Mr. Vincenzo | 18+

seven

e l o i s e

I didn't dare to contact Vincenzo for the next three days.

Aryanna told me he'd gone to New York and even she didn't have a good chance to talk with him. She was guilty and so was I. It was his place to tell or keep the dynamics of his marriage, not us. If he wanted, he could have told Dad the other day as well but he chose not to and we blurted out things. I only cared of what Aryanna felt, without giving it a thought how Vincenzo looked at the situation, what aches he associated with his broken marriage, what feelings he still had for his wife.

Eveline. The woman who wasn't his regular fuck but the one he'd chosen to settle down with, to parent a child with. Looking at Aryanna, I could tell her mother was beyond being merely beautiful and a part of me hated that I could probably never compare.

I shook my head. Where did that thought come from?

My finger hovered over the nine digits he'd given me. It'd take a maximum of nine wrong calls to get the tenth one right. It could be less and I could hear his voice again—no, no, Eloise, that wasn't the reason you had to talk to him.

I tossed the phone aside and collapsed back on my bed. Who was I kidding? I was still very, very attracted to Vincenzo, regardless of who he was or who he still loved. And it was only going to get tougher as we'd keep seeing each other again and again.

That was why I had to call him.

He'd drawn a circle. Either 0 or 9. Anticlockwise. He wrote zeros in what seemed to me an unnatural clockwise manner.

I typed in '9' and pressed the call button before I could rethink and cancel. The first ring was an indication to let it sink in that I'd called him for real, three days after I had his number, the number that I wanted so I could hook up with him until I forgot him. The second ring felt as if I was in a horror movie and the ghost would come in screaming any moment. The third ring was contemplation, maybe I should cut the call and ignore if he called back. The fourth ring—

"Hello?"

My heart thumped rapidly. It was him. Sounding every way my 'Uncle' Vincenzo shouldn't sound to me.

I heard shuffling sounds on the other end, a click of a button, then it all went silent.

"Eloise."

A moment passed.

"Vincenzo."

None of us spoke again, only our breathing sounds conversing. I checked if he had cut the phone. He hadn't.

"I'm sorry." I said finally. "It wasn't my place to speak that day. I now realize I shouldn't have and let it be between you and Arya."

"To be honest, Eloise, I'm happy that my daughter has friends who'd speak for her."

His daughter. It still felt unbelievable.

"But just as it goes for her, the freedom to speak, to act, any freedom comes with responsibilities. Anna forgot that."

"And that was why I shouldn't have spoken for her."

He took a tired breath. "But ever since you did, I've been thinking. If Aryanna doesn't want her mother back in her life, then it is about time I shouldn't hold that door open for her."

Do you want her back? I wanted to say but I knew better.

"Vincenzo." I said instead, low and unsure.

He took a pause as if he knew the words I was going to speak. "Yes?"

"I can't see you only as Aryanna's father."