Joey
Sophie’s text comes in when I leave the club.
I’m miscarrying. Don’t come over. I don’t want company.
Cold ice floods my veins. Not my girl. Not my baby. I jump in the car, my jaw as hard as the rock in my gut.
She doesn’t answer the door at first, but I persist with knocking and waiting, then knocking again until the door cracks open, and she peers out. “I said not to come,” she wails as I push through the door without invitation.
“I didn’t listen.”
She wears sweatpants and a thin t-shirt, and her face looks drawn.
“You’re miscarrying? Shouldn’t I take you to the hospital or something?”
“No, Joey. I’m only six weeks along. It’s just like a bad period-cramps and stuff-you know. Well, you don’t know, but yeah, I’m fine.”
Fine apparently meant miserable.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s hard.”
She gives her head a little shake. “No,” she says in a low voice. “It just wasn’t meant to be, Joey. And I’ve been thinking a lot…” She works the engagement ring off her finger and holds it out to me. “I don’t think we’re meant to be either.”
My jaw tightens, and I refuse to take the ring. Fuck that. I’m her man. No way I’m taking that ring back. “Don’t make any decisions today, Soph. Your head’s not in the right place. Just hang onto the ring, and we can talk about it later.”
She bites her lip and looks up at him. “No. I’m sorry, Joey. But I’m sure. I went to Angela’s baby shower, and it really hit home. I don’t want to raise a baby with someone who could end up in prison or murdered. I grew up with that fear, and I can’t do it again. I just can’t.” Her words are strong, but her eyes beg for understanding. “And the thing is-if I know I’m never going to marry you, then we’re just wasting time together. The sex is amazing, but that’s all we have going. So I think we should break up.”
Her words strike like a javelin through the center of my chest. I have to stop myself from staggering backward. I hold my hands out. “Wait, just slow down. Look, it’s too soon in the relationship to decide if you’d marry me or not-we’ve only been dating a month. You were pressured into a decision because you were pregnant, and now that stressor is gone. Let’s just back off any kind of decision-making until we know each other better.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not listening to me, Joey. I’m not marrying into the Family. Nothing is going to change that.”
I look at her for a long time but can’t think of any brilliant reply that would change her mind.
She puts a hand over her abdomen. “I just want to be alone right now, okay?”
Fanculo. Leaving feels wrong on every level. But I can’t very well stay if she doesn’t want me. “Yeah, okay. I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”
“You don’t have to,” she says as I walk toward the door to show myself out.
“Well, I’m going to.”
The finality of the click of the door locking behind me rents my very soul.
It can’t be over.
I refuse to let Sophie go without a fight.
Sophie
I flop on my back on my bed, tears streaming out the corners of both eyes.
I lied to Joey about the baby. I didn’t miscarry.
I just knew he would never let me go if he thought I was still carrying his child. It’s not in his nature. He’s honorable and stubborn and doesn’t give up, so if he thought he had a child in the world, he would want to protect and provide for that child. He would do what he believed was right and make an honest woman out of me. He’s old-fashioned like that.
And knowing that tears my heart out of my chest. Knowing I’m pushing away an amazing, decent, beautiful man. That I’m going to keep him from knowing his own child. That I’m going to give up seeing him. Knowing him. Letting him become familiar.
It’s bad enough that I’m quite certain I’ll never find another lover like him. No man will ever compare to what Joey’s given me in the bedroom. His willingness to explore my kinky side with me. His dominance the perfect match to my desires.
I’ll need to leave town.
That’s my new reality.
I’ll need to get out of New Jersey in the next few months before I start to show.
I can think about that right after I manage to stop the non-stop tears. I know pregnancy messes with hormones, but I’m a disaster.
A total mess.
I can’t stop thinking about Joey. Missing him.
Wondering if I made a mistake.
But no. I didn’t. As wonderful and magical as my time with Joey was, he’s not the one.
He can’t be.
Because his mom was rightI’m not doing La Cosa Nostra again. I just can’t. My heart wouldn’t survive.
Joey
I call Sophie, but she doesn’t pick up.
I’ve called every day since she broke up with me, but she hasn’t answered once.
My pulse picks up speed when a text from her comes through. I stopped bleeding. It’s over. Please don’t call again.
I knew Sophie would be a hard-sell for a long-term relationship. It felt like fate intervened with the pregnancy to help her get over her hang-ups with the Family. But now I’ve lost her.
I feel like I’m being smothered by five hundred pounds of brick.
I don’t want to let her go.
