Chapter Text
“Hey Dad?” Sydney answers her ringing phone without really looking at the display. She can't think of anyone else who would call her this early.
“Good morning, baby. Are you okay?”
“I think so,” she says, dropping her head back on Carmy’s arm draped across the pillow they shared in the night. Carmy mouths, “Want me to go?” Syd shakes her head in response, eschewing the thought of space or secrets between them. He silently winds his other arm around her waist.
“I think it's time for me to come pick you up,” Emmanuel tells her, his words pre-loaded with urgency and frustration.
“It's so early, and you need to get to work before too much longer,” Syd says, trying despite knowing full well she’s fighting a losing battle against her dad’s need to lay eyes on her in person.
“Which is why I want to come get you now. Unless I can take you to any medical appointments you might have today. I can call out if you need me to.” Carmy’s fingers trace the scar on her abdomen; she shivers and barely keeps herself from hanging up and chucking her phone across the room hard enough that it would crack and shatter and leave them in peace for the rest of forever.
“Dad, I'm fine. I was even thinking about going into work.”
Carmy immediately starts to shake his head and mouths, “What? No!” while Emmanuel’s sigh sounds like static in her ears.
“Sydney, be serious. I'm sure the doctors told you, just like I am, that you need to be resting, not working. Unless your boss is forcing you to…”
“God, Dad, no. That is not at all what's happening.” Carmy smothers a laugh by pressing his face into her shoulder. Sydney’s fingers twine into his bedraggled curls, keeping him pinned against her.
“Then I'm going to pick you up and bring you back home for today,” Emmanuel insists.
Syd can feel her grip on her phone tightening enough that she knows the ridge on the edge of her phone case will leave a temporary indentation between her thumb and her forefinger. The pressure is enough to make the wound on her arm ping with a zigzag of an ache. “Dad…” she says, focusing on the weight of Carmy’s hand on her midriff to help anchor her in the moment.
“Sydney, my only family was shot yesterday. I think you owe me this, the chance to make sure that you're okay with my own eyes.” It’s a punch to the gut, and Syd feels a momentary flash of something that might be regret or maybe just understanding. Carmy’s fingers halt on her skin.
Syd sighs, clenching her eyes closed. “Yeah, okay. But I'll get a ride.” She can feel Carmy’s nod of assent without turning her head to look at him.
“Fine, I guess that's fine,” Emmanuel reluctantly agrees, and Syd thinks about how fine is such a loaded word, especially when it comes out of her dad’s mouth. “I'll see you soon?”
“Yeah,” she answers. “Soon.” Syd disconnects then drops her phone onto the rumpled sheets next to her, letting out a frustrated groan.
“Are you okay?” Carmy asks, linking his fingers with hers.
“It's whatever. Sorry, I should have asked before saying you would drop me off. You don't have to.”
“Sydney,” he says, letting go of her fingers to rest his thumb under her chin, gently encouraging her to meet his eyes. “I want to. And why would you think about working today?”
She shakes her head, but continues to hold Carmy’s gaze. “I don't know…it’s probably going to be busy again…I can figure out something that I can do to help…”
“Yeah, later this week, maybe. Not today, though. Your dad is right.”
Syd almost laughs at the thought of her dad’s reaction to Carmy agreeing with him about anything, but instead utters a petulant, “Ugh.”
Carmy stiffens slightly next to her. “Can I ask…” he says before pausing, a minute hesitation that sparks nerves in Syd’s belly. “I kinda was able to hear what he was saying. What did he mean when he called you his only family?”
The flare of anxiety dissipates rapidly as Syd takes in his question. She’s unversed at talking about her mom, but this is Carmy, and she’s ready to try. “I'm all he has now, since my mom died.”
“She did?” Carmy asks before pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
“Uh, yeah. When I was four. Lupus.”
“I'm so sorry,” Carmy says, drawing her in more closely to him. She feels braver in his arms and warms further as the thought occurs, that maybe he’s always brought that out in her, even when he was some kind of ephemeral hope she didn’t fully understand…apart from her fears over admitting their connection to him.
