"Yes, you're married and a father, not the knucklehead who almost burned the house down."
“I sure am. And this knucklehead is hoping for another baby soon.”
“Wow, really?” I don’t know why I’m surprised.He’s the brother who’s more family orientated.
He nods proudly and I feel proud of him.“Isabella and Giacomo felt like the missing parts of my life that just fit together and completed me.Isabella and I both want more kids." He laughs."I've come to realize that the meaningful things are the things that matter.They make a man, and they can break a man.”
“Family,” I concur. “I think if I realized that too before I left, I would have known it was me who was changing, not you guys.”
He shakes his head. “Too much happened to us, Dominic.That's the answer.”
I sit forward and take a draw on my cigar."Yeah. Too much."
He keeps his gaze trained on me.“How are you doing, Dominic? Maybe, shit happened between us because I didn’t ask you that enough.”
“No, it wasn’t that Tristan. Everything was too much, and I added to the shit when I shot Candace.”
“It was an accident. We all know that.”
“And if she’d died, it would have still been a fucking accident and I would feel the same.Either way, I lost her.”
The look on his face is a tell he thinks so too.“I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s gonna be difficult to work around what happened.It’s a messy situation. I wish I could sugar coat it and tell you everything will be cool, but I can’t, because you’re right.It was an accident, and she could have died.What I can say though is that maybe you can reform your friendship and see what happens from there.”
“I'm not sure about reforming friendship."
“Give her some time.”
"I don't know about that. I think at this point I would settle for civil." When I remember the hurt that flashed in her beautiful champagne-colored eyes as she told me to leave her alone,I think hoping we can be civil might be a stretch."How is she, Tristan? How is she really doing?"
“She’s doing good. She’s better than she's been in years and really going places in the company.” He taps the end of his cigar on the ashtray and stares at me.“Did you see her today?"
“No. She doesn’t really want to talk to me.I understand."
"You aren't gonna leave it like that though, right?" His dark brows knit together.
"No, I'm not."
"Good." He dips his head and takes another draw of smoke.
"I... checked in on her from time to time while I was away.I checked on all of you." I bite the inside of my lip as a wave of uneasiness scatters my nerves.
He straightens up. "What? How?"
"Tristan, you know I have my ways.I'm a fucking tech god."
"What did you see?"
"As much as I could." I nod. "Meaningful things like you bringing your wife home and loving that she was your wife.You watching her get bigger with your child and the two of you happy when you welcomed your son into this world.Pa would have been proud you named him after him."
"Jesus Dominic, you saw all that?"
"I did." I chuckle lightly. "The same for Massimo.The man is fucking obsessed with his wife.Now he has his son, it looks like he loves her even more.I saw what I could and tried to decipher what you guys could be feeling.With Candace though... I could never tell.I stopped looking after a while, thinking it was best.When she moved into her apartment, I thought maybe I should leave her alone."
Truthfully, it was killing me not being with her.
"You still love her," he notes.
"Yes."