Ruthless Mafia 49

Zorah felt under a microscope when she took her first bite of the veal dish. Icaro was nearly on the edge of his seat as he
waited for her reaction to his favorite local dish and his wide smile when she groaned over the delicious mouthful was
nearly better than the food itself.
“Good, right?”
“Amazing,” she spoke from behind her palm as she chewed. A thought occurred to her as he took a bite from his own
plate, rolled his eyes back and leaned in his chair as if in ecstasy. “Oh, my goodness, you’re a foodie! Like on the cooking
shows Sidonia watches.”
He pointed his fork at her and nodded, speaking after swallowing, “some of my favorite memories are around food and
meals with my family. My mother and both maternal and paternal grandmothers are incredible cooks. When we are all
sitting around the table eating together, we are relaxed, and a family and it always felt the most secure when I was
growing up. I have many happy memories of enjoying laughter and love around the table.”
She rested her chin on her hand and studied him as he scooped the spaghetti onto each of their plates. In this moment
he was relaxed and at ease. “What was it like, growing up in a loving family?” As soon as the words spilled from her lips,
she wanted to pull them back because it emphasized how pathetic her childhood was. However, if he judged her for it,
there was nothing in his expression as he wound some noodles around his fork and waved at her to eat.
“Let’s see, my uncles all live walking distance to our farmhouse. They were as quick to put a boot up my ass as my father would have. I knew to behave most of the time from having strong men around to teach me what it meant to be a man. However, having three uncles meant I was blessed with three extra aunties. My dad also has two younger sisters, and my
mother has four sisters. I kid you not, if I fell and skinned a knee, I got more kisses and cuddles than any child could
dream. Vodingo and I lived the closest together. His mother is as sweet as my own. Between his mom and mine, you would think the pair of us were the best children on the planet. Vodingo’s mom has the two boys. Amauri was younger
than us and would follow us everywhere. There was a stream between our houses and when he was little, we would jump
over it, and he couldn’t follow. We’d ditch him. The first time he made the jump he thought he was the shit. We couldn’t
get rid of him after that. We tortured him something awful. It’s a wonder he still speaks to us.”
She twirled her pasta, “what did you do to him?”
“A better question is what we didn’t do. Once we collected cow shit and the way kids in America throw snowballs, we
throw shit at him.”
“No!” she was horrified. “With your hands? You threw cow poop at a boy?”
“Yeah. I got a spanking for it, but Vodingo and I still laugh about it. We were in a Texas one time and in this airport,
souvenir shop we found a gag gift. It was little balls of chocolate covered caramels in a container which looked like a mini
milk carton. It was labeled cow poop. We bought them all and sent them to him.”
“Mean,” she tried not to laugh.
“He can take it. Oh,” he thought of another story with excitement, “once we told him he could play with us, and we
played hide and seek, and we didn’t bother to go find him. Vod and I ended up with a month of yard chores because he
was so stupid he stayed in his hiding spot until nightfall and his mother was worried sick.”
“Where was he hiding?” She shook his head as he gleefully retold the story.
“Feed bin. Dumb fuck actually fell asleep in it. I think he was six or seven then.”
“Why?”
“He was always underfoot. He needed a little brother of his own. Vod and I were a team. You need to make sure one kid
isn’t always left out.”
“What if you only have one?”
His fork froze midair. “I hated being an only child. I hated how all my cousins were siblings, and I didn’t. At least when
Vod went home he had a brother to talk to when they went to bed. I was stuck listening to my parents try to make me
siblings. What an awful concept it is; an only child.”
“You were lonely.” She acknowledged the feeling. “Sidonia and I are both only children and we used to complain all the
time about it until one time one of the girls in our class told us how she and her sisters shared everything.” She made a
face, “I mean everything. We were in seventh grade. She had two older sisters and two younger sisters. They wore each
other socks, underwear, hair ties and even her training bra was a hand me down. She told us they took baths together to
save the hot water costs. Five sisters all in the same bath water.” She made a gagging motion. “I never complained about
being an only child again after hearing her plight.”
He chuckled at her words, “they shared socks and underwear?”
“Yeah. Their mom would buy bulk packs. It’s how we found out. She kept picking at her wedgie and it was then she told
us her mom bought two sizes of underwear and while the bigger sizes fit her older sisters and the smaller sizes fit the
younger sister, she was in the middle. She either was wearing drawers which fell off or crawled up her butt.” She shook
her head ruefully, “imagine being a middle child.”
“I changed my mind.”
“On what?”
“We need a rounded number of children. No third wheels and no middle children who get the shaft.”
She giggled at his words, “very funny.”
“I’ll let you choose, four or six but it has to be an even number.”
“Sure,” she snickered as she accepted the gnocchi he was scooping up.
“How soon do you want our first child? I’m happy to wait but if you wanted a baby in our first year, I wouldn’t be
opposed.”
His question led Zorah to choke on her gnocchi before reaching for her glass of wine and chugging it.