“No, it's fine. I mean, it wasn't fine, but it was a long time ago. We don't need to make it into a whole thing right now,” she says.
“I am sorry, though,” he reiterates, fingers brushing against her cheek. Her lips find his palm, the kiss in her mind an invisible brand, acquisitive and arresting. She wonders if he knows, if he can feel it too.
“Thanks, Carm,” Syd finally replies, nestling her face into the curve of his neck. His fingers trace her spine. “I'm sorry he called so early.”
“It's okay. I'm just sorry we can't stay here longer.”
Like forever, she thinks, but what she says is, “Me too,” as she presses her lips to his.
Carmy drives Syd back to her apartment, their fingers threaded together the whole way. He finds a spot about a half a block away from her building, and walks her to the front door.
“I'd bring you up but…” she says.
“Some other time,” Carmy says, herding her backwards until she's pressed against the brick of the building. His lips find hers, her arm winding around his neck over his jacket. “I wish I would have done this the night I walked you home,” he whispers.
“I probably would have let you, if I didn't let myself get scared and run away first,” she says, before pulling his lips back down to hers. She feels like she thinks she would have felt as a teenager sneaking around with the boyfriend she probably would have had if she hadn't always been living in the shadow of her soulmate. The soulmate whose hands are searching out skin underneath her borrowed clothes, three floors down from where her dad is no doubt waiting increasingly impatiently for her to walk through the door.
“Carmy,” she exhales. “I probably need to…”
“I know,” he says.
“Call me tonight, when you're done,” she tells him. “Or if you need my help.”
He shakes his head. “Just rest today. That's most important.” He is quiet for a moment before asking, “Will you stay again tonight? I really want you to.”
“Yeah, probably,” she says. She can’t help the grin that blooms on her face, and delights in the one that follows closely on his.
“Gonna miss you today,” he tells her.
“I’m going to miss you, too, Carm. Call me.”
“I will,” he says, pressing another kiss to her lips. What was supposed to be a quick peck lingers and transforms and the sounds of her neighborhood, the shrill bark of an annoyed dog, an ambulance siren, a tire jarring a loose sewer cover, all fall away as they lose themselves in each other. Syd's phone starts to vibrate from the pocket of the pair of Carmy's sweatpants that she's wearing.
“Later,” she says, pressing her lips against his nodding forehead before turning away to dig her key out of her bag.
Before Syd can even touch her key to the lock, the door to the apartment opens widely. Her dad stands on the threshold.
“That took awhile,” Emmanuel tells her. Sydney can’t bring herself to care. She shrugs and then hangs her bag from a hook inside the door, and slips off her shoes, and Emmanuel is right there, gathering her in an embrace that tries to avoid jostling her injured arm.
“I’ve been out of my mind,” he says, voice gruff and lower than normal.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you,” Syd replies, feeling a little claustrophobic in his hug.
“Let me look at you,” he says, stepping back to inspect her bandaged arm. “How many stitches?” Emmanuel asks.
“The doctor didn't say and I didn't count,” she replies.
Emmanuel loosely slides his arm around Syd's shoulders and leads her to the scarred wood of their dining room table. “I know I'm not as good at it as you, but I made you some French toast for breakfast while I waited.”
“You didn't have to do that, Dad.” He walks into the kitchen to grab a plate from inside the oven where he had it warming on low for her. He places it on a cork trivet in front of her, making a show of handing her silverware rolled in a green cloth napkin Syd knows her mom picked out years before. “Look at you, being all fancy,” she says.
“It's kind of an apology,” Emmanuel says as he walks back into the kitchen to retrieve a jug of maple syrup and a glass of orange juice. “I think I may have been harder on you yesterday than I should have been. You were the one who was hurt, and you are an adult who is capable of making decisions for herself.”
“Oh,” Syd replies, setting down her fork. “Thank you…ah…yeah. Thanks, Dad.”
