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“Are you going to talk to me at all this drive, or will we sit in silence for four hours?” he asks, and I wrack my mind through all destinations four hours from here, trying to understand where we could be headed.
I don’t talk, though.
“Got it. Silence it is.” Finally, I snap.
“You’re the one who says you have things to tell me. Plans you’ll finally unveil to the silly little girl you’ve been stringing along for weeks,” I say, the words creeping from my lips without permission. I don’t look at him, continuing to watch the lights haphazardly come on, some blinking a few times, some missing the memo altogether.
“I need to keep you safe, Delilah,” he says, his eyes on the road, and despite the dark, despite my anger, I hear the plea in his voice. A plea that I know is on his face as well. “I want to tell you everything. Do you think I want there to be secrets and plans between us?”
“How would I know? Every moment of our relationship started with lies.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, really, Mr. Romano?” Even in the dark, I can see his lips tip up, and god, I hate that I want to smile too. “What about my flat? Did you do that too?” I ask the question that’s been bugging me for weeks. This time, he turns his head to face me for a moment, and his smile is big.
“I don’t leave things to fate, Delilah,” he says, answering my question without answering it.
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble, but in my own way, I fight a tiny smile because it’s just so fucking Dante.
"In my line of work, you learn that if you put a nail in a tire just right, you've only got three, four miles before it's too flat to drive on."
“Jesus. So, I’m right? There’s nothing but lies and secrets in this relationship.”
"How I feel about you is not a lie, Lilah. I'm crazy for you. I'm risking everything every damned night just to get minutes of your time."
"So crazy for me, yet you don't even let me in on any of your bullshit."
“God, Lilah.” He sighs, a hand moving from the wheel as he runs it through his hair. “I wish I could tell you everything, tell you the plan. Our plan. It’s all for you, baby. I need you to know that. But once you know, you’re in danger. You didn’t grow up in this life, not really. In this life . . . knowledge is dangerous. I want to protect you with every fiber of my being. I can’t do that if you know everything. I just can’t.”
“But it’s not just this terrible plan hanging over us like a cloud of death that you’re keeping from me, Dante. It’s everything. I know nothing. Nothing about you, about your family. About who you are. You know everything about me, whether I’ve told you or not. You know things about me and my life that my own sister doesn’t know. But here I am, living off scraps, trying to paint a picture without all of the colors.”
“You know I love you.”
"Do I?" I say, looking at his profile. He glances at me, answering with his eyes.
But it's not enough. “A man who loves me wouldn’t keep me as a dirty secret.” The words come from my lips without thought, seeping into the air like a poisonous gas.
The truth of them makes me unable to breathe.
“You’re not a dirty secret.”
“The fuck I’m not, Dante. The fuck I’m not. This whole thing—” I turn in my seat to face him, moving a hand between us to indicate our relationship. “—has been a mess of dirty secrets. My job, you owning the club. Who I really am. Who you are. The way we met.” His lips tip up with the words and god, it takes everything in me not to smile too. But this is too important. “You can’t tell me your plan,” I say, the words solemn and sad.
“I can’t.” He doesn’t even sound apologetic.
“I want to accept that, Dante. I do. I want to take that and run with it and live in my own little world until whatever you’re doing sorts itself out. I want that. But I can’t. We don’t live in that kind of world right now. I can’t when your nephew is cornering me in the girls’ break room, and I’m living off scraps of your attention. When I get secret kisses in hallways, and I get your nights but never your mornings. I want everything. My mom accepted the scraps. She took that from Arturo and from my dad, and look where it got her? Six feet under with secrets weighing her down. So no. I can’t just accept some obtuse promise of a plan and sit back and wait. Not when I have nothing else to hold on to.”
Silence lingers between us as I wait for his response.
I don’t know what I’m going to do if he doesn’t give just a little.
If he sticks to his secrecy, what are my choices?
Will I ask him to take me home? To let me finish paying off my debts and then let me go? Will I give up on my own revenge plans and try to move on with my life? Start over?
Or will I be like my mother, surviving on scraps and half-truths until it kills me?
My heartbeat fills the car, and I wonder if he can hear it. I watch the clock as the illuminated numbers on the radio screen flip from 7:28 to 7:29 to 7:30.
