24| Birthdays

Chapter 24

Alice

I let out a deep breath, "Alessio, please let me talk for a minute." He stays silent. I can hear his anxiety through the phone. "Aria's birthday is soon, and I know she just wants us all the be together for her birthday."

"Yeah," he says.

"So, because this is the only thing she wants. Alessio, I think we should make her wish come true." This took me hours of convincing myself, mostly talking myself out. But then I saw Aria's face and remembered her voice when I asked her about her birthday.

"I honestly just want to spend time with you guys...together."

Her words were true, not some parent trap idea. She just wants us to be together, laughing about the most mundane things like before. And as much as it pains me and my morals, I want Aria to be as happy as possible for her first birthday with us. She deserves it. She deserves to be absolutely ecstatic to enter her teen years.

"So, I'm gonna send you the location to a restaurant that I think Aria would like, and we're gonna eat dinner and give Aria her gifts."

"Okay."

This conversation took a lot-us speaking to one another for our daughter. I never thought this could be my life with pseudo-joint custody with my husband. My husband is a murderer. "Thank you," I say, hanging up the phone without letting him say another word.

"Charlie!" I yell out. He patters through our new unknown space. After a week in that shabby hotel, I took it upon myself to get an apartment. It's not much, just a two-bedroom, one-bath that costs more than what it's worth. There's not much of a view, and the furniture all came with the place. I can't bear to buy existing furniture for this place. It'll feel too permanent like I made a home.

But no matter where I go, I don't think it'll genuinely be my home.

I walk to the kitchen, grab Charlie's bag of food and fill his bowl. He immediately dives in, and I stare, watching the fully grown pup who is now almost seven years old and has been through hell and back with me. There are so many things going on in my life. "Charlie? Is it good, boy?" I rub his back slowly, inhaling his scent while he's headfirst into a bowl of food.

"Charlie," I murmur. "I'm scared. So freaking scared and confused about so much." My bed every night feels cold, and it's too quiet-not the good kind with the soft murmurs of my family in the house. Instead, it's bleak with a gray hue added to the world. My life was filled with such colors and vibrance with the unyielding sanctuary of love.

Times like this make me miss Dr.Avery. She didn't make me feel so alone, an outlet for my darkest thoughts. But I can't see her or possibly even tell her what is going on.

How could I? Unless she's some type of murderer too.

She would contact the police. She would get Alessio and everyone I care about arrested.

Apart from me thinking it's the right thing, it is the right thing. Alessio is the bad guy. Leo is a bad guy. My mom is a bad guy. They should be put to trial for their crimes of taking people's lives and doing inhumane things.

But I can't possibly make the call. I can't bear to witness people I love so much be behind bars.

How sick is that? How sick and selfish am I?

How even sicker that right now, I just want to crawl into bed next to Alessio and have him whisper he loves me. I want to accept him with every fiber of my being, but the small voice in my head is telling me no. I can't be with him. The voice tells me I need to take Aria away before something like another gun to my head happens or worse. We end up dead.

And I can't take another child of mine dying.

God...tears coat my cheeks again, like every single day when I hang up the phone and hate myself for not asking how Alessio is. I hate that I want to know if he's eating enough or even wearing a jacket now that it's slowly getting a bit colder.

I am a shitty person.

I am in love with a murderer, and it's getting harder to separate myself from him.

~

Alessio is already there, waiting against the front door of the restaurant. He looks tired, like he hasn't slept in God knows how long. It's been exactly six weeks, the longest we've ever been separated since we went on our first date. Per my request, he's wearing a suit that I relayed to Aria for him, with only a scarf wrapped around his next.

He sucks in his breath, and a gust of fog comes out. Alessio shakes his leg and stuffs his hands in his pockets, looking around, looking for me. And with his dark circles and light scruff of a beard he still looks like the most gorgeous man I've ever seen. I park the car and open the door.

I spent extra time getting ready. I wear a spaghetti-strapped navy blue dress that comes down to my knees, lathered in glitter over it. There's a slight plunge that I thought twice about before settling on it that makes my meager breast worth looking at. The dress wraps around my body like a second skin.

I brought this dress days ago, and the entire time I stared at it, regretting this choice of clothing the forty times I tried it on, imagining all the things Alessio would think of it.

I put on my heeled shoes and sigh. I just need to get through dinner, grabbing my clutch. I walk to the restaurant. Alessio spots me the moment I leave the parking lot. He stiffens the moment he sees me, running his eyes from my feet up to my eyes, stopping at the generous curves of my hips and my meager breast that he worshipped like they were the biggest tits in the world.

I stop a few inches in front of him. "Is she inside?" I ask.

