “Love you, too.” I hang up, then look over at Fawn and Mac. “Mom’s on her way.”
“You’re going to need more alcohol,” Mac mutters, picking up my still-full wineglass and bringing it over to me.
Hearing pounding on the door, my heart leaps in my chest. It crashes when Miss Ina shouts, “Open the door!”
“Great. This is just getting better by the second.”
“At least you know you’re loved,” Fawn tells me, handing me a plate of pancakes.
Mac opens the door to let Miss Ina inside.
“Took you long enough,” Miss Ina snaps at Mac.
“It took me half a second to open the door,” Mac replies with a roll of her eyes.
“Whatever,” Miss Ina grumbles. Then her eyes move over to me.
“Are you okay?”
“Peachy.” I hold up my glass of wine.
“Morning drinking. Lord. It’s worse than I thought.”
“Are you going to hug me again to make it better?” I ask her, and her dark eyes narrow. “Just asking.”
“Your mom is on her way. When she gets here, we’re all going to Bloomingdale’s.”
“What?”
“Therapy, child. I’ll even buy you something.”
I really must be broken, because for the first time in my life, shopping is not something I want to do.
“I’d rather stay in.”
“And what? Get drunk and watch TV?” She shakes her head. “We’re getting you out of this apartment for the day, getting your mind off things.” She pulls her eyes from me before I can tell her that I’d really rather not. She looks at Fawn. “Where’s my coffee?”
“I didn’t know you wanted coffee.” Fawn flashes an amused smile at the old woman.
“You didn’t ask. What’s with you kids nowadays and your lack of manners?”
“Miss Ina, stop being a grouch,” I tell her before taking a huge gulp of wine. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying in, drinking wine, watching movies, then going to bed early since I have to work at the salon tomorrow.”
“Fine,” she huffs as Fawn brings her a cup of coffee.
I smile at both my sisters, then settle back against the couch with my pancakes.
An hour later, Mom shows up. When I tell her that I don’t feel up to going out, she leaves to get us all lunch. We eat in front of the TV—even Miss Ina eats her sandwich sitting on the couch next to me. Okay, so she complains the whole time about eating in front of the TV, but I ignore that and focus on the good part. The being-surrounded-by-love part. I also drink wine. Lots of it from my never-empty wineglass. We watch movies—all of them scary—and when everyone leaves, I go to bed and once again cry myself to sleep while holding on to Pool. He doesn’t seem to care at all that his fur is soaked through.
Chapter 16
SWALLOW MY PRIDE
ANTONIO
When my cab drives past the pizzeria, I can’t help myself. I look out the window and see the new sign over the shop: PRINCESS PIZZA. She changed the name to Princess Pizza, with a bright-pink fucking sign.
Fuck . . .
My chest tightens, and nausea rolls in my stomach. Seeing the new name on the shop doesn’t hurt—it kills. It’s been two weeks, two fucking weeks, since I’ve seen Libby. In that time, I’ve gone from being pissed at her to pissed at myself. I fucked up. I let my anger get the best of me, and I walked away when I should have stuck around. I should have let her explain. Hell, I should have let her explain all the times she tried to talk to me about the pizzeria before I found out she was buying it. I never did. Every single time she started to bring up the shop, I would shut her down. I didn’t want to hear her tell me that she thought I should take it over from my parents, that she thought I was making a mistake. I had put her right into the same box with my ex and closed the fucking lid on them both again.