Lani

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on Carmine but you have people coming up in my fucking house threatening me. Fuck that, you know I want nothing to fucking do with this shit and you know Daddy doesn’t want me involved, so how the fuck do these assholes know where I live? Do you know how Daddy would feel about this shit if he found out what the hell just happened?”

“Calm down Melania. No one knows of anything that you’re fucking yelling about. Can you stop swearing for like two seconds and speak in a civil manner to me please and tell me what happened? I’m not the one who did this shit so what’s all the yelling and swearing for?” How the hell can you ask someone to be civil after their life was just threatened?

“Some big meat head came to my apartment and forced Gianni to bring me to the door. Larissa and I went over there because we heard him say some pretty rough shit to him, and you know I don’t play when it comes to Gianni. Anyways, we went over there and he asked us to step outside and close the door so we did. And then this sorry motherfucker backs me up into the wall with his big ass hands around my throat and tells me that I better tell Daddy and his boys that ‘you know who’ is coming for him and to look out. I mean who the fuck does he think I am, Harry Potter? Am I supposed to be scared of ‘you know who’, whoever the fuck that may be? Rae tried to say something to him but he backhanded her and told her to shut the fuck up. Then he proceeded to tell me that if Daddy doesn’t get the message that he’ll come back for me and he’ll make sure personally that I can never deliver messages again.” There was silence on the other end while the Consigliere, my dad’s advisor, thought about what was going on.

“Listen, I’ll see what I can do to figure out who this was. Don’t say anything to your dad yet until I get this straightened out; I think I have an idea of who’s behind this. Do me a favor though sweetie?”

“What is it?” I hoped he sensed my attitude. Sweetie? Don’t fucking call me sweetie when I’ve just been threatened like it’s supposed to calm me down and make everything better, I’m not three years old anymore and that doesn’t solve things.

“If you leave the house make sure you’re with someone else, don’t go anywhere alone if you don’t have to.”

“Whatever.” I wasn’t really happy with Carmine at that point and I’m guessing he figured it out by me hanging up in his face. I’m 23, not 5, and I don’t need a babysitter to bring with me everywhere.

I honestly couldn’t believe that happened. I’ve never been so scared in my life between you and me, and I’ve been in some pretty compromising situations growing up. I couldn’t do anything but sit on my bed and cry after I had hung up on Carmine; I knew things were getting pretty serious in my dad’s life if people were showing up at my doorstep trying to relay a message through me and I couldn’t fathom the fact that I really had no choice but to get involved.

I was hoping that the loud music I turned on in my room drowned out the sounds of my sobbing and yelling into the phone, but I was wrong. Of course the asshole himself had to come and try to woo me over and see if I was okay, I was beginning to see a trend with him, being around when he was unwanted, like a fucking fly bothering the hell out of you on a hot summer day.

“Hey you cool? Gianni wanted me to come and check.”

“Why didn’t he come in himself then?”

“He said that you’d probably just tell him to get the fuck out like you always do when you’re mad. I volunteered because it’s not like you haven’t said some harsh words to be in the past; my skin is like leather, I can take the abuse.” He sat down on my bed next to where I was laying and sighed loudly.

“I’m fine and don’t need you to run to my rescue all the time.”

“I’m not running to your rescue, simply seeing if everything is cool. I noticed that your pictures are off of your door…”

“And?”

“Is there a reason for that?”

“I’m obsessed with change, and it was time for one which is why we decided to paint and whatnot.”

“Well since you’re changing everything how about changing your attitude towards me. I mean, I haven’t really given you any reason to hate me. I’ve proven to be a pretty legit person.”

“I don’t hate you, I just don’t like your type.”

“My type?”

“Yeah, you know the cocky ‘I can have any piece of ass I want’ type. I work at a club Justin, I can spot your type a mile away.”

“That is far from how I am Lani. You won’t even give me the time of day to realize that.”

“Whatever.” Maybe he was right, okay?

“Seriously, let me take you out tonight. I’ll swing by here after work and we can go anywhere you want to go. You seem like you need a night out.”

“My little brother is here.”

“He can chill with Trace. Come on, you said you’re obsessed with change, so take a step in a new direction.”

“Fine.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he told me he was going to get to his meeting. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, and personally I was afraid. I hadn’t really let anyone in since Dominic, and now that he was moving on with his life I guess it was time for me to move on as well (not that I was trying to move on with Justin).

Justin

Right after work that day I rushed over to their apartment to pick her up. When I got there she had changed out of her paint covered clothes and showered and put on a pair of white washed jeans, a dressy green and black top, and black stilettos. After saying bye to Rae, Trace, and Gianni (who were all smiling a little too much at the sight of us dressed up and going out together) we made our way to the 4, apparently she has a ‘thing’ for food at Lobo over in Brooklyn and forced me to take the subway over there when all I figured she’d want to do was head over to the Village and catch a bite there. Silly me.

“Why are you so bitchy?” Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to ask someone who’s trying hard to be civil, but hey, a guy can wonder right?

“Way to be blunt.” Lani peered over her menu at me. Was that a smile I saw?

“Sorry, I just don’t get where all of this came from. Clearly it’s not a family thing, Gianni is probably one of the most laid back people ever, and he’s only 17.” Putting the menu down and taking a sip of her margarita she stared at me for a minute before answering.

“I’ve just been screwed over a lot. I learned at a young age that I need to put my guard up to newcomers. It’s not a big deal really, the people who can’t handle it don’t stick around, which proves that they weren’t worth my time in the first place.”

“So you’ve scared off a lot of people?”

“I wouldn’t say scared off. I’ve weeded the good and the bad people out, give or take a few. Growing up in the family dynamics I did and the town that I lived in it only made this method of choosing friends better.”

“Family dynamics?” She seemed to tense up at that question, I could tell because once again she played with her tattoo covered wrist. I quickly mumbled ‘sorry’ before she waved her hand to say it was alright. I guess she forgot that I picked up on her nervous habit.

“My dad was always gone away on business trips and my mom was out of the picture by the time I was 12 so I was left with Uncles and Dominic’s family a lot.”

“Is that why you stay so attached to him?” There she goes with the wrist again.

“Who Dominic?” I nodded.

“You ever been in love Justin?” Again I nodded and gulped down the soda that was sitting in front of me. Love is a touchy subject with me, but she didn’t know that.

“That’s why I’m so attached to him, he was my first love, like I’ve told you before. You can’t always be with the person you want to be with and I’m learning to let go.”

“He found someone else didn’t he? He got tired of waiting around for you to grow up and he found someone else.”

“Uhh…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not prying into your life. The same shit happened to me, why do you think I don’t do relationships?”

“Wow.”

“Dumfounded. I know. We were just like you two, and then bam, she was telling me that she couldn’t wait for me and she’s dating other people.”

“Sucks right?”

“Sure as hell does.”

For the rest of dinner it seemed like she opened up to me, until I brought up what had happened earlier in the day. As soon as I asked what it was about, like I had no idea, she tensed up and changed the subject to my work, dismissing the event as nothing. Now that I think about it, I’m wondering why I was trying to pry whatever happened out of her; I knew she couldn’t tell me about her family so I don’t really get why I was asking so much.

In a way that night out let Lani know that I wasn’t one of those people that she needed to weed out of her life, despite the shit that I knew about her family I still wanted to be in her life (in a more serious way than I wanted her when I had first met her). I guess I figured that she would always be a bitch, and that there was nothing else to her. I was wrong though, I learned that night that she was anything but the bitch that she pretended to be. And to be honest, I was starting to like her, a lot. Oh god this was going to get real ugly…