Page 70 of Hidden Ties

As they crossed the street, Sal looked up at the blue moon one last time, grateful to still be alive.

“So, what’s the deal with you and a blue moon?” Valerie asked curiously, noticing him staring at it.

“For fuck’s sake …” Vincent just shook his head and rolled his eyes heavenward at the superstition that Sal hadn’t yet told her about.

“It’s a long story.”

TWENTY-SIX

MEN, GOD BLESS THEM. THEY WERE SO FULL OF THEMSELVES

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she flipped through a computer magazine she had found in the bottom drawer of the nightstand while Sal took his shower. He had refused to let her take a shower with him after she almost knocked him unconscious while convincing him to try a new sexual position they hadn’t done yet.

A while ago, when Valerie had first opened the drawer, she thought she had found his secret stash of porn. She’d heard all men had them. She’d decided to do some investigating in his room when she grew bored while he worked. Did Sal have any pictures or memorabilia from any of his former girlfriends he hadn’t gotten rid of?

She planned to dispose of anything she considered came from a woman but hadn’t found anything except for an old photo of a young boy with a woman standing in front of the exact kind of car Sal owned that Valerie swore she’d never eat Taco Bell in again after knowing the importance of the car and the fast food chain.

The child in the photo, she easily recognized as Sal. The beautiful woman, she immediately knew to be his mother,Isabella. His mother had a carefree yet wild allure about her that drew your eyes right to her. Valerie only wished she could have met her. She also couldn’t help but notice the demons that haunted her hollow eyes that were reminiscent of the ones Sal carried today.

She pulled the picture closer to her chest before she placed it back where it belonged and started her search back up again. That was when she had found his stash …

As she flipped through the hefty stack of computer magazines, she came to the conclusion they were porn for Sal. She, too, kinda got hot staring at a couple of the computers featured in the magazines.

Growing frustrated that Sal was taking so long, she was about to join him in the shower whether he wanted her to or not, but then the bathroom door opened. Valerie stretched her legs out as she eyed Sal’s lean body. He looked like a tasty snack in only wearing a towel wrapped around his hips. Her eyes drifted to where he had tucked it in low at his waist, which happened to be right below the bullet hole scar he now carried.

“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Valerie eyed the scar that only made him look that much tastier to her while her heart went all mushy whenever she thought about him saving her life that night.“We should discuss our future.”

Sal wadded up the towel he had been using to roughly dry his hair and tossed it toward the laundry hamper that sat in the bathroom; he missed.

She tried not to laugh too hard at the failure, when Sal sheepishly went back to the bathroom to put the towel where it belonged.

He kept his apartment meticulously clean,for reasons she now understood as well. But, for some reason, he thought he was Michael Jordan when it came to his towels. She had to kindly remind him more than once he never even playedbasketball growing up and still had yet to do so, as he continued only sitting behind a computer screen. It wasn’t like she minded; athletes had never and would never be her thing.

“You want to talk about money or something?” he asked, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

Valerie rolled her eyes at him. “No, I don’t want to talk about money.”

“Good. Because I have enough money to buy you whatever you want. If Game Hookup isn’t interested in your game after the changes you want to make, we’ll be fine.”

She had been hard at work on her game again, reworking some of the characters. She planned to resubmit it within the coming days, but she couldn’t help herself not to get distracted from her point, as her interest in money perked up.

“You do?”

“Yep. Unless you want a mansion like Lucca’s, then we will have to start smaller.”

Her heart turned gooier. She had to selfishly admit she did like that he had money. After being broke her whole adult life and struggling from paycheck to paycheck, and then to no paycheck, it was nice to not have to worry about how she could afford groceries anymore. Especially when the groceries just showed up, thanks to Sal. Even if they were all pretty much organic. Plus, she could use some money for one of those computer parts she had been ogling in one of his magazines …

She’d lost track of what she had wanted to talk about, when Sal’s voice drew her out of her virtual world and back to the real one.

“Do you not like it here at the Casino Hotel? I thought you did.”

Valerie sighed.“Love, Sal. I want to talk aboutlove.”

“You want to talk about love in general, or, like, you and me?” he stammered out.

Valerie gave him a warning look. She had stayed at his penthouse for almost a month now since they left the hospital after Sal got shot. Since then, they had yet to separate from each other unless Sal went to work.

She hadn’t yet breached the topic of anything about them as a couple in the future because she had been waiting on three little words from him before she wanted to make plans of what her new future could look like. Valerie had known up on that rooftop, when she thought he had died, that she had officially fallen in love with him. She had cried so hard and gotten so scared because she thought she had lost the man of her dreams.