Her feet, like the rest of her, were lovely. Her toenails were polished a dark, dark red, darker than the color of dried blood. The sand had worn the edges away a little. The sole of the foot he held was red and abraded from her long walk in the sand and saltwater, and he dabbed gently with the cloth to clean it. The cut, when he found it under the sand and blood, was about an inch and a half long and fairly deep—any deeper and he would have suggested a trip to the ER for stitches. It was still bleeding a little, but he was able to get it pretty clean, and there didn’t seem to be any shell left behind. Just the omnipresent sand.
He eased her foot back into the water to let it soak, intending to rinse the towel out in the sink. Before he stood, he lifted his head and met her eyes. She was crying. Just tears sliding down her face, nothing more. When he looked, she wiped them abruptly away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. Did I hurt you?”
“No.” It was a gasp more than a sound. “No. You did not hurt me.”
She was staring at him in a way that made him feel…something. Something different. Something more. A tightening in his chest. A heavy pressure in his gut. A fullness in his cock. Jesus. He felt ulterior motives coming on. He realized that he still had his hand around her ankle, and that his thumb was moving back and forth, caressing her.
He let her go and stood up. “Okay. Um. Just let it soak for a while, and the rest of the sand will loosen and float out of the wound. Then lots of antibiotic cream and a good bandage. You probably want to wrap your whole foot, just to make sure the wound stays covered. Okay? I’m gonna go ahead and call my brother. I’ll wait outside for him.”
“Wait. Carlo?” The R in his name rolled when she said it. He could feel it. Right now, he felt that a lot.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For…for everything.” She smiled. He thought it was the first true, wholehearted smile he’d seen from her. Jesus. It was a little sad, but brilliant nonetheless. Jesus. He had to get out of here.
He returned her smile as he stepped away. “You’re welcome. It was my pleasure. Good night, Bina.”
He left her house. She let him go without another word.
~oOo~
“Daddy! Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy!”
Carlo pulled the pillow from his head and found his son bouncing on his knees on the empty side of the bed. Elsa sat at the side, her furry head bobbing up and down in time to Trey’s bounces.
“Hey, pal.” He rolled to his back and held his arms out, and Trey dropped full-force onto his chest. “Oof. You get a good sleep?” He glanced at the clock. Not yet seven a.m.
“Yeah! Aunt Rosie told me FIVE STORIES!” Trey held his hand up, his fingers splayed wide. There was still sandy goop from last night’s s’mores between his fingers.
“Five! You must have been super-extra good on the ride home, then.”
“Uh huh. I was! Did you catch the tail?”
Carlo blinked his sleepy eyes fully open. “What?”
“Uncle Joey told Pop-Pop you didn’t come home because you went to chase some tail. Did you catch it?”
Joey needed another broken nose. “No, pal. I didn’t. Sorry I wasn’t here to put you to bed.”
“That’s okay. Aunt Rosie read me FIVE STORIES.” Again, his sticky hand spread wide. “And Mrs. D. brought doughnuts and beagles for breakfast. I don’t want a beagle, but some of the doughnuts have jimmies. Can I have one with jimmies?”
‘Mrs. D.’ was Adele Dioli, who’d lived in the house next door for at least thirty-five years. She’d been their mother’s best friend. Her husband had died six or seven years ago. Since shortly thereafter, she’d spent a lot of time in the Pagano house. She’d become sort of a de facto housekeeper, running errands for their father, cooking meals for him, keeping track of the actual housekeeping service. To everyone but Carlo Sr., it was blazingly apparent that Adele wanted something more. The few times one of the kids had tried to point it out, their father had first brushed it off and then gotten angry. So everybody now shut up about it and let her constant attentions become a private sibling joke.
“We have Mass first. So how about this? We get a quick bath and get the sticky off you. Then, if you can sit quietly with your books at Mass, you can have a doughnut with jimmies when we get home.”
Trey’s face got serious. “Can I have two?” He held up two fingers.