Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
“You didn’t know Eleanor,” Roland retorted.
“I didn’t need to, man. That’s whacked,” Archie shot back.
“It is, totally whacked. Grandmother was awesome,” Valentina asserted.
“She was cold as an icicle,” Roland stated.
Before anyone could say or do anything, Nico exploded, and that was when all the men, plus Valentina, moved.
Toward Nico.
“Fuck you!” he roared, bumping chests with his father.
Darryn got there first, wrapped an arm around his chest, and pulled him back, but even though Darryn was six four, and quite built, and my son was no slouch, but he was not, Nico fought it. He didn’t win, but he fought it.
Dru sidled up next to me and took my hand.
Dear Lord, she was witnessing this debacle.
My chest threatened to cave in.
Nico stopped fighting Darryn and jabbed a finger at his father. “Tell yourself that, you asshole. Convince yourself that Mom did shit to deserve you shitting all over her. All over your marriage. All over your family. Tell yourself that, you motherfucker.”
Roland looked struck.
“Nico,” he whispered.
“You didn’t take us to school, Mom did,” Nico bit out. “And she was standing outside every fucking day to walk us home. She might not have made us after-school snacks, but she sat with us while we did our homework, so if we had a question, she could help. We had family dinners every night, and you weren’t around for most of them, because you were working or off fucking one your whores. She was a Mom.” He threw his arm out to indicate the room. “We were a family. I’m sorry you weren’t a part of it, but that was your choice, not hers, and not ours.”
Jamie turned to me during Nico’s speech, and the warmth coming at me from his beautiful blue eyes set in his stony-angry face was probably the only reason I kept my feet.
“You went to the best private school in the city because of the work I had to do,” Roland returned.
“Had to do,” Nico scoffed. “Bullshit,” he fired back. “You came from money. So does Mom. And newsflash, Dad, I’d give it all up if I could erase just one time hearing her crying at night in your room when it was late, and you still weren’t fucking home.”
At that, the warmth in Jamie’s eyes turned to fire, and he aimed it at Roland.
As for me, the threatening ended, and my chest caved in.
I had no idea my son had heard me.
Quick glances at my daughters and their forlorn expressions directed my way told me they’d heard it too.
But I couldn’t focus on his new knowledge.
At Nico’s words, Jamie was done, I knew, because he stepped in and asked Nico, “Have you finished?”
Belatedly realizing we had a large audience, and I was a part of it, Nico glanced sheepishly at me and said, “Christ, Ma. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s all right, dearest,” I whispered.
Jamie took that as Nico’s assent, because he moved between Nico and Roland, with Darryn and Archie coming in at his sides, and he said, “You can leave right now, or we can remove you. Choose.”
Roland scowled at Jamie, then he looked between Darryn and Archie and declared, “I never liked either of you for my daughters.”
I also had not forgotten my ex could be petty.
I just wished he hadn’t said that to his sons-in-law, because it would far from ingratiate him to his daughters, and he had one who still cared, but if he crossed Darryn, she would not.
“That’s okay, seein’ as we don’t give two shits,” Archie replied.
Roland’s scowl intensified before he turned stiffly on his foot and marched out the door.
Archie followed him, and I heard the front door slam.
“You were kind of harsh, Nico,” Felice said quietly.
Oh no.
Nico whirled on his wife. “I was? You know how it was for us with him out fucking around?”
She lifted a feeble hand. “I was just saying—”
“What?” he demanded. “What were you just saying? Or, I should ask, what would I give a shit about you saying, since you seem to have an awful lot to say about fuckin’ everything.”
“Nico,” I warned.
Nico visibly pulled it together, and said to his wife, “You have more to say, we can move it somewhere else. If you don’t, then for fuck’s sake, don’t say anything.”
She screwed her lips up angrily.
Yes, my son’s marriage was in trouble.
I didn’t want to admit it, but if forced to do so, I would have said I’d seen it coming.
It wasn’t that they were from two different worlds (she hailed from upstate, both her parents were teachers, and they’d gone barefoot to my son’s wedding too). It was just that…
Well…
He’d married his mother.
Opinionated and outspoken.
The problem was, Nico didn’t agree with her opinions, considering quite a number of them were judgments about the life he was born into, something which was out of his control.