Alessio clears his throat, "yes, she is." He takes another look at my dress, "you look very beautiful tonight, Alice."

"Thank you. You do too."

"Thank you," he responds.

I see in his eyes there are a million other things he wants to say because the look on his eyes is the same as mine.

God, I miss you.

He opens the door, and I walk in with him so close behind that I smell his cologne. I haven't smelt this addictive scent in so long. It amazes me the things I miss about this man. I spot Aria before I can further let my mind wander at Alessio's pure masculinity and how he excited three of my five senses in less than five minutes.

Aria stands, and I hug her so tight that she has to pat my back for me to stop. I separate from her and take a look at her. Alessio has made sure she wore the dress I picked out and the two-inch heels that I knew she could handle.

She looks divine, the embodiment of a young woman turning into the cusps of being a teenager. "Happy Birthday Aria," I smile without a warrant or a care in the world. My first genuine smile is so long that it hurts my face.

While it's been six weeks since I've seen Alessio, it's been two weeks since I've seen Aria. I drove to the house, and we spent a day shopping and getting our hair done when I dropped her back off. I cried for hours before I went to bed.

I hate being separated from her.

And I know she does, too. I saw her face when she got out of the car. I could only make out the silhouette of Alessio as he let her in. He stood there for an entire minute-I counted, waiting on me, watching if I would dare step out of the car or, worse, go into the house.

"Thanks, Alice. You look great," she says, ushering to my clothes. Aria retakes her seat, folding her dress as she does it. I touch the chair next to her, and Alessio's hand touches mine. We freeze, and he's taken one more of my senses like it's nothing at all.

Pure electricity courses through my body. My breath becomes shallow as he pulls the chair out slowly. I push my own dress down as I take a seat, holding my breath during the small caress of my shoulders as he pushes in my chair for me.

He takes his seat across from me and doesn't hold back his stare. I reach for the water in front of me and take a sip leaving a hint of lip gloss on the rim of the glass. Alessio focuses on the small thing and goes back to Aria and me. "So, Aria, let me tell you about this place," I smile look next to Aria.

"Please do, because we weren't given a menu other than asking if we wanted a side salad. I got you a caesar, by the way, and Alessio ordered that wine you like." My eyes flicker to Alessio and back to Aria.

"Thank you, Aria. But the reason why I wanted to take you here is that they serve unlimited, all-you-can-eat luxury meat here."

"Are you serious?" Aria smiles.

I look to a small sign that sits in the middle of the table. I searched and searched for places to take my carnivorous daughter and stumbled upon this little restaurant that serves meat with a simple stop and go button.

"Yup, and all you have to do is flip that card, so it'll be green."

"Seriously?" She says, her smile never wavering. "Unlimited meat."

"Unlimited meat," she looks to Alessio and then to me and lets out a squeal before she reaches her hand to the middle of the table and flips the card to green. When the green side goes up, it's like a go sign to every waiter and waitress there to fill our table because it is bombarded with meats galore.

Sirloin, rib, loin, brisket, one after another with every other animal on the farm, is on our table cooked medium.

"Shit," Alessio says as he stares down at all the food. I take a sip of my wine, which was placed here in the midst of the food phenomenon, and I watch as the two digs in without a second thought.

"This is so good," Aria says after taking her first bite. She cuts into another piece of meat on a random plate and smiles at the easiness she does it.

"I can do it," she muttered, followed by her narrowly cutting her finger.

"Yes...I see that, but it could be better," Alessio said. "Give me your plate. I'll show you how to do it." Aria scrunched her nose, set her plate down, and slid it towards Alessio.

"Thank you," she said as she watched him cut into her steak for the first time and many times more.

"Alice try some," Aria says between bites. I look at the array of foods that seems to be disappearing bit by bit from the vacuum machine of a person next to me and laugh.

"Well, I better start then." Alessio pushes a plate in front of me.

"Try this," he says.

I eye the pieces of meat, nod my head and take a bite. It's like a million tiny ripples of flavors take over my mouth from a small slab of meat. "Shit," I say, catching Alessio's eyes.

"Good, right?" He smiles.

"Really freaking good! Les? Did you try this?" I ask with my mouth filled to the brim like my daughters.

"No, I grabbed it before Aria could have a chance to scarf it down."

"Hey!" She says, looking up from her food. "I said nothing when you were scarfing down that sirloin when you thought we weren't looking." I cock an eyebrow to Alessio, who is too busy cutting into a piece of meat to refute Aria's claim.

I cut another piece of the meat and, just like before, flavor paradise. "Oh! Alice, I forgot to tell you. That girl, Marcy? She officially hates me now."

