“Are you finished?” asks Vince. His hands are on the table and balled into tight fists.
“I’m just getting started,” she says.
“No,” says Vince. “You’re making a scene and you’re embarrassing yourself. You need to leave.”
One of the restaurant employees notices and signals to the security, who quickly walk over to her and take her by the arms.
“Let me the fuck go!” she screams.
They begin pulling her away from the table. One mutters, “Our apologies, Mr. Citrione.”
Maria kicks like a wild animal until her dress bunches up around her waist and she’s flashing half the restaurant with her black panties. “He’s a fucking mobster!” she screams. “Asshole!”
A door closes and her voice is cut off suddenly, but the damage has been done. The whole restaurant is staring at us and the singer on stage has stopped singing. She motions to the band and picks up where she left off. When people see the dark fury in Vince’s face, they stop staring and resume their conversations. Finally, it’s just me and him, sitting there in an uncomfortable silence.
I fold my napkin and drop it on the table. “I think I’d like to go home,” I say.
“Yeah. Sure,” says Vince, wiping his mouth and standing. He grabs my arm a little too hard and pulls me behind him as we leave.
We ride back to my place in silence, and I can’t quite pinpoint why I’m so upset. I knew he had been with other women. I knew he had probably fucked more women than I’d like to know. Was it just seeing one of them in person that made me so mad? I don’t know why I feel so betrayed, but I do. Maybe I’m just afraid that will be me one day, chasing him around while he coldly has me removed from his sight.
“How long were you seeing her?” I ask when he stops the car outside my apartment.
“Maria? Fuck. I don’t know. She was nothing. Just a favor to one of my cousins who was trying to set me up with her.”
“Was fucking her part of the favor?”
He turns to me, glaring. “You knew who I was when you let me fuck you. I didn’t see you complaining before.”
I purse my lips, eyes threatening to fill with tears. I refuse to let him see me cry over him. I shake my head slowly. “You really are an asshole,” I say, getting out of the car and slamming the door on him. Part of me expects him to come after me, to refuse to let me leave like that, but he doesn’t.
I take a deep breath and step out of my car. It’s a game night and I’ve got to be on camera in thirty minutes. I can’t stop thinking about last night. I wish I just knew how to feel. If I knew for absolute certain that I never wanted to see him again, that would be easy. If I knew I wanted to be with him, that would be easy, but I’m somewhere in between hating him and loving him.
I shake my head as my heels click in the parking garage. I’m in the lower level of the garage reserved for press, and all the other members of the media had the good sense to get here earlier. It’s just me, and my footsteps are loud enough to make me cringe. Why do I have to wear heels to be on camera when it never shows anything below my waist? Hell, I could wear sweatpants and slippers as long as my top looks nice.
I’m about to walk through the gate that leads from the parking garage to the stadium when my cell buzzes in my purse. I swear under my breath. Phone calls are never good anymore. It’s either someone reminding me I have a bill that needs to be paid or telling me I owe money for something new. That, or it’s my dad begging for more cash. I check the screen. Incoming call from Jerry Washington.
What?
I pick up the phone, half-confused and half-annoyed. I only have his number because he insisted on putting it in at the Christmas party. He never called me, though.
“Hello?” I say.
“Aubriella, it’s Jerry.”
“Okay?”
“I just wanted to tell you up-front before you see it for yourself. I have a buddy in the tech department and he passed along an absolutely stellar piece you wrote about some criminal activities going on with Ronnie White. Didn’t know you had it in you, Aubriella. He said you trashed it though, so I figured what the hell? She won’t mind if I take it for myself if she threw the thing away. So I published it this evening under my name.”
My blood turns to ice. I could fucking kill him. I grip the phone until my fingertips turn white. “You did what?” My words come out slow and steady.
“Easy, babe. If you threw a prime rib in the garbage, you couldn’t blame a dog for finding it and eating it.”
I stop walking so I can focus on fuming. If he was here right now I swear I would punch him. I’ve never punched someone, but it seems like the only way to vent all the anger. He has no idea what this means. He’s a slimebag and a complete jackass, but I don’t want him to get hurt over this, and Vince’s people will probably come after him. They might even think I put him up to it and come for me, too. It frustrates me that I’m most worried about Vince thinking I lied to him, not because I’m afraid he’ll hurt me--even if there is that--but because I don’t want him to think I broke his trust. I don’t know where he and I are after last night anymore, but the idea of him thinking I betrayed him still stings.