“I think I just forget myself sometimes,” he continues, staring out into space as he stands next to the table. “You're not a little girl anymore, as much as sometimes you are still in my mind.”
“Yeah,” Syd says, knowing that as much as carrying Carmy’s marks and covering up his tattoos every day as a teenager was a burden on her, it must have been frustrating for her dad to not have been able to keep her from having to do it in the first place…yet another thing, along with Cecile’s Lupus, he wasn’t able to head off or control.
“If that doesn't make sense to you now, someday, hopefully many, many years from now, when you have your own kid with the right person, you'll understand.”
“I guess it does,” she says, picking up her fork again, abstaining from the burning desire to roll her eyes at the implied barb at Carmy in his words. But the bite of French toast is rich with cinnamon, and is comforting in the way it reminds her of lazy Saturday mornings when she was small, so she lets it pass.
Emmanuel sits down in the chair next to her. “I did want to talk to you, though.”
“About what, Dad?” She feels her brow set itself into a hard line.
Emmanuel fiddles with a glass salt shaker, tightening and loosening the metal tip enough that a few errant grains of salt fall out and scatter on the tabletop. Syd resists the urge to collect them with her fingertip and toss them over her left shoulder. “I'm not trying to pry and I'm not trying to tell you what to do,” he begins.
“Okay…” Syd encourages between bites as he pauses.
“I just have concerns about Carmen Berzatto,” Emmanuel says as he sets the shaker back down firmly on the table, the sound scratchy as the loose grains of salt slide underneath it.
“Oh, here we go…” Syd says, dropping her fork back onto her plate with a clank.
Emmanuel folds his fingers together as he rests his elbows on the table, the tension pulling on the skin of his knuckles. “Sydney, I'm only asking that you listen to me. I will try my best to let it go if you let me get through this now.”
“Fine, okay. I'm listening,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. She looks down at herself wearing Carmy's clothes, the black ink of his tattoos adorning her arms, and feels entirely possessed by him in the best way.
“You've only been working with him for a few months now I suppose,” Emmanuel begins.
“True,” Syd says, finding that her fingers have unconsciously started worrying themselves against the lines of the snail on her skin.
Emmanuel nods, and his words strengthen in force even as he keeps their pace steady. “And that's hardly enough time to really get to know a person, especially one who has clearly been through a lot. Who has a lot of history, and heavy stuff in them.”
“First of all,” Syd replies. “I do. You do,” she gestures at him. “Who doesn't? And secondly, why do you think you know that about him?”
It’s Emmanuel’s turn to cross his arms. “I've spent the better part of the last decade having to stare down at the tattoos he has marred your beautiful arms with. And most of them aren't pretty, pleasant ones that are easy to look at,” Emmanuel says. As Syd’s eyes drop, she recognizes in her own head that he’s at least partially correct, though she cannot bring herself to care. “It might be different if they were all flowers and angels, but they aren't. They just aren't, and that says something about who he is that he would put those marks on you.”
Syd sighs, smoothing the serged hem of the cloth napkin on her lap between her fingers. “He didn't know it worked that way for a very long time, Dad. You can’t blame that on him. And, yeah, there’s a lot you just don't know...”
“And you do?” Emmanuel’s eyebrow raises and Syd remembers how the gesture always caused her bravado to unravel when she was a kid. This time, it steels her resolve.
Syd’s chin lifts and she meets his eyes. “I've known him my whole life. I knew him before I ever met him, Dad. Sometimes I can even feel what he's feeling. And he's only ever proven all of my feelings and assumptions right, in the time I've actually known him.” It’s an irrefutable fact of life to Sydney at this point, a truism for the ages. The sky is blue. The Earth is round. Mise en place. Sharp knives hurt less. Hot glass looks like cold glass. The L always runs late when you are. There’s only pain in being a Chicago sports fan. Sydney loves Carmy, always has and always will.
“And then you got shot, Sydney.”
She groans. “Through no fault of his, Dad.”
