No connection other than Carrie.
Ours may have been short, but we still had something, and nothing or no one can change that. Not even the ten years we spent apart, not speaking to each other.
“Please just come with me.”
Adaline makes a little kicking motion before pushing her way down her mother’s body.
Rebel’s eyes are fixed on mine before Adaline’s feet touch the ground. “Fine,” Rebel says, but her tone is full of attitude. “We’ll go with you.”
Adaline moves toward Carmello and reaches for his hand, gazing up at him in that way kids do to steal your freaking heart. “I’m going in the pink car.”
Carmello looks down at her in horror. “It’s red, kid.”
“Pink,” she insists, pointing with her other hand to his souped-up red Challenger and holding his hand with the other.
“Red,” he argues back, even though the fight is unwinnable.
He knows this, but my brother has never been one to back down from a fight, not even with a child.
“Adaline, you stay with Mommy,” Rebel tells her, immediately turning away from me and striding toward her daughter and my brother.
“No,” Adaline says. “Pink car, Mommy.”
“Again, it’s a red car.” Carmello rolls his eyes with a huff before bringing his gaze back to Rebel. “Why don’t you go with him, and I’ll take her. We’ll follow behind you two.”
Rebel gawks at Carmello, betrayal in her eyes. “You’re going to drive hours in a car with a five-year-old?”
Mello shrugs. “I do have younger cousins. I’m not allergic to kids, Rebel. Been around them my whole life. We’ll be fine.”
“She talks a lot. I mean a lot, a lot.”
“So do most of the women I know,” Carmello says, smiling down at the little girl. “She can keep me company while you two…” His voice drifts for a second as he looks across the yard at me. “…while you two get reacquainted.”
Rebel peers over her shoulder at me, no smile on her face and only contempt in her eyes. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Go, Mommy,” Adaline insists, pushing on Rebel’s leg. “You go with the big man.”
The little girl makes me smile. That’s the thing about kids. Zero filter. It’s refreshing to hear their type of honesty when they give exactly no shits about what they’re saying.
Rebel kneels in front of her daughter and peers up at Carmello as he twirls his keys in his hand, standing near the hood of his car, before taking her daughter’s tiny hands in hers. “You sure you’re going to be okay without me?”
“Yes,” the girl whispers, twisting her body like she’s about to jump out of her own skin. “I’ll be good.”
Rebel sighs, giving her daughter a hug but looking only at Carmello. “She likes music. Just play it and play it loud, and she won’t be an issue.”
“Noted.” He nods.
“Yippee!” the little squirt cheers before planting a big sloppy kiss on her mother’s cheek. “Pink car!”
“It’s red.”
Adaline turns, lifting her arms and shaking them at Carmello. “Upsies,” she says, instantly getting the reaction she wants out of him.
He plops her in the back seat, making quick work of the car seat restraints. “Let’s roll, people.”
“Let’s roll,” Adaline repeats, kicking her little feet, which are covered in hot-pink tennis shoes. “Bye, Mommy.” Adaline waves with a big toothy grin.
Rebel stands there, not moving, and watches as Carmello closes the door. “You better drive safe and not like a race car driver with my kid in there.”
“I have precious cargo.” She stares at him until he ticks his chin in my direction. “Go,” he tells her. “We’re losing daylight.”
“I didn’t think things could get any worse, but clearly, I was wrong,” she mutters as she stalks toward the passenger side of my SUV. “I’m not happy about this.”
Those words are pointed at me as she climbs in, slamming the door as hard as she can to prove her point.
She’s pissed.
Do I care? Fuck no.
We are going to talk.
She is going to tell me what we need to know to keep her safe. If she hates me for it, so be it, as long as she is safe.
I exchange a look with my brother. “This should be a great ride,” I tell him while Rebel gives me the evil eye as she sits inside my SUV.
“Learn everything you can while the kid isn’t around. Rebel didn’t want to say much in front of her earlier, but she has no excuse now.”
“Got it.”
“And, Rocco,” he says before I can grab the door handle and hit the road.
“Yeah?”
“Be nice to her and take it slow. Don’t force her to talk.”
My jaw ticks at his comment, and I grind my teeth, pissed. “I know, brother. I’m not an idiot.”
“Debatable,” he whispers as he opens the door and climbs inside to a squealing little girl.
I’m in the SUV a second later, and Rebel stares out the passenger side window, ignoring my presence.
I’ll give her a few minutes to stew in her anger. She deserves the time to get herself situated after I forced her to come with me against her will. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but she and I need to talk.
I let the silence fill the space as we pull out onto the road, with Carmello and Adaline right behind us.
We have three hours of road in front of us, and there is no way she’ll stay silent the entire time.
Eventually she’ll have something to say, even if it is only to tell me to fuck off, but that’s when I’ll have my opening, and I’ll take it.
7
Rocco
Over two hours and not a single sound from Rebel.
I was wrong when I thought she couldn’t stay silent for the entire ride.
She could, and fuckin’ A, she did.
Not even a sigh has come from her lips.
Nothing but complete silence and I am done waiting for her to make the first move.
“Rebel, we need to talk.”
“About what?” she asks, not turning in my direction. “There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s plenty to say.”
“You didn’t have enough to say to me when I called you before.”
I grimace.
She’s got me.
I did that. I’ll own it.
My muscles tighten as she throws my past sins in my face. “I said I was sorry. I should’ve picked up the phone. I wanted to, Rebel. I really did, but I just…” I grip the steering wheel tighter as I glance over, getting the back of her head. “I just couldn’t.”
“You weren’t the only one who was in that accident, Rocco.”
“I know,” I mutter, feeling like an asshole.
“I lost my best friend that day. I had to deal with my grief alone.”
“You had your aunt,” I tell her, and I immediately regret my words.
I know all about her aunt and what a bitch she was to Rebel.
She lets out a disgusted laugh. “That woman never cared about me. She was more worried how much the hospital bill was than how I was doing or what I felt. I was alone. Totally and completely alone the moment you walked out of the emergency room.”