[Aldo]
“That ain’t a part of this conversation!” he yells.
I put my controller down too. “You’re gonna say all this and then expect me to tell you everything?”
“You’ve always been the one with secrets” Andre shoots, folding his arms.
“What the fuck are you on about? We’ve just been working together for the last two weeks and you bring it up now? Like fuck, I’m not sorry, if this is how you’re acting now.”
“You’re gonna apologize and then take it back?” Andre says, looking at me like I’m a bug under his boot. “Let me guess, now you’re gonna hold the fact that you got me the job from Luca over my head too?”
“The fuck is up your dickhole?” I snap. “Your prison pen pal bitch break it off with you over a letter?” I gesture at the paper next to him.
He reddens. That’s pushed him over the edge. “Fuck you, man!” Andre stands. “I got no issues stomping a backstabber!”
I rise too. “A backstabber? You’re the mother fucker who kept secrets about the fucking Russians. Yeah, I know. Those mother fuckers tailed us up the whole coast. Even left you a little love note. Well, they’re waiting Andre… What are they waiting for? Huh? Want to tell me that?”
Andre turns fearful for a second. He pales and then swallows.
“I don’t need to stick around for this shit.” He goes to leave.
“No, you can’t play that card.” I grab his arm and stop him.
“Let go of me.” He pulls free.
“No. You can’t leave you asshole. Your bullshit almost got me and your sister killed. It was the fucking Russians that ran us off the road. Then tried it again in New York. Now you’re all pissed off at me for something that, okay fair enough, we didn’t tell you. But you’re angry at something else now. I’ve been polite the last month, but give up the dirt. What happened up North?”
“Always too nosey, Aldo. Probably why you liked hanging out with Sophie and Dawn so much, you gossiping bitch-”
I punch Andre in the gut, and he swings back, colliding with the side of my head. We both start swinging and fall over the backside of the couch.
We’re up in an instant, circling and wrestling. Andre gets another good one on my head and I get a better one on his kidney. We eventually come apart, shit is strewn everywhere and we stand watching each other.
“Were you so considerate of me while you fucked my sister?”
“Were you so considerate when you fucked off?” I bit out.
Andre spits blood at me. “You’ve been listening to Dawn too much. Don’t know the real world.”
“So enlighten me?”
Andre moves forward and swings. I duck and move to the right, wind up to jab him in the kidney, then realize how wrong this is. This isn’t at all what I wanted for us. I stop.
Andre doesn’t hesitate, swinging a haymaker and clocking me in the nose. I fall into the wall dazed. He boots at my ribs, and I grab his foot, twisting him over.
“You fuck,” I say. “Stop! This isn’t what I want for us.”
“It’s what I want, though,” Andre says, rising and moving back so I can get up.
I do, but I don’t go at him. He swings and punches me in the gut.
I take it.
“Hit back,” he says. “Come on.”
“No,” I say. “This isn’t what I want for us. Dawn and I hid it from you because we didn’t want to lose you.”
Andre is raging, this isn’t going how he wants. He swings again and punches me in the gut. “Hit back, dammit!”
“What’s wrong?” I snap. “What’s happening to you?” I feel blood trickling down my face and clothes. It’s warm, and the taste of copper is all around my mouth.
Andre looks like he’s battling with his internal self. His lips are moving, but no words are coming out. He finally screams and swings a last punch, and I brace for it.
But it goes past me, and he punches the wall. He punches again with his other hand. He keeps punching the wall and breaking the plasterboard.
He keeps going until he’s punching the wooden beams and his hands are bloodied.
I grab him and stop him.
“Get the fuck off of me!” he screams, pushing me over the couch and smashing through the coffee table. The thing collapses under my weight, and I lie there as he wrenches the door open and leaves.
I feel like I can barely breathe.
There’s no air in the world.
Then Dawn comes in.