“It's his restaurant.” Emmanuel taps the table for emphasis; the glasses and silverware rattle against the wood.
“But he doesn't control what happens on the streets of Chicago any more than you or I do. The shooting happened outside! And had nothing to do with The Beef!” Syd cries as she bursts from her chair.
“Maybe you don't see it,” Emmanuel says. “But that restaurant is an environment he controls, Sydney.”
She shakes her head as she paces across the well-worn hardwood of the floor. “No, Dad. He inherited it. He, I, we…we've been working on changing it. It's markedly different now than when I started. Maybe it's still rough around the edges, but it's changing. And that's on him, mostly.”
“Can you just do one more thing for me?” Emmanuel asks, as he stands and reaches out for Syd’s right shoulder. “Well, two.”
Her pacing abates, kinetic energy shifting to her flaring nostrils, her pulsing fists. “I'm not quitting. And I'm not giving him up, so please don't ask me to. I don't think you will like what happens if you do.”
“No…I'm not asking that,” Emmanuel says, his patient tone belying to Syd that he deeply wants to do exactly that. “I know that I can't, even if there's a part of me that wants to insist. I made an appointment for you at the doctor's tomorrow morning to have your arm checked.”
“Okay,” Syd shrugs, a minute amount of tension falling from her shoulders, thankful that this part of his request is easy to agree to. “I can be late to work.”
“And the other thing…please stay here tonight, Sydney.”
“What? Why?” she asks, hands flailing.
“Let me give you the gift of space, Sydney,” Emmanuel says, once again resting his hand on her shoulder. “If your feelings are sound, one night staying here won't change anything. But if your feelings aren't sound, then I'm giving you a chance to put the brakes on a situation I'm afraid is going to take you down with it.”
She almost laughs at the way he almost got the words out without a hit at Carmy. “Jesus, Dad.”
He pulls her gently into a hug, resting his chin against the top of her head. “I’m terrified I'm going to lose you, Sydney.”
“You won't,” she says, relaxing slightly into his embrace. “Unless you start making ultimatums and being all crazy.”
“I'm trying very hard not to,” Emmanuel says, giving her a final squeeze before letting her go.
Syd rests her hands on the top of her chair and weighs an impulse in her mind for a moment, picturing a meal at some hazy point in the future where Carmy would join them at the table, too, as a welcomed and expected participant. Syd insists to herself that it’s possible. She catches a deep breath in her lungs and emboldens herself to ask her dad, “Did you ever think that maybe you have something to gain here too?”
“In what sense?” Emmanuel wonders.
Sydney’s eyes drift to the family photo still adorning their wall, one that she knew was taken for the directory booklet of the church they went to when she was tiny, before they both lost Cecile and before Emmanuel lost his faith in a God that had refused to spare her. “Family, Dad. More than just me.”
She can tell Emmanuel’s looking at the photo, the same way she is. She wonders what details catch his eye this time, if it’s the bold paisley of photo Emmanuel’s tie, the elegant sweep of Cecile’s hair, or maybe the layers of ruffles and lace adorning baby Sydney’s white dress. “Maybe…” he skeptically allows.
It’s Syd’s turn to reach out for Emmanuel’s shoulder. “You always said that you and mom felt like it was you, together, against the world. That you made each other better.”
“I guess I did, baby.” He turns and then adjusts the position of the empty WBEZ coffee cup he left on the table, turning it so the handle faces away from him. “I guess I just still miss her so much. And even after all of these years of being your dad, and only having each other, I can't help but feel like I'm doing a much worse job than she would be. That I keep screwing up when she would know exactly what to say to make us both feel better, and be better.”
Syd rests her head against his shoulder, letting go of some of the rest of her lingering frustration, with him. Their shared chasm of grief is still deep despite the distance of years. “I know, Dad. But I think you're doing better than you think.”
“Oh, baby. What a woman you’ve become.”
Syd presses her lips together in a vague sort of smile. “Don't you need to get to work?”
