Mafia Desire (Erotica)

“Yeah, not quite three months. We had no luck at all. When you called Aunt Linda’s that first Thanksgiving, Courtney was really upset that she couldn’t get to the phone in time. Mom was pretty upset, too. She just wanted to know you were okay. We weren’t the only ones looking for you, either. John contacted me a few times, so did Megan. No one knew where you went. When you decided to disappear, you did a damned good job of it. Oh! Megan married Man-bun, by the way. Turns out his name is Eric.” She gave me a weak smile, that grew when I started laughing.

“Oh wow.” I laughed. I couldn’t imagine Megan being married. “Does he still have a man bun?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been back there in a while. I got a job with a finance company in Portland after graduation. I’ve only been there a couple of months, though. I took a few days off to come here.”

“So you got your degree? That’s awesome!” I exclaimed, genuinely proud of her.

“Thanks,” She smiled, amused at how excited I was for her. The waitress returned with our food and made sure we didn’t need refills on our coffee.

“So what happened after Colorado?” I asked, picking up a piece of bacon and eyeing it with intent.

“I didn’t want to go back home. I just couldn’t take it there any more. I applied to transfer my credits to UCLA and was accepted. I qualified for a couple of grants and moved into the dorms there. I hit the books hard to keep myself busy. I wasn’t really trying to graduate early, but that was a pleasant side effect. I was just trying to keep moving. Most of my free time was spent online trying to find any mention of you.”

“I imagine there wasn’t much to find.”

“Not a damned thing.” She agreed.

“Until last month when I found the announcement online for the art opening, I was worried you might have died or something. But, surely we would have gotten word of that. It was really lucky that I even heard about the show. I wasn’t looking for you to be in Europe. I thought you might be in Houston or Dallas or somewhere close by. Maybe San Antonio. Surely, at least in the same country. I thought one of my best chances to find you might be if you did a show somewhere. I’m subscribed to mailing lists for art galleries all over the place. It must be more than a hundred of them. Some of the listings are for multiple galleries that do these cross promotions for each other. That’s the only reason I saw anything for the show at all. When I saw your name and saw the show was in London, I couldn’t believe it I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks, waiting for tonight to get here. I even called the gallery from the States trying to find a home address for you. They wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Probably thought you might be a stalker.” I chuckled.

“My turn to ask a few things.” She said, as she watched me swallow the last of the piece of bacon.

“Go for it.”

“Where have you been all this time? Where did you go?”

” At first I stayed at Jeff… er… Dr. Miller’s art studio. Once I was able to, I tried to find you and couldn’t figure out how to reach you. I used to sneak by our parent’s house and watch for you, but you were never there. After a while, I just kind of fell apart. Everywhere I went reminded me of you. And it hurt to be around. I was so fucked up by it all. I just couldn’t stay anymore. After about a month or so, I got offered a job as Theron’s personal assistant in Greece. I took it as a chance to try to get myself together. I’ve been living on an island in Greece ever since.”

“Holy shit. Greece? Really?” She looked at me wide eyed, forgetting she had a fork full of shredded potatoes in her hand.

“Yeah. Milos, Greece.”

“Wow. That explains your tan. What’s it like?”

“It’s fucking beautiful. The water is an amazing shade of blue and crystal clear. There’s these incredible rock formations along the beach and all kinds of natural caves. It’s really something.” I told her as I glanced down at my hands. Tan? I hadn’t realized.

She smiled wistfully at my description. “It sounds amazing.”

“You like Portland?”

“It’s okay. Rains a lot. Humid.”

“I didn’t exactly plan on Greece.” I explained. “Well, I guess I kind of did, only because it was somewhere besides Austin and it was the first opportunity to come up. I would have gone anywhere. I could have been offered to go to Nigeria and I would have gone. As long as no one knew me. Somewhere without memories.”

Amy nodded and looked out the diner window at the cars driving by out on the street, taking in the sights of London. I watched her, still trying to wrap my head around the idea that she was here. It blew me away that she had come all this way just to find me. I would have done the same if I knew that she wanted me as badly as I wanted her. But Amy had done flown here blindly after not seeing me for three years. It suddenly occurred to me that she was a braver, stronger person than I. But I had always kind of thought so.

