I shook his hand. “Hey, Tony. Nice to see you.”
“You, too, son. You must be glad the busy season is over.”
My eyes flashed to Gia and back. “It’s bittersweet.”
Gia had been looking down, seemingly lost in thought. And she looked nervous for some reason.
When I touched her shoulder to lean in and kiss her cheek hello, she jumped.
“What’s going on? You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just tired.”
I nodded, but would definitely be keeping an eye on her.
Once everyone had full plates and drinks, I went to the bar to make a few more batches of mimosas. Tony walked over and took a seat on a stool across from me. He looked over his shoulder at Gia before starting to talk. She was busy yapping with my mother.
“I take it from the surprise on your face when I walked in that you didn’t know that I would be here.”
I set down the container of orange juice in my hand. “I didn’t. But I’m glad you’re here. This party is for family, and I’m glad Gia invited you.”
Tony nodded. “I’m also guessing that you don’t know why I’m here?”
“Is everything okay with Gia?”
“Physically, yes. She’s fine. But when did she tell you she was moving back to Queens?”
“Her lease is up on Friday, so in a few days.”
Tony shook his head back and forth slowly. “She called me last night. Moved that up.”
My entire body went rigid. “To when?”
“Right after this party. Said she wanted to get a jump on settling back in. But my gut told me she might be trying to sneak out without saying goodbye to a certain boss. I drove out early this morning and loaded almost everything already. Just need to move a few more boxes, and we’ll be pulling out.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I stared down at the bar. After a while, I looked up at Tony but wasn’t in any condition to talk to anyone. “I need to step outside for a bit.”
He nodded. “Go ahead, son. I’ll finish making the drinks and tell anyone who looks for you that you needed to take a call.”
I slipped out back and started to walk on the beach. Inside my chest, I had a crushing sensation that I hoped might be a heart attack. Gia wouldn’t fucking leave me if I was in ICU. Then again, is that really what it would take to get her to stay? I was pretty sure that it could be a hell of a lot easier than that. All I needed to do was tell her I wanted to be with her. Tell her I could accept her child and move on without spending every day loathing the thought of her baby’s father. Tell her I could move on without resentment. Why couldn’t I do it? I wanted to fucking do it.
I had to sit down on a big rock when I started to hyperventilate. My head was spinning, and I started to think maybe the lack of sleep and stress really had induced a heart attack. It took a solid ten minutes of sitting with my head between my legs, taking measured breaths in order for the pain to subside.
Afraid people might start to leave because I was gone so long, I started to walk back. I hadn’t been wrong. People were milling around and beginning to say goodbye to one another.
Riley came up to me first. “Thanks for everything this season, Rush. You’re not as big of an asshole boss as I originally thought.”
Somehow I managed to fake a smile and say goodbye on autopilot to most of the staff. I wouldn’t remember anything any of them said later because my brain was entirely somewhere else, but at least no one seemed to notice.
At one point, I found myself staring at Oak and his oldest daughter. She had to be about eight or nine now, and was showing off some dance routine to one of the female bartenders. It wasn’t his daughter who had caught my attention, but rather the way Oak was looking at her while she twirled around. So much love and adoration in his eyes. Sensing someone watching him, he looked up and our eyes caught. He smiled and patted his chest as if to tell me—this is life, man. I had to swallow a few times.
Gia made her way over to me, her dad standing a few feet behind her watching our interaction.
When she had arrived earlier, I’d suspected she was nervous, but now it was glaringly obvious. She wrung her hands and looked anywhere but in my eyes. “So…I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”
I stared at her. “You’re not leaving until Friday, right?”
Her guilt-filled eyes flashed up to mine before darting away again. “Yep. Friday.”
Tony shook his head from behind her and frowned.
So this was it? This was how it would go down? Like a goddamned pussy, I was going to let the woman I loved lie to me and sneak off.
“Gia…I…”
Her eyes came back to mine. They were filled with hope and optimism. But instead of giving me strength, they reminded me that I couldn’t hurt her again. Looking down, I said. “Nothing. I was just going to ask if I’d given you your check, but then I remembered that I did.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She stepped forward and gave me a hug that I could barely reciprocate. I had no balls left. In the end, I couldn’t even make it easier for her and be the one to walk away. She had to be the one to do it. In that moment, I felt ashamed to be a man.
Gia quickly turned away, and I got the feeling it might be to hide tears. Tony stepped forward and shook my hand as she walked to the door. “We’ll be around for another hour or two—in case you think of anything last minute you might need to talk to Gia about.”
I sat in the middle of the restaurant floor alone. Everyone had left, including Gia and her lie.
Looking around, I realized that I felt a lot like the restaurant right now—alone and empty.
I closed my eyes and started to think about my life.
The women—I couldn’t even remember any of the faces. Except Gia’s.
My father—I’d spent my life trying to prove to everyone that I didn’t give a shit about the man, yet all I ever really wanted was for him to want me.
My mother—Everything she’d sacrificed to raise me on her own.
Elliott—Most people wouldn’t believe me if I said I was jealous of him. But I was. From the time we were little, he had what I wanted, even if I would never admit it—love and acceptance from our father. And now he even had what I wanted more than anything in the world—to be the father of Gia’s baby. Life could be so damn cruel sometimes.
Pat—The father figure I had growing up who died way too early. How much he had meant to me growing up.
Gia—My beautiful Gia.
I loved her more than I thought I could handle. Yet here I sat letting the best thing that ever happened to me walk out the door. I fucking hated myself for it. I just wished there was some way to be sure that I could handle everything coming our way, that I wouldn’t resent her and the baby because of the constant reminder of my own childhood and the identity of the baby’s biological father.
Exhausted and feeling like I might not even be able to drive home soon, I went to my office to lock the safe before heading home. The lights were off, but sunlight shined through the partially covered window allowing me to see well enough, so I didn’t bother to flip on the switch as I entered.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t been bright enough for me to see that one of the wheels had come off the bottom of my chair, and I almost cracked my head on the corner of the desk when I fell off of it.
On my way down, I’d reached to grab onto something and knocked a stack of files off my desk, unleashing a torrent of papers that landed on top of me. Perfect, just fucking perfect.
Picking them up, I tossed them back on the desk and an envelope fell out from one of the files. I didn’t recognize it, but the handwriting was familiar and stopped me. Gia’s handwriting.
Ripping it open, I unfolded the contents and found a regular eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper with a few typewritten lines centered in the middle. There was also a yellow sticky note attached. I read that first.
I hope you like the dedication for my book. Only we’ll know how our story ends and be able to fill in the next sentence.