“I do, baby,” Emmanuel says, as he steps away from her to pick up the hat he usually wears at work from its standard place on the sideboard. “I'll try to get out early and then we can go out for dinner?”
“I'd like that,” Syd replies. “And maybe next week on the night when The Beef is closed, maybe would you be okay with meeting him? Getting to know him a little?”
Emmanuel pats the front pocket on his shirt, checking for his keys. “I suppose that might be okay. Depending on how having space goes tonight.”
Syd lets herself roll her eyes, sitting down to finish her French toast. “Sure, Dad.”
Emmanuel presses a kiss to the top of Syd's head as he passes. “I'll see you tonight.”
“I'll be here.”
Syd’s phone rings at 10pm as she's laying with her head hanging off of the side of the twin bed in her childhood bedroom, braids trailing down to the floor, feeling how she imagines it would feel to be a lovestruck teenager waiting for her crush to call.
“Carmy,” Syd says almost breathlessly, heart fluttering behind her ribs as she answers.
“Sydney,” Carmy says, her name sounding reverential and sweet as it passes from his lips. She can’t control the way it makes her squirm a little, bunching her striped comforter beneath her hips.
She asks, “How was it today?”
“Busy again, all day,” Carmy says. She thinks she can hear the squeaks and groans of the sh*tty desk chair in his office in the background. “I had to call Louanne to order more beef for the rest of the week.”
“f*ck, that's awesome. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help,” she says, wishing she had been there herself to experience the long lines, the scrambling to restock sandwich components, the elevated spirits of the team.
“Did you get good rest today?” he asks.
She sighs. “It was pretty boring just sitting around by myself. I slept for a while, though.” Syd doesn’t mention how she woke up, blankets askew and falling awkwardly off of her twin bed, feeling like she’d been looking for him in her sleep.
“How's your arm?” he asks, concern evident in his voice.
She inspects the bandage, then says, “It feels better than yesterday but it hurts more tonight than it did earlier today. Dad made a doctor's appointment for me tomorrow morning…I'm probably going to be in late tomorrow because of it.”
“That’s good…anything you need, Syd. It's no problem.”
“You're going to love this, then,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut. She feels the anxiety building in her stomach, and she digs her fist down into it in an attempt to help settle it.
“What's that?” Carmy asks quietly.
“Nothing that bad,” she tells him. “I just promised him I'd stay here tonight.”
“Okay.” There’s relief in Carmy’s voice as he agrees and relief in Syd’s stomach, even as she asks, “Aren't you mad?”
She thinks she can hear Carmy lean back in his chair. “I mean, it sucks and I’ll miss you,” he says. “But whatever you need, Syd.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask…why does he want you to stay?”
“Something about giving me space to make sure my head is straight so I don't ruin my life.”
Carmy lets out an ironic chuckle that almost sounds like a groan. “He does not like me.”
“I’m working on him,” Syd insists, as she rolls over onto her side. She rests her head on her bent right elbow, curling in on herself. “He apologized for yesterday, which is something. Made me French toast, even.”
“What’s he put in it?” Carmy asks.
“Lots of cinnamon, little bit of nutmeg. Maple syrup.”
“Fire, right?”
“It was good. Made me feel like I was six again and he pulled me away from Saturday morning cartoons for breakfast.”
“That’s a nice memory,” Carmy says, and it warms Sydney to have shared it with him.
“Yeah. It is pretty nice.”
The quiet hangs between them. Syd fidgets by playing with the hem of the shirt she borrowed from him hours ago, that she can't make herself change into one of her own. “Hey…on our day off next week, will you come and meet my dad? Have a proper introduction?”
“I'd love to,” he says, even though Syd knows he knows what he’s probably in for. She doesn’t see a way that it won’t be a tense affair, though through no fault of Carmy’s. “Should I ask Nat to come as a buffer?” he asks with a laugh.
“Maybe,” she says, considering the possibility. “But maybe let's see how this one goes first. Where are you now?”
