Peeking into my apartment, I'm not sure what I'm expecting, but what I see makes my jaw drop. I have no knowledge of how replacing an oven typically goes, but I'm almost certain it doesn't involve tearing up most of the walls and even part of the floor. The project seems to be well-managed; my furniture is safely covered in large plastic sheets, but I'm furious.

How long am I expected to just shack up with Massimo? There's an undeniable allure to figuring him out. He's managed to impress himself into parts of me nobody else has accessed yet. Not to mention, he's weirdly good at bringing me to orgasm. But none of that means we should live together. 

Two weeks, I was okay with. But now it doesn't look like my home will be livable for at least another month.

"Massimo fucking Romano!" I shout, pushing into his apartment after retrieving Nik. The bugger is nestled against me in an odd display of affection. Seems the day and a half he spent with Mrs. Chambers and her army of chihuahuas showed him to be grateful for once in his spoiled, ungrateful life.

Everything is empty and silent. I tromp around until I find Massimo in his bedroom, unpacking everything from Chicago into neat stacks on his bed. Because of course he's one of those people who unpacks the moment he returns from a trip.

"Rest assured, Vivienne Lee," he says without looking up, "that while you are the one person allowed to speak to me that way, my patience still has its limits."

Nik perks up when he hears Massimo's voice, and I scowl. "You rest assured that you've already reached the end of mine, because I just went to check on my apartment and things are looking a lot worse than when your workers started!" He freezes for a second before continuing his dutiful folding, and I clock the movement suspiciously. "I want Amir's guys back on the job."

He stops to straighten his already straight collar. Aha. He's more bothered than he's letting on. "My men will be finishing the task."

"Huh. I didn't realize the mafia specialized in construction."

"Not everybody who works for me is part of the organization, Vivienne." He says it in a 'don't be ridiculous' tone. "They're good workers who run a legitimate business." Legitimate except for where they provide you services in exchange for protection, I silently add. "The improper installation of your oven did not impress confidence in me about the state of everything else. I had them do a full inspection."

"For what?"

"Mold and other health hazards." He stops. Well? Studiously ignoring my expectant look, Massimo fiddles with his collar again. "Everything was up to code after all."

Great. So my walls and floors aren't even missing for a reason. 

"And you didn't think to run this by me... because?"

Massimo finally looks at me, and his lips pinch when he notices I'm holding Nik. "I was hoping you had forgotten about that."

That is what he calls Nik.

I make a silent vow to poison the next thing I bake for him. Or maybe just sprinkle in some laxatives.

Massimo slips by me without another word. I follow behind him like a rebellious toddler, stewing silently.

By the time we got back to Rhinebeck, I'd started feeling sick again. Specifically like there was a concrete wedge stuck in my stomach, its rough edges scraping my insides with each breath. That combined with my elevated emotions the last couple days made me check my health app. With everything going on, I'd completely lost track of my cycle.

Which means I'm now behind on my medication, and that means I'm about to be in a whole lot of agony.

The pain is dull now, a vague but insistent soreness that radiates down through my hips and makes me feel generally achy. By tomorrow it'll be knifelike, sharp and twisting. Endometriosis pain can range from feeling like barbed wire being pulled through my uterus, to someone reaching inside me and twisting my internal organs as hard as possible. I'll undoubtedly be spending the following two days on the couch, work permitting, of course—which means that Massimo is fucking in for it.

I'm not sure if he's one of those men who don't know how to process the fact that women menstruate. But even if he is well-adjusted to normal bodily functions, I'm quite sure he hasn't experienced me before.

For now, before the pain renders me almost immobile, I'm restless. Agitated because I'm not in my space and I can't do my things. How am I supposed to unwind? I don't even have most of my stuff with me because it's all next door, hidden under plastic sheets. I feel simultaneously like starting a fight with everyone in the entire world, and apologizing to everyone I know for being a brat.

There's a pointed clearing of a throat, which makes me realize that Massimo is standing in front of the open fridge, staring at me. The pantry is open too. "I had someone stock these. You should have the ingredients to bake virtually anything you could find a recipe for. Your creature also has a new litter box. This one eliminates stench. Make sure he uses it. My men are efficient, and you will have your space back soon." He pauses, and my throat is in the process of closing up so I can't reply yet. "If you need anything, I will be in my room."

Once I'm alone, I let myself relax. The stocked cabinets do look tempting. Normally, I'd want to curl up on my couch, in that one corner that feels just right, while drinking some tea and pretending I don't fucking hate the taste. Smoke a little to help with my incoming cramps. But this... I think I can work with this.

I start getting out ingredients. It's kind of endearing how formal he's being with me when just earlier, he was moaning and getting himself off between my thighs.

And I decide that perhaps I'll hold off on poisoning Massimo for another day.

