Page 56

BLACK VOID

SANTINO

A fter Bobby departed, Vanessa was quiet for the remainder of the afternoon.

Santino had booked them an early evening flight back to New York, and they had to pack, so he didn’t press her for the conversation he knew they needed to have.

Not just about Zoe and what had happened, but about their future.

She still hadn’t given him a definite “yes.” Up until last night, he hadn’t thought he needed one.

But as she crossed the room from the armoire to the vanity, Vanessa gave him a first: a wide, big smile that he knew was one hundred percent fake. That made him so sad. His sweetheart was trying so hard to not show how upsetting the Zoe ordeal had been.

She dragged her luggage to the rack and began packing methodically, her dresses, those shorts and shirts and shoes he’d taken off her, sometimes with lusty haste and other times slowly, with reverence and care.

He had no choice but to copy her and begin packing his own things.

If she wasn’t ready to talk, it could wait till they got home.

As the day stretched and the packing was finished, the silence grew uncomfortable, especially after the easy way they’d been with each other up until then.

That fucking Zoe. The minute he’d heard she and Bobby were coming, Santino should have wrestled Vanessa into his truck and drove them off somewhere else, taken her to some isolated cabin deep in the Canadian woods where they could regrow their love quietly, on their own terms. Fuck, the second they’d run into Malone it should have been a flashing red warning sign of trouble head.

Why couldn’t everyone have just left them the fuck alone?

But here they were.

“Do you think I have time to get something to eat? I meant you.” Santino went to her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He was trying to sound upbeat, teasing, but it fell flat and came out sounding crass.

“We’d be cutting it close, but yes.”

Vanessa glanced over her shoulder at him, still with that smile that looked as if it was hurting her cheeks to maintain.

“Vanessa, are you okay?” he asked softly. “Are we okay?” The beating of his own heart, loud, insistent, risked drowning out her reply.

She led him to the bed as her answer. Took off her clothes, wordlessly, while he took off his own.

Pulled him down on top of her on the bed and opened her body to him, took him inside, held on tightly, so tightly, while they made love.

It was beautiful, it was sweet, and so loving that tears threatened to rise when it was over and she was tender and fragile in his arms.

He dozed briefly until she tapped his chest. Santino woke up to find her gazing at him, and this time the smile in her eyes was genuine but searching, touching every feature of his face.

“Ready to go home, wifey?” he asked her with an answering grin, stretching against her.

“I’m gonna miss Montreal. I wish…”

Her voice trailed off and there were tears welling in those beautiful dark eyes. One silvery bead slipped from the corner and he caught it with his thumb, whisking it away.

“Wish it could be just me and you all the time. I know. Me too, tesoro .” Santino stroked another tear away and kissed her lips.

They tasted faintly of salt. He didn’t know where the words came from, but suddenly, he blurted out, “You know we could live wherever we want. We could start fresh anywhere you want.”

She whispered, so softly he almost hadn’t heard, “There’s only so far I can run from me.

” Before she could explain what that meant, before he could ask, Vanessa shifted up on her elbow and leaned down for a final kiss before leaving his embrace.

Reluctantly, she drew a path down his chest, stopping somewhere over his heart.

She kissed that spot and left the skin tingling and warm. “We’re going to miss that flight.”

With a sigh, she sat up and swung her long legs off the side of the bed. “Whew. I’ve gotta get psyched up for what I’m about to hear from Nadine when I get back home.”

“Do you mean about what happened with Zoe and Bobby or about us?” he pressed, pulling on his clothes as she went into the bathroom. “Nothing either of you do is her business. You guys are adults. I’ll tell her that myself if I have to.”

He resisted with all his might the old urge to go in after her, waiting instead until she’d cleaned up and came out.

Vanessa kept space between them as she grabbed her backpack and rolling bag, her body tense and suddenly closed off to him.

An alarm started clanging; he wasn’t facing the window to see the color of the sky, but he could sense it turning from blue to yellow, a bright yellow sky tinged with tendrils of black smoke.

“You’re not going to tell my mother anything. I can handle her. I always do.”