“Still in the office,” Carmy says, and Syd smiles knowing that she had correctly identified the squeaks and moans of the rattling desk chair in the background. “Everybody left a while ago.”
She can’t help herself. “This sucks.”
“What sucks?” Carmy asks. “Being there?”
“I feel like a f*cking teenager again, especially after I sat here all stupid day just waiting for nothing.”
“You don't like to sit still.” She feels aglow at Carmy’s observation; it's quite something, being seen, being known like this.
“Not really,” she agrees, fingers plucking at an errant thread on the seam of her comforter.
Carmy’s voice drops a little, a whisper she can feel cascading through her body. “And do you think you're learning the lesson your dad wanted you to?”
“No,” she murmurs, weighing how much to give away. “I told him, I’ve known you my whole life. I already know what we are,” she says, and she thrills at how she can hear the way his face shatters open when he smiles, even over the phone.
“Sydney,” he manages eventually.
“What, Carmy?” she asks when he doesn't elucidate. There’s no crushing the burning need she has to know.
“Me too,” he replies simply, and it’s everything.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So, we can wait. What time is your appointment in the morning?”
“9:30 or something I think. I'm going to make him drop me off after.”
“Not if they tell you to rest more, Syd.”
She sighs, and Carmy laughs. “Okay, fine, only if they say it's okay.”
“You're going to show up anyway, even if they tell you to keep sitting on your ass, aren't you?” he says, because he knows her.
“I guess you'll have to find out,” she teases.
“Looking forward to it,” he says, and she flails as quietly as she can manage, before shaking her in an attempt to settle herself back into her mattress.
“You should get out of there. Go home, Carmy,” she tells him.
“Was thinking about f*cking around with the bookkeeping for a while longer.”
“Carmy…no. I don’t think you got much sleep last night. The last couple of days have been crazy. Go home.”
“If you insist.”
“I really do,” she says. “Call me before you go to sleep.”
“I don't want to wake you up.”
“You won't.”
“Okay…talk soon.”
“Talk soon.” Syd disconnects the call and can’t help but let out the most elated squeal into her pillow.
Twenty minutes later, Carmy’s phone buzzes briefly with the notification of a text. He pulls it out of his pocket.
This is so stupid
What’s stupid, Syd?
Me being here and not there
I shouldn't have agreed to this
Do you think it would be okay for you to come outside for a minute?
What do you mean?
Come outside if you can
???
A few minutes later, Carmy watches Sydney walk out of the front door of her building, still in his clothes from the morning, delighting in the way her face lights up when she sees him leaning against his car.
“You were already here,” she says, grinning.
“I couldn't stop myself,” he tells her, pulling her into his arms. “I think you should give your dad what he wants, but I needed to come tell you goodnight in person.”
She tucks herself into the crook of his neck, breathing deeply to inhale the smells of him, kitchen spices and his woody-scented body wash and cigarettes. He turns his head until their lips meet, and the usual sparks sear them as they kiss.
The kiss is gentle and sweet, full of the promise of tomorrow. Carmy breaks it, pressing a lingering kiss on Syd's forehead. “I don't want to make your dad too mad. I feel like that won't help.”
“No, you're right,” she says, finding his lips one more time. “I wish I didn't care, but you're right.”
“I'll miss you tonight,” he says into her neck.
“Me too,” she agrees.
“Sleep well,” he whispers.
“You too, Carmy,” she whispers back. “I'll see you as soon as I can in the morning.”
He nods. “Maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“You want to pack a bag?” he asks. “Come home with me tomorrow…stay with me for a while?”
“More than anything.”
“Good.”
She presses one more lingering kiss to his lips and then walks back towards the door of her building, waving once before unlocking it and heading back inside. Carmy waves back, leaving back against the side of his car until he's sure she's climbed the three flights up to her apartment.
When she's back inside the apartment, her dad calls out from the living room where he's watching the White Sox play a late game at the Mariners. “Just so you know, baby…”
“What's that, dad?”
