Page 50 of Bulletproof Baby

"How about I come for a visit because I miss pizza and the smell of fresh cement mixing with the stench of New York City rush hour every morning?"

"Whatever gets your pretty little ass up here, Lia. Just come okay? I have a surprise for you too, so don't freak out and like have your water break. I'm trying to prepare you," he laughs.

"Okay, I'm prepared. What's the surprise?" I ask him.

"I bought you something that you're going to need and that's all I'm going to say. Do you want to fly, drive, or what? I'll pay for your tickets."

"The train is actually closest to me."

Frankie gets all the details and arranges everything for me to make a quick visit to New York before I have this baby. I don't remember the last time I was this excited about anything. But going back to a city where a gangster ruined my life…?

It's funny, though, a gangster saved my life too.

I wonder if I can see Valentino. Fuck. Shit. Nope. I can't. I still haven't told him about this baby. He'll probably fly off the handle and think it's someone else's. Like I've been fucking around and finding out all the spectacular ways sex can change my life after fleeing the city I love.

What if this is a mistake?

I can't worry about that. I'm not happy in Pilsner. Even if I need a quick dive into the cesspool of New York as a reminder of why it's not the place for me to be, I'll take it just to have a glimpse of joy again. Pilsner is fine for regular people with regular lives that like to stick to their routine.

The crazy thing about that is that's what I want. I just want to be back home in New York. I pack my bags and spend the next few days wondering if I'm going to accidentally run into Valentino. I absolutely won't. In all of my twenty-three years living in New York, we never crossed paths, not once. So we definitely won’t bump into each other at a coffee spot or restaurant. I'm counting on that.

22

VALENTINO

Oscar Barrone sits at a table in the backyard of his massive Staten Island home that sits on the edge of a small lake. There are four other homes that share access to it and a large gate wraps around the entire block that can likely fit ten apartment buildings in the space.

The cast around my arm and hand is finally off after weeks of recovery. The bruises on my face are long gone and haven't returned in a while. For three months, I went back and forth from Kings to Cedar Bailey Hospital.

There's a woman that Dimitri uses. Twyla. She's massive and isn't squeamish of the sounds of bones breaking. She takes a great deal of joy in what she does. I used to take joy in having her inflict that kind of pain on me. It took me three months to figure out, my heart wasn't in it anymore. I kept going back for more, hoping the outcome would change.

I miss Lia.

I understand her choice and I understand her leaving, but I just wish she wouldn't have left me.

"If you're gonna sulk all fucking day, go home, Valley," my father says, his gruff voice cutting into my thoughts.

"I'm not sulking Pop," I tell him.

Oscar Barrone looks like me, thirty years older with a horseshoe balding pattern across his head. He weighs a bit more and hovers around my height as he puffs on a cigar while we sit outside, watching turtles play in the pond.

This is his life as a retired don. He's never really out of the life. He just deals with older guys who aren't in but wish they still could be. This is a young man's game. Even though I feel my age now and then. It doesn't help that my body doesn't heal back to 100 percent like it did in my twenties.

"You are sulking. Are you still nursing that broken heart like you're nursing that beer? If you're not drinking it, don't waste it. Pass it here," he says with a chuckle.

I slide the beer across the table just as his wife, Shayla, and Cecilia come out to join us. Shayla walks around the table toward me, leaning down, and she hugs me.

"Don't baby him. He's a grown man, Shay," Pop argues while drinking my beer.

"How are you holding up, Valentino?" she asks me with a warm smile.

"I'm good, Ma. I swear," I tell her and hold up my arm to show the cast is off.

"Good. You hungry? I cooked."

"You always cook." I laugh. "But yeah, I can eat. Armande's on his way too."

"Good, that means nothing will go to waste." Shayla grins as she turns to grab food off an outdoor kitchen setup. There's a tiled island with a built-in grill and pizza oven that I'm sure they never use.