“When do you head back to Greece?” She asked.

“Our flight leaves Monday afternoon. Yours?” It was Friday. I hadn’t thought about it until this moment. There was no way in hell I was going to lose track of her again.

“I’m supposed to fly back day after tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m going. I don’t really care if I ever go back to Portland. I don’t want to be away from you again.” She looked at me with a hopeful expression in her eyes, as if she needed to hear that I wanted her to stay.

“Fuck Portland. I need you with me, Amy.” I replied taking her hand again for emphasis.

Amy’s whole face lit up in a beaming smile and she looked like she was about to launch herself over the table at me. Instead, she darted around the table and wrapped me in a huge hug, squealing in delight like she was a little kid again. I couldn’t help chuckling at her. For a moment, she was my adorable little sister. And the woman of my dreams. Even now, years later, my brain sometimes hiccuped over those strangely stitched together bits of data.

“Oh god, Adam. I’m so fucking excited!” She gasped, as she tried her best to crack a few of my ribs in her embrace. I was hugging her back, of course. But I wasn’t trying to inflict bodily harm. I happened to glance over the top of her head and noticed our waitress standing next to a couple of other staff grinning at us. I didn’t care. I never wanted to let her go.

“I love you so much, Adam.” She cried, tears of happiness sliding down her cheeks.

I held her to me, stroking her hair softly. “I love you too, beautiful. I love you with all my heart.”

Finally, her arms gave out on her, and she settled in on my side of the booth with me. I pulled her plate across from her side for her and passed over her coffee. She finished her meal half sitting in my lap. I didn’t mind. Although, I did have to chuckle when a bit of shredded potato went rogue and slipped down the cleavage of her dress, sending her on a flustered trip to the bathroom.

We spent hours sitting in the booth catching up about what had happened over the past couple of years. Amy brought me up to date on family matters, in as much as I cared to know. Brad had finally proposed to Brenda and they were married. Amy had attended the wedding as a bridesmaid, and endured a number of questions about my absence. She told me about attending UCLA and we compared our experiences in Rome. Between the time change and the long, emotional evening, Amy’s adrenaline and excitement about our reunion finally lost the battle to fatigue and she suddenly seemed about to fall asleep next to me in the booth.

I flagged down our new waitress, as there had been a shift change in the interim, and got our bill. I made sure to tip our new waitress well, and gave her a second tip, requesting that she pass it to our former waitress. I had long had a soft spot for what I considered to be an unjust pay system for wait staff.

Amy climbed out of the booth and took my hand as soon as I stood up. I couldn’t help noticing that one of my ass cheeks had fallen asleep. I freed my hand from hers to stretch a second, only to have it snatched back the moment I lowered my arms. As we walked out of the diner, I noticed that it looked like the sun might be coming up and checked my watch.

“Holy shit. It’s almost five.” I commented.

“No wonder I’m exhausted,” Amy yawned. “Where’s your hotel?”

“Whoa now… I’m not sure that’s proper.” I attempted my best poker face.

“Oh? Um.. Okay, I can-” She began, looking a little crestfallen.

I pointed to the tall hotel, almost directly across the street from the gallery. “It’s that one.”

“Don’t do that to me. I’m tired, damn it.” She whined, with a hint of amusement in her voice.

We walked back to the hotel, the movement causing her to wake up a little along the way.

“You shouldn’t have listened to mom.” She said as the elevator doors closed in the hotel a few minutes later.

“I know. I’m sorry.” We both knew she was talking about the letter.

“That’s why you didn’t keep trying to find me, right? After the first year, I mean.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

I nodded, feeling guilty. I could have tried harder, and I knew it.

“It’s okay. I get it. I saw the letter. It would have screwed me up, too.” Her hand reached over to take mine. “But she’s not us. And she doesn’t know how strongly we feel about each other. She was wrong. Hell, she probably even realizes that by now. Not that the she isn’t too stubborn to admit it. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here now.”