“At your appointment for tomorrow I think you probably need to renew your birth control prescription, if you haven't already. Wouldn't want anything to derail your plans or force you into any decisions.”
“Jesus Christ,” Syd says under her breath. “Presumptuous. Overbearing. f*ck my f*cking life.”
“What's that, baby?”
“Going to bed now,” she calls out, her voice thick with suppressed annoyance and false cheerfulness.
“Sure you are. Goodnight, Sydney.”
“Goodnight, Dad,” she says, before shutting herself into her childhood bedroom and collapsing onto her stupid twin sized bed.
Two hours later Syd's phone dings, and she's just awake enough to find her phone in the dark and pick it up off of her nightstand to take a look. She finds a message from Carmy. It's only a picture, his fingers resting on the scar on the side of his abdomen.
She sends back a single, red heart.
Syd’s dad drops her off in front of The Beef after her doctor's appointment the next morning and she walks through the front door shortly after it opens. “Sydney! Welcome back!” Richie yells out when he spots her from his perch on a stool. He folds up the sports section of the Chicago Tribune as she rounds the counter.
“You good?” he asks her before taking a swig from the bottle of Sprecher’s sitting next to him.
“Yeah, I'm good,” she confirms.
He reaches his long arm across the counter to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back, sweetheart.” He pauses for a moment to correct himself. “Sydney, I mean. Glad to have you back, Sydney.”
“Thanks, Richie,” she says, warmed by the surprise of him using her name. She heads back through the doors into the kitchen to a chorus of cheers.
“Chef! Welcome back!” Tina says, giving Syd a wide smile, from her spot at the grill top.
Ebra looks up from the spot he’s cleaning at his station. “Sydney! You have recovered!”
“Yeah, thanks guys…where's Carmy?” she asks, a touch overwhelmed by the attention.
“Office, I think,” Tina says. Syd nods her thanks and then moves to put her purse and the bag she packed to bring to Carmy's into her locker, switches out her shoes like she's Mr. Rogers, and grabs her blue apron, looping it over her head and letting the strings dangle before heading into the office. Carmy’s face lights up when he looks up from the pile of invoices on his desk to see her, and he stands up fast enough the motion pushes the janky desk chair to roll away behind him. He presses the door closed and gathers her into him, his lips finding hers.
“What did they say?” he asks once they break their kiss. Carmy’s hands don’t move from where they came to rest on her back. The contact is a relief, a break to the anticipation that had been heightening minute over minute since he left her apartment the night before.
“It's healing well so far…no signs of infection, and maybe another four or five days until they can take the stitches out.”
“That's good news, right?”
“Yep, it's good,” she agrees. “Can you help tie this?” she asks, holding up one of the strings of her apron.
“Of course,” Carmy says, stepping behind her. He gathers the strings, wrapping them around her waist before securing them against the small of her back. He settles his hands on her hips for a moment, before hooking his arms around her shoulder and her waist, and gently pressing her back into him. He settles his lips on the skin just above the collar of her shirt.
“What did they say about you working?” he murmurs against the side of her throat.
She starts to lose herself in the feeling of his lips against her neck. “I can work,” she manages to get out eventually. “I just need to take it easy on my arm.”
“Sydney…” Carmy says, as he pulls back his head.
Her brow furrows. “What? That's what they said!”
“Are you sure?” he asks. She understands his concern but after spending so much time with her dad the day before, is starting to lose her patience at being questioned.
“f*cking sure, yes,” she says, turning in his arms to stare him in the eye.
“Then your ass will be on expo. Only expo. You will sit on the stool, using your brain but not your arm. And if you try to do anything else, I will stick you on the register with Richie.”
Syd knows Carmy just wants her to be okay, to not strain herself by getting back to work too quickly. She decides to shift her strategy. “How do you feel about tramp stamps, Carmen?”
“I see what you're doing. You're deflecting.”
She can’t help but smirk. “So don't tell me I can't do sh*t, then. I’m fine. Unless you want your lower back to look like something from the late 90s. Butterflies, maybe.”