♛

I'm thirty-five minutes into a Baklava recipe that has been tempting me to set something on fire when I hear it.

Loud thudding and raised voices from outside.

I haven't heard a peep from Massimo since I started working in the kitchen—which is probably for the best—so I storm out into the hallway without thinking twice, prepared to start swinging.

I don't expect to see Shiv and Nate banging on my door.

Shiv storms up as soon as she sees me and I'm verbally accosted by a whole lot of "where the fuck have you been" and "what's even going on with you?" Apparently, I'm not great at processing things right now because her frustration and Nate's confused interjections all blur together into a mind-numbing buzz, and my head is suddenly pounding.

Interrupting my best friend has historically never gone well so I let her get everything out, squinting past my sudden headache, wishing I could retreat into a small hole for the next three to five business days.

"Can I speak now?"

Shiv's eyes blaze as if she's about to go on another tirade, and my sudden bolt of anger takes me by surprise. Why is she so irritated? I can understand some frustration—I have fallen off the radar—but this feels unfair.

"What's really the issue here? Spell it out at a normal fucking volume, because my head hurts and I'm trying to understand you."

Nate pales at the icy calm of my voice, beginning to look like he regrets this. Smart man.

"Everyone's been worrying about you, Viv!" she exclaims. "I had to start wondering if you'd somehow gotten involved in a—a secret society or something! I get that it's hard for you to rely on people, but sometimes that makes you a bad friend." My jaw drops, but she continues, matter of fact. "It prevents you from being there for others."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe you don't make it super easy to rely on you?" I can feel words I didn't even know I stood by flowing from my mouth. "You say everyone was worried, but nobody even reached out! Like, the one fucking time that my life gets a little crazy, I'm a bad friend because I'm not available for all our usual hangouts?" I laugh bitterly. "No, I'm the friend who always moves around her schedule to accommodate yours. I'm the one who initiates us doing things outside of work, or—"

"That is not true!" Shiv cries, and a rolling twinge in my uterus makes me grab the wall for support. "Just the other day I came to yours—to try your muffins and answer questions about psychology. And before that, I came by after work! The day Tori got her face fucking busted in and we ordered all those sex toys!"

I blink back the hurt from her words, shaking my head. Nate looks back and forth between us like he's watching a tennis match, then takes it upon himself to try and be useful. Emphasis on the try.

"Look, let's calm down. Maybe we should all take a deep breath an—"

"Shut the fuck up!" both Shiv and I snap.

"No, you're definitely right and I'm trash for even suggesting anything," he immediately nods, stepping back.

"I hate that shit and you know it," I say quietly, ugly feelings rioting back and forth in my chest. This is so not what I meant when I envisioned unwinding and relaxing today. "In fact, you've encouraged me to leave guys for doing exactly what you just did!"

Shiv scoffs. "Do not compare me to the emotionally immature men you like to fuck—"

"If the shoe fits, bitch!" She gasps theatrically, and I plow on, ignoring my sudden lightheadedness. "You're nitpicking specific examples of things that discount what I'm saying—that happened weeks ago, by the way—instead of listening to me. I know I have a problem relying on people, okay?" And she knows it just as much as I do, having grown up with me and around my family. "And I know I've been more distant lately. But maybe I needed you to just... ask me if I needed help for once."

My revulsion to the words makes itself known even now in the tightening of my throat. I feel like taking everything back and smoothing it over. My body rebels against even admitting out loud that I need someone to help me—especially in such a pathetic way. 

It feels like a wound has suddenly opened up, but the pain is as if it's been there all along. Somehow masked or numbed by platitudes, things I tell myself about how I'm strong and independent, how I've made it this far by myself and I can keep going just the same.

But my time with Massimo so far has gouged a chasm open somewhere inside me that I hadn't even known was there until now. Being around someone even more self-reliant than me has made me wish that, for his sake, he had others around him too. It's made me notice what I do have and how I'm not treating it the way I should be.

I'm just as much to blame as Shiv, aren't I?

We both stare at each other for a long, heavy moment, the remnants of our anger hanging in the air between us, dissolving to sadness. I vaguely register that Nate has gone somewhat pale, staring at something beyond me.

But I'm too focused on not begging my best friend to just be there for me because my life has actually been a little fucking insane recently and I don't know how to let myself seek the things I feel I need. Because there's never been one person who's stayed consistent.

Except for one. But—nope. I can't think about him like that.

"I'm sorry," Shiv says, and suddenly both of us are blinking back tears. She looks like she's seconds away from running into my arms and I'm sure I look the same. But hurt is warring so desperately with self-hatred for being the kind of person who's just... difficult to be there for.

"I'm sorry, too," I sniff.

