Page 23 of Enzo (The Amato Family #2)
D inner at the Marino is always a… lively affair.
Adrian and Vic are in charge of cooking, while Micah and Gavin make chaos rather than doing anything useful while keeping Lara away from the food lest she accidentally poison us all—it’s happened too many times to count.
Kail’s nona is in the living room, pretending to be napping, but really, she’s just enjoying not having to cook for once…
and probably plotting how to swindle me out of more money.
Kail and I sit on barstools at the counter, out of the way, both of us content to watch as the action happens around us.
“Why do you have wine from thirty years ago?” Gavin asks as he roots around in our father’s pantry.
Adrian shrugs. “Was probably a gift or something. Bring it out.”
Gavin appears with the bottle clutched in his hand. “Shall we open it? Wine is supposed to get better with age, right?”
“It’s dusty as hell,” Vic says. “Are you sure it’s wine?”
“The hell else would it be?” Gavin wipes at the label and squints at it. “It’s a merlot. Has to be good.” Without waiting for an answer from anyone, he heads to where Adrian keeps the bottle opener.
“Fuck!” Gavin exclaims, causing everyone to look over at him. His cheeks pinken as he says, “Fucking cork is disintegrating into the bottle.”
“Probably a good indication that the wine’s rancid,” Micah points out.
“Nah…it’ll be fine. A little cork never hurt anyone, right?”
I snort. “You have a cheese cloth, Papa?”
“In the pantry,” he replies.
Grabbing my crutches, I head to the pantry and scan the shelves, thankful for the man’s organizational skills, because everything is neatly labeled in containers. Getting what I need, I head back into the kitchen and join Gavin at the sink.
Gavin puts a cup in the deep sink and I open the cheese cloth, putting it over the spout of the bottle and turning it upside down.
I have to lean against the edge of the counter, but my balance is as good as it’s going to get according to Jayden.
The fucking sadist is an asshole, but he does know his shit, and working with him has given me a confidence to get around on one leg I wasn’t ever sure I would get.
I won’t get my prosthetic for a while yet.
Between measuring, tests to make sure my residual limb is a good shape for it, and actually making the thing, it’s a whole process.
Not only that, but having to learn how to walk on two feet again…
it won’t be a quick or easy thing, but we’re working on it.
For now I have the crutches, a walker when I’m feeling ambitious—though I hate the thing—and my dreaded wheelchair when I need it.
It’s…some days therapy is harder than others, when my head has a hard time with my life, but I’ve accepted where I am.
The meds have helped with that as well, and so has Dr. Madison’s understanding of what it’s like surviving what you shouldn’t have.
Doc knew what he was doing pairing us together—not that I’ll ever tell him that.
“You’re seriously not going to drink that, are you?” Vic asks.
“Live a little, Victor,” Gavin tells him, not looking up from his task.
The wine comes out in a trickle, but it comes out cork free. We manage to get about a quarter of a cup before taking a break.
“Ha!” Gavin cries out in excitement. He turns around and holds the cup up in victory. “Did it!”
“How does it taste?” Vic asks.
Gavin brings the cup to his nose, giving it a big sniff. He grimaces, but before anyone can stop him, he takes a drink. “Not bad. Strong as hell, though. Want some?”
He holds the cup out. I shrug and take it from him. Taking a drink from the opposite side from where Gavin did, I try to savor the taste. The alcohol is strong, but the wine doesn’t actually taste too bad. It’s not something I’d seek out, but I don’t have any complaints.
“Not bad. I’m not a big fan of wine, but it’s decent,” I say.
“Let me see.” Micah reaches for the cup. He wipes the rim with a napkin and takes a sip. He seems to swish the wine around in his mouth before nodding. “Good.”
He holds the cup out to Adrian.
“What, are we at church?” Vic asks, causing us all to laugh.
“Seems like it. Blood of Christ,” Adrian says before taking a sip. He shrugs. “Not bad. Probably better than it was when it was first sold.”
Lara gets the cup next, along with a fresh napkin to wipe the rim. She makes a face and shakes her head before passing it to Kail. My boyfriend takes a deep sniff, blinking a little at the strong alcohol scent before wiping the cup and taking a drink.
He doesn’t have much of a reaction, but I know him well enough to know that the strength of it took him by surprise. I’m sure I could get him drunk on half a glass of the stuff, it’s that strong.
Kail holds the cup out to Vic, who sighs but accepts it. He takes a sip and immediately shakes his head, a disgusted look crossing his face. “No. Just… so much no.”
“You’re such a wimp,” Gavin tells him, taking the cup back.
“You can find your own ride home,” Vic tells him.
“I’ll just bunk here.” Gavin shrugs and works on filtering out more wine into the cup.
I make my way back to Kail and sit beside him again. “Am I going to have to drive us home?”
He laughs—probably because even though I’ve been practicing, I’m not a great driver right now. “Nope. That’s all Gavin’s.”
Slinging my arm around, him I pull him closer, relaxing at the feel of him against me while we watch our family go back to their regularly scheduled chaos.
Kail wraps his arm around me, snuggling so close he might as well be in my lap. Pressing my lips to the side of his head, I let his affection buoy me, knowing just how close I came to not having this, especially when I did most of the work to push him from my life.
Thankfully, he’s always been smarter than I have.
This life we have? There’s plenty more of it to come.
For us, our family—as insane as they may be—and the love we all share, it’s what really matters.
I may have lost a leg, may have questioned the value of who I am as a person, but now…
I’m learning what the true meaning of love and life is.
The beauty in the messy, imperfect, and chaotic is what I would have missed out on if not for the man at my side, and I will never not be grateful for him. Always.