The flight back to New York was short and sweet.

It was really fucking fortunate that they didn’t run into Malone at either airport.

Still, her prediction that she would get some blowback from the Bobby and Zoe fiasco turned out to be accurate yet swifter than she’d imagined.

Nadine started calling as they were getting into the car service at curbside pickup at JFK.

“Don’t answer it,” he told her gruffly.

She didn’t. Vanessa grasped his hand and held on as the miles shortened between the dream of Montreal and the reality of home.

When they arrived at her house, Santino helped her carry her luggage inside.

The place looked and smelled the same as the last time he’d been in there.

Gladness to be home swelled inside him until he noticed Vanessa looking around with flat eyes, no smile.

He couldn’t fathom what she might be thinking, but she didn’t look happy to be there.

Maybe she was still missing Montreal like he was.

That place would always be special to him because he’d found his wife there, truly found her. But they had to move forward. And that meant laying it all out on the table so there’d be no misunderstanding about where things were and where they were going.

“I’m go gonna bring my bags in next,” Santino said, measuring her reaction to his words.

Her face went still. Those eyes flared from flat to…

what, he wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, he pressed forward, driven by the emotions that were building inside him.

“And then I’m gonna go to my place in the morning and start bringing the rest of my stuff.

We probably shouldn’t say anything to anybody for a while.

Let it just be us. The way it was this week, before everybody tried to ruin it. ”

Slowly, she turned to him. Her eyes were clouded with new tears, and that smile…that smile suddenly stripped him of warmth. The cold that took its place was so sudden and sharp it threatened to snatch his breath away.

“You’re mad at me,” he said, expelling a breath. “You’re mad that I didn’t tell you what Zoe did at her and Bobby’s wedding.”

“No. You were right. I would’ve blamed you and that would have been the end of us then and there. And I know what she did yesterday wasn’t your fault, either.”

There was still tension in her body, in her shoulders, the way she stood apart from him. Trying to keep his growing frustration in check, he asked, “Okay, so you’re angry because we didn’t leave when you said we should. I should’ve listened to you. I thought if I —"

“I’m actually not angry about that either.” Vanessa’s smile turned sardonic. “Surprisingly, for once it’s not anger I’m feeling.”

“Then what?”

The silence before she spoke again was excruciatingly long while that ping of alarm grew louder inside him.

“You made a bad decision in the past, about Antoinette, but this week has showed me that a lot of our problems were about me. And I’m so scared.

” A torrent of tears sprang from her eyes all at once and she held her face in her hands, shocking him, making him hurt for her.

“I’m scared it always will be. Turns out, the call is coming from inside the house. ”

She gave a watery laugh at that last horror movie joke, but for once he didn’t join her. It wasn’t funny. Nothing about her pain, her self-doubt, or what he hoped like hell she wasn’t going to say in this moment was fucking funny to him.

“But…” The air left him and he put his fists together, pacing back and forth twice, then lowering his arms back to his sides. “We worked on all that. You said you trusted me. We’re fine.”

“It’s not fine. It’s me I don’t trust.”

His heart was still pounding crazily, sending blood crashing and careening through his veins.

“Where is this going, Vanessa? What are you really saying?”

“I’m saying that Scott was right about me.

I am always worried that you’ll want somebody else.

I’m afraid I’ll never be enough for you, no matter how many times you tell me I am.

When I saw you and Zoe like that —you half naked, her completely naked —even though I heard what she said, I still had this awful feeling inside like maybe she could have convinced you if we hadn’t walked in right then.

My head said that wasn’t true and you wouldn’t have, but I felt sick picturing it happening. I felt sick.”

As if she wasn’t in fact ripping a hole in his heart now with those gut-wrenching words, those words that were cutting him, deep, drawing blood, she went on.

“Scott was right. It’ll keep happening if I don’t get a handle on it. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna make us both miserable as fuck if we just jump back into being together before I figure out where this came from.”

Santino’s emotions erupted into a loud, hard laugh that sounded crazed even to himself. When he could contain himself, she was staring at him, her eyes filling again.