"What? Why?" Marcy, the neighborhood mean girl cliche that Aria has half befriended, half mutually hate in a middle school type of way that only girls understand. They throw snide comments at one another but seem to always be hanging out with a group they've cultivated.

A group whose names escape me features seven kids, four girls, and three boys.

Aria smirks, "because Riven told Caleb that he likes me," Aria says smugly, to which Alessio says something in Italian that I know is a series of curses. Get used to it Alessio, our daughter is a total knockout. I can't wait until one boy comes to the house asking Aria for a date. It's gonna be absolutely hysterical.

"Are you serious?" I squeal. Riven's parents are some type of musical geniuses with a large number of Grammys in their house, per Aria's observation. They're the ones with the one house on the block bigger than ours.

"Yeah. But I don't like him or anything," Aria quickly says. "It's just nice knowing he likes me and not her." How, can he not like you Aria. You're so pretty.

"Well," Alessio clears his throat, visibly uncomfortable with the whole conversation, tittering on pissed making me chuckle. "You are quite the beautiful young...young lady," he says.

"Thank you, Les," Aria responds with a smile.

~

I burp really loud in the middle of an expensive restaurant which makes Aria, Alessio, and I laugh much to the other tables dismay. "Gross! Alice," Aria laughs.

"What? I am so full. I might combust."

"Oh! Aria, you better be glad she only burped," Alessio starts.

My eyes widen at the story he's going to tell her. An awful tale that embarrassed me so much that I didn't call Alessio for a day after. "You wouldn't," I start.

He cocks his eyebrow. He is, oh fuck, he's going to tell the story.

"Well, Alice over here forgot to mention how gassy she gets when she gets really, really nervous."

"Alessio," I spout out, my face probably a bright red.

"Yeah, so we're on our first date, and we're having the time of our lives. Aria and I take her home. And Alice-"

"Alessio, stop it."

"Right as I kiss her, a fart so loud comes out of her that it scared a stray cat."

Aria is in a fit of laughter. "Are you serious? Alice," she cackles.

Oh God, kill me now. Nothing is worse than having the night of your dreams with the first hot guy that catches your interest, and you fart. "Aria, I have you know he filled me with ice cream."

"Oh, and the smell...don't even get me started," Alessio adds.

"You know, Mr, I have half a mind at telling our daughter about your fall down the stairs."

"Whoa, whoa, what fall?"

I slyly smirk, "Alessio was walking up the stairs of my mom's house. And let's just say this big guy doesn't always look and went tumbling down the stairs. And let me tell you, Aria. It was quite the tumble."

A person who wears black slacks and a white button-down approaches our rowdy table, and he looks pissed. He doesn't give us a chance to speak before he opens his mouth. "I am so sorry, but many of our patrons have complained about the noise levels and the content of your conversation. I am sorry to say, but I have to ask you to leave."

All of us simultaneously frown. "Are you serious?" Aria says first.

"This is ridiculous," Alessio adds. "You see my family and me having a fun dinner, and you want us to leave?"

"Yes, sir. I am quite sorry."

I see Alessio stiffen up and the man, feigning to argue. I grab my used napkin and throw it over the eaten food. "Fine," I look to Alessio and Aria. "Let's go, guys. I think we can have dessert somewhere else. There are plenty of fine people who will serve the heir of Smith enterprises. The manager stiffens, then his eyes widen.

Yup, I'm going to play the privilege card.

Aria and Alessio get up soon after, and I strut out of the restaurant with them close behind, ignoring the apologies and comebacks that are thrown at me.

"Wow, I didn't know your last name held so much weight," Aria says as we walk to my car.

"Yeah, it's one of the only benefits of the name. I think for an additional birthday present, we can have this place named after you."

"Are you serious?" Aria asks, looking back at the place as we stop in front of my car.

"Yup. But I wish they didn't kick us out." I open my back door and take out a cake. Thank the heavens for the cold weather, or this baby wouldn't be in such pristine condition as it is now.

"You got me a cake?"

I nod my head, "yeah. Do you like it?" It's a one their birthday cake with an array of flowers covering it, with a big happy birthday plastered on top. I didn't want to go over the top for cakes because I knew she was going to be too full to even enjoy the cake after the dinner plans. I hold out the cake and click my tongue at the unlit cake.

"Wait a minute," Alessio says, jogging to his car and quickly coming back with a lighter. "I got it." Smart man, always prepared. He lights all the candles, and we sing happy birthday to our dear Aria in the middle of the parking lot, and in that small moment when my eyes meet Alessio, all I want to do is come home so I can have nights like this every day again.

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