Page 97 of Loyalty

It fucked him up.

“I handle myself just fine,” John said.

He wanted to get Kev and Darren off the topic of him and his family.

“Yeah, I mean,” Kev said, “that’s obvious, John.”

“Except not to your people, I guess,” Darren added. “Do you get what I’m saying, Marcello?”

Did he?

That was the million-dollar question.

• • •

“Johnathan?”

John cursed under his breath at the sound of his mother calling out for him. Still, he kept his attention focused on his tasks. Things he wanted to get done—it kept piling up, but he just worked through it, regardless.

The cupboards were stacked high with everything inside of them. Bowls he had placed by size. Glass and silverware that he wanted to change from one cupboard to another. The food from the pantry that needed to be reorganized because why in the hell had there been boxes with cans? And on the same fucking shelf.

It drove him nuts.

Nonsense.

He’d already ran through his office upstairs, took a five-mile run that morning, and reorganized his collection of movies and music from alphabetical to most liked through the most disliked.

And it was only …

John shot a look at the clock.

Ten in the morning.

It probably helped that he had enough energy to burn that sleep wasn’t even a bother at the moment. An hour felt like three, and two hours of sleep felt like a whole night’s worth.

His thoughts were scattered and erratic. Something he hated because he preferred a calm mind to one full of chaos. Unless he was focusing his attention on doing something—cleaning, working out, or working—then he couldn’t get his thoughts to chill.

Siena, too.

His thoughts calmed when he put his focus on her.

“John, what are you doing?”

He found his mother standing in the kitchen entryway. Jordyn Marcello looked over the mess John had made with a carefully guarded eye, and a relaxed posture. John knew that look from his mother—it meant she was concerned about him.

“What does it look like?” John asked, wiping down the inside of another cupboard. “Cleaning and fixing shit.”

“Is this all you’ve done today?” his mother asked.

“No, but it’s the last thing I’m doing in this house today.”

Jordyn took a couple of steps into the kitchen, and continued her perusal of the items scattered everywhere. She didn’t reach out to touch anything, which John appreciated. He didn’t want to fucking bark at his mother, but he didn’t want her bothering things, either.

“You don’t have to work today?” Jordyn asked.

Her tone came out calm and smooth. He recognized that, too. His mother only used that tone when she was trying to get something out of him, or needed to relax him.

John’s defensive walls shot up—he didn’t know what his mother was pulling. “I work, Ma.”