"Um... guys?" Nate nervously interjects.

Both of us ignore him. The only other time we've fought like this was a couple years ago, when my friends planned to go to Cabo and I had to miss out in order to afford rent that month. Everyone had budgeted out the money in next to no time, except me. Things were a little tighter for me since I wasn't financially dependent on my parents, even for a dime. That was my choice, and I never made that anyone else's problem. But there was no way I'd stoop to begging my parents for money to go drink at a resort for two weeks. 

It took a few weeks of both Shiv and I ignoring the tension, pushing it down before it erupted in a way similar to this.

Nate shifts towards us again, reaching out both hands as if to herd us down the hallway, and I snap. "Nathan, I swear to fuck—"

"Ladies, there is a creepy man standing right behind you, and he has literally just been silently staring at us for the last four minutes," Nate hisses. "We're leaving. Before we all become headlines. Move it."

My uterus chooses that moment to contract. The feeling is like knives piercing my insides and I double over, clutching my stomach. My vision goes spotty, along with my sense of reality. My skin is cold and clammy with sweat, and I can feel the rough carpet scratching my bare legs, telling me I must've collapsed. The hum of voices in the background is faint, like it's under water.

Gradually, I blink myself back into awareness and Massimo's stony, angular face fills up my line of vision. He says something, and I must be super out of it because it doesn't sound like English.

My entire body aches with tension as I put all my focus into bracing myself against the pain, wanting to punch myself for forgetting about my medicine. I never forget about my medicine.

Massimo's saying something else, and I stare at him in a growing panic. Because that didn't even sound like Italian. Oh God. Has the intensity of my pain managed to scramble my fucking brain?

"Please tell me whatever you just said isn't English," I gasp out.  

"Vivienne. What. Is. Happening." 

Without thinking, I grab onto his arm, needing something to anchor me. The bastard's bicep is harder than concrete so I don't feel bad about squeezing it to death. 

"Tell me. Now." More stabby words, spoken like knife jabs. "Where is your pain? What do I need to do, what is—"

"Oh my God," I groan, eyes drifting shut.

"Vivienne," he all but yells in my face.

"Jesus, will you quiet down?" I snap. When I open my eyes, I realize he's leaning so close our noses almost touch. "That wasn't a pain groan. That was a 'you're being annoying' groan. You should be quite familiar with those by n—fuck."

That was a pain groan. Because fuck. It leaves me breathless, the intensity of it. And everything in me—all the sarcasm and stupid humor—wilts right down to nothing because my body is practically screaming at me that it's not okay, and there's nothing quite like that feeling.

Everything narrows down to a hazy, singular point of focus. The pain. In between that and noises I didn't even know I could make, I hear other things.

"Fuck. It hasn't been this bad in a while. Shit. Has she been taking her medicine?" Shiv.

Something unintelligible. 

"She's living with you and you don't even know if she's been taking the medicine she needs to basically not die every month? What the fuck? Who even are you, by the way?" Still Shiv.

That frustratingly unfamiliar sounding noise again—what the hell is it?

"Did that guy just speak, like, seven languages?" Nate. 

Then the world tilts, everything sliding sideways, even the pain inside me like it's some alive thing. I cry out, latching onto something warm and hard. Soft mutterings trickle slowly through the fog. Gentle things. What feels like lips on my forehead. And I'm definitely completely out of it. 

I hear Shiv, her voice shrill, reassuring me as she follows us, then her sudden gasp. "Wait. You're that guy from Pulse! The weird one who sat there and ordered one drink all night. Didn't you also hit my friend in the face?"

I'm pretty sure the next thing I hear is Massimo slamming the door in my friends' faces.

What could be seconds or minutes later, his arms leave me, and that's what jars me back to alertness. The lack of his touch, the whisper of his hair on my cheek, the terrifyingly strong stability of his body. Like he could just keep holding me forever.

I don't know how, but he finds my medicine. Maybe Shiv told him, or maybe it was me. Time and reality are slippery. After I take it, he sits with me until the pain starts to dull. Doesn't try to make me answer any questions, just lets me hold onto him the whole time. Never once complaining about how hard I grip him or trying to suggest we try something else to make it better. He just lets me do my own thing... without leaving. And finally, after a very long time, the waves stop attacking my body and exhaustion sweeps through me.

"Wait," I try to protest, a helpless noise, when I feel him shifting away from me. 

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here."

He's been sitting on the floor this whole time, I realize, and he was shifting closer so I could latch more fully onto his arm—which has now become my pillow, I guess. And I slip into a weak, unconscious state, thinking about how I doubt Massimo Romano sits on the floor for just anyone.

♛

Deadddd at these two. I love them.

Let's also pretend that my update schedule is normal, okay? Okay. Thank you for reading!

- G