Page 44 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Six months later

I sit with crossed legs on a checkered picnic blanket on the dock as Nicki Taviani twists her hands from side to side as she grinds up her daily dose of New York grown weed for her Friday afternoon joint.

We started this weekend tradition when we got our first summer jobs at Orchard Park Super Cream , the most chaotic ice-cream parlor in our neck of Western, New York.

My fingers spread the organic raw rolling papers open as I hold the tip in place for Nicki’s herbal remedy. She uncaps the grinder, sending the pungent weed scent wafting around us with the light, summer breeze.

She gets all the weed in and takes the papers from me to finish rolling up.

“Are you sure you’re not gonna smoke tonight?” Nicki asks.

“I’m sure.”

“Ugh. Fine. This is so fucked up, by the way.”

Nicki just landed the deal of a lifetime, but she won’t stop complaining about it.

She had to move out of her apartment downtown to live with her younger brother at his lake house on the edge of Lake Ontario.

The glassy blue-green looks so peaceful.

It’s the perfect distraction from everything happening back in the city.

“This house is nice. Renzo even fixed the hot tub for you.”

“He’s an asshole,” Nicki says. “Trust me.”

“What happened?”

“Does that even matter?” Nicki asks, cupping her hand around her freshly rolled joint as I fumble around for the lighter to help her get it lit. She continues her sentence after her first puff of weed. “You just got dumped, queen. What happened?”

“He wanted me to straighten my hair for our engagement party.”

“Okay…”

“And I told him that I didn’t want to straighten my natural hair because of the heat damage…

” It’s hard for me to continue, and humiliating to bring this story up in front of a white person, even if it’s my best friend Nicki who has been by my side through most of the formative moments of my life.

“He kept pushing me then he finally told me…”

I look down and try not to cry. I can’t believe I’m having such a strong emotional reaction right now and I’m glad that I only slapped my now-ex-boyfriend Torrence and ended the relationship instead of showing weakness like this.

“He told me that I needed to get that ugly mop under control if I ever wanted to meet his grandparents without embarrassing him.”

“That ugly mop?” she asks. “He said that?”

I watch Nicki’s face transform into pure rage.

I would love to act like I’ve never seen her this angry, but I’ve watched Nicki throw hands over iced lattes with too much ice.

She’s proud of being every Italian stereotype in the book and I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve always suspected her family members are mobsters, even if it’s the kind of crazy backstory you would only watch on an old CW show from the mid-00s.

“Yeah. He said that.”

Nicki’s anger validates me enough that the tears practically vanish from my face.

“He’s a fucking asshole.”

“He was the love of my life.”

My voice chokes up again. Nicki puffs out some weed and wraps her arms around me, holding me close for a tight hug.

This isn’t the first time we’ve sat here on the lake house dock crying over a guy.

Most of the time, Nicki was the one doing the crying.

Guys ignored me for most of high school, so Nicki mostly reassured me that I would lose my virginity someday while she cried over her various boyfriends, hook ups, fuck buddies and even long distance lovers.

“He was not the love of your life,” Nicki says, shaking her head. “The love of your life would never insult your hair.”

“What’s wrong with me, Nicki?” The question erupts from deep within my soul.

The pain surrounding this breakup is even deeper than the last one.

Jaylen and I broke up because he moved to Kansas City for his rap career.

He was biracial, endowed with the most average dick you could imagine, and never had any money.

There were never any hard feelings between us, but I guess what we had wasn’t enough for him to stay in Buffalo.

I wasn’t enough. The dream of us having kids and raising a family together didn’t appeal to him and when I met Weston, I really thought I found the one.

He played football at Buffalo University, he protested for Black Lives Matter.

Out of all the conservative truck driving, Carhartt wearing douchebags in Western, New York…

he stuck out as a sexy, confident, liberal man…

comfortable in his masculinity and eager to find a woman to build a life with.

He was supposed to be the one. If he wasn’t the love of my life, why did I spend two brutal years intertwining my life with his?

I feel hopeless. My head lands on Nicki’s shoulder for support.

I can’t hate her for trying to help me, but it’s hard to take her love life advice seriously when she turns heads whenever she enters a room.

The only time I’ve ever turned a head is when being mistaken for a waitress. Nicki strokes my hair and puffs on her joint.

“What? Nothing is wrong with you. Why would you say that?”

I find her hand stroking my head oddly soothing while my stomach tightens in a guilty knot, bubbling up all the contrasting emotions inside me. I should have told her all of this earlier, but now that Weston and I are officially over, I have to confess…

Women always wait until they dump a guy to tell their homegirls he had hooves or something.

Weston might not have had hooves but this isn’t the first time he’s put me in a position to question my worth.

I assume there’s something wrong with me because I still stayed with him.

I waited for him to call me ugly to my face to stand up for myself and there’s no worse feeling than the self-betrayal.

“I found him on Hinge last month and didn’t break up with him.”

“GERALYNN!”

Her admonishment only makes it worse, but I deserve it. Ladies, if you’re ever in that situation, that man needs to go. I had to learn the hard way.

“He had his preferences set to blondes.”

“That’s it, I’m calling my brother.”

“What?” I shoot up from Nicki’s shoulder.

Which brother? I’ve snuck around trying to stay invisible around Nicki’s terrifying brothers whenever I’ve had the experience of hanging around them.

They’re much older than she is and too wrapped up in themselves to know their youngest sister's best friends by name.

“I can have Weston killed.”

“Nicki, you’re joking.”

“Of course!” she says laughing awkwardly. “What, do you think I’m in the mob or something? I have a much better idea.”

“Like what?”

“Bar tonight. I still have to call my brother, though. I’m not allowed to go anywhere anymore without his supervision.”

“Are you going to tell me why?” I ask her.

Nicki puffs on her joint and passes it to me.

“Nope,” she says. “But you look like you need a smoke, sister.”

“I don’t condone this unhealthy behavior.”

“I’m not asking you to condone it, queen. I’m asking you to smoke it,” Nicki Taviani says, handing me her freshly rolled joint with its orange, burning tip.

The End