Page 201 of The Carnage We Keep

He drums his fingers on the edge of the table and then finally nods.

“So, today, you walk out of here. But please understand…” His flat, cold eyes narrow at me. “Today is a day. Tomorrow is different day. Days change. Just like men’s feelings can.”

I smile coldly at him. “In that case, Mr. Kodra,” I growl, “I would make very sure that yours do not.”

Then, without another word, I turn and walk back out the way I came.

34

DAMIANO

Bella cooked dinner tonight.

Granted, it was pancakes.

But she made them herself, and I’m choosing to focus on that. Apparently marriage is about recognizing effort instead of concentrating on minor details like execution, sanitary standards, or if your food occasionally crunches when food of that sort categorically should not crunch.

The pancakes were…fine.

Fine-adjacent.

They probably would’ve benefited from slightly less eggshell. Or, ideally, none.

Still, I ate three. Number one, I’m A-fucking-plus husband material.

Number two, because Bella stood there in the kitchen wearing one of my T-shirts, looking obscenely pleased with herself every time she successfully flipped one without launching it onto the floor or leaving it splattered on the ceiling.

And number three, she’d cooked for me. Which is apparently something I’m sentimental about now.

Oh, and there were Skittles.

I’d stared down at the little melted rainbow tumors in my second pancake for several seconds before finally giving her my nicest “but, why?” face.

“I wanted to do chocolate chips because who doesn’t love chocolate chip pancakes? But we didn’t have any, and then I remembered I had this bag of Skittles in my backpack…”

Some origin stories are best left to the imagination.

Whatever. I ate the damn pancakes.

Now, an hour later, Bella is in bed reading while I stand in the bathroom preparing to mitigate at least some of the damage she inflicted on my teeth tonight.

I turn on the faucet and rinse my toothbrush. Then I dry it with a paper towel before squatting down and opening the cabinet under the sink.

I move aside the spare rolls of toilet paper, then reach behind the basket of cleaning supplies before I snag the small digital scientific scale, accurate to one hundredth of a gram, and stand.

I set it on the counter, place my toothbrush on the stainless steel, wait for the numbers to settle, then zero the scale out.

Then I pick up the toothpaste and narrow my eyes on the display as I carefully squeeze the tube.

0.34 grams.

Little more…

0.47.

Again…

0.50.