Fanculo. I refuse to accept that I’ve lost her. I’m not the sort of man who admits defeat.
I want Sophie Palazzo. She belongs to me.
I’m going to do whatever-the-fuck it takes to win her back.
I honor her request not to call and instead drive to her massage studio, where I climb out and lean against my car outside, waiting for her to emerge. Eventually, I see the movement of the blinds in the window and the shape of her head as she peers through at me.
Ten minutes pass.
Then fifteen.
At twenty she walks out, tension radiating from her shoulders, her head held too high. She pretends not to see me. I walk toward her car, arriving at it before she does.
“Why are you here?” Her eyes dart around like she’s afraid I might abduct her.
I spread my hands. “I needed to see you. I needed to make sure you’re all right.”
“I texted you I was all right. I told you not to call anymore.”
“Yeah, so I didn’t call.”
I realize now that coming here was probably not my best move. I know I can be a steamroller. This situation calls for a lighter hand. I think.
Fuck, I don’t know what this situation calls for. All I know is that I want her back.
She rolls her eyes.
“I miss you.”
She must hear the honesty in my voice because her eyes fly to mine, and I see a world of vulnerability in them. Pain flits over her features, and she averts her face. “Well, we just aren’t destined to be.”
Is there a waver in her voice? I reach to turn her chin then stop myself. It feels too presumptuous. “What if we are?” I ask softly. “What if we could figure something out? I don’t know, leave town or something.”
She sucks in a surprised breath, her eyes searching my face. Is there hope there? Is this what she needs from me? A full break from the Family?
Fuck. It might get me a bullet in the back of the head, but for her, I could try to figure it out.
“No, you can’t, Joey. I mean, if you want to step back, you should do that for yourself. But don’t do it for me.”
“So this isn’t about the Family?”
Her hesitation tells me it is. She loves me. I know she does. She just got cold feet about being all in with the Family.
“Sophie, this isn’t West Side Story or Romeo and Juliet. We both come from the same side of the tracks, you know.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t have feelings for you.” Her voice breaks completely, and I know it’s a lie.
I long to draw her into my arms, to soothe her pain away and make things right, but I don’t want to overstep. “You wouldn’t cry if you didn’t care,” I murmur.
“I gotta go,” she chokes. “Don’t come around again.” She walks to the driver’s side and looks up with a narrowed eye. “I mean it.”
I stare at her, numbness taking root in my soul as a defense against the pain threatening to knock me on my ass.
I somehow make my limbs move to get back in the car. To drive away from the woman I love.
Sophie
I start crying the second I get in my car.
I don’t know what to do about Joey. I should have realized he wouldn’t let us go without a fight.
I respect that. He’s a man who knows what he wants and refuses to take no for an answer. Those are great qualities in a leader.
But right now, I really need him to back off. If he doesn’t, I may have to leave town even sooner than I planned.
As I drive home, I consider my options. You can’t tell a man like Joey what to do. I thought telling him I miscarried would make him back off, but apparently, he’s still all in with me.
That thought brings on full-on sobs.
God, I didn’t know it would hurt this much to lose him.
I didn’t think I was that attached to him. To a future with him. When did that even happen?
It doesn’t matter. I need to stay strong. I remember his mother’s words and steel my resolve. It wasn’t going to work and ripping off the bandage now is better than a fractured marriage years down the road.
His mother.
She might be the one person who could influence him to let me go.
When I get back to my place, I text my Aunt Marie and ask for Donna Teresa’s phone number.
There must be a god because Aunt Marie texts it to me without calling for an explanation.
I pick up the phone and call Donna Teresa, drawing a deep breath as I wait for her to answer.
“Donna Teresa? This is Sophie Palazzo.”
“Yes?”
“I wanted you to know that I considered your advice, and I’ve broken off the engagement with Joey.”
“You have.” She’s not giving me much back in this conversation, but that’s fine by me. I’m trying to get through it without breaking down.
“Yes. But I wondered if you could help me.”
“How, Sophie?”
“Joey won’t stop calling me and stopping by my work. I wondered if you could talk to him?” My voice starts to break on the last work, and I hit mute as I drag in a sobbing breath.
There’s a pause. “I see. Yes, all right. I will speak with him. Of course. Let me know if it continues.”
“I will,” I manage to choke out. “Thank you. Good night.” I end the call and hold the phone against my chest, weeping openly.
There. Now it’s over.
Now I really won’t hear from Joey again.
I wish that made me feel even one ounce better, but it doesn’t. It only makes me feel five million times worse.