“Don't threaten me with a good time, Sydney.”
“Why would that be a good time?” she asks, the darkening of her pupils betraying the innocent tone of her question.
“You tell me,” he murmurs against her ear. “Something tells me I would reap all the benefits in the end.” His lips find her pulse point by her ear, which throbs under his kiss. Her sigh is an echo of a moan, louder than she meant it to be, and she wonders if the errant thrum of her heart muffled the sound for others’ ears, through the sh*tty office door. Carmy is quiet when he speaks again. “Take it easy today. For yourself, so you can heal, please.”
“Fine,” she exhales, secretly charmed by his worry, his bossiness. “I'll take it easy,” she says, at last crushing her lips to his. He gently maneuvers her until her back presses against the poster of Fenway Park taped to the wall.
“Good,” he says, tracing his lips down her throat.
She tries not to let him distract her. “We also need to talk about something,” she says.
Carmy hears the seriousness of her tone and moves his lips off her skin. “What's wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing’s wrong, I just…didn't cover these up today,” she says, showing him the backs of her hands, tattoos in clear view. “The others aren't covered up, either. But they are all under my shirt.” It’s something that’s been weighing on her mind in the days since Carmy found out about her. The weight of worrying over obfuscating their connection didn’t leave much space for Sydney to obsess over a roll-out plan for her tattoos, and she hasn’t managed to come up with anything brilliant in the last day.
Carmy takes her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs across the ink. “Whatever you're comfortable with,” he says. “I f*cking love seeing them,” he tells her.
“Me too, finally,” she says. “It's so f*cking weird to not be covered up, though. To not be worrying about it constantly.”
“I can’t even imagine.” He rests his forehead against hers, along the edge of her red scarf.
“I just…I don't know how to respond if someone says something about it.” She wants to avoid a scene, or one of those moments where The Beef is thrown into chaos, like the day the toilet exploded and Richie and Fak took each other down on the wet floor of the dining room.
“Maybe…just play it coy?” he suggests. “Who knows, maybe no one will notice.”
“If I'm lucky,” she says with a sigh. “Richie is weirdly observant though, you have to admit.”
“Sometimes. But, hey,” Carmy says, running his thumb across the apple of her cheek. “If you're not ready, it's okay. You can keep doing what you've been doing.”
She shakes her head against his hand; the Fenway poster crinkles behind her. “I'm done hiding. I'm just anxious because I don't know what to expect. What kind of sh*t we’re going to get.”
He presses his lips to her forehead. “Nothing like jumping into the deep end. From the stool at expo.”
Syd rolls her eyes, slides her hand over his lower back. “I don't know, Carm, if you're not into butterflies, maybe like a giant ass cross? Flames? I’ll come up with something.”
“f*cking hell,” he says, kissing her thoroughly one more time before they join the rest of their team.
“Sydney, where are your gloves?” Ebra asks as he walks by the stool where she's sitting reviewing the lists on her clipboard. “I will get you a new box.”
“Oh, ah, no. That's okay,” she says, holding out a hand to him, palm up. “Thanks, though. Trying something different today.”
“You have changed,” Ebra says, seriously, tilting his head in contemplation of her.
Syd shrugs, deflecting. “Maybe…what's on for family?” she asks.
“Natalie's Peter gave me a special family recipe that I am going to share with you all. Tuna casserole, very traditional.”
“With all the canned soup? And the canned tuna?” Syd can feel her nose wrinkle of its own volition. She smooths out her expression before Ebra can catch it.
“The very one, Sydney,” he nods, seriously.
“Okay…interesting.” Syd decides she’s content to let this happen without interfering. It’s Ebra, so it will be more than edible. That’s not as much of a concern as much as she anticipates Richie’s reaction (of all people’s) might be. She looks at the flower on her hand and welcomes the distraction. “Thank you, chef.”
“Thank you, chef,” Ebra says, and turns back to his prep station.
Syd slides off of her stool, stepping over to Marcus’s area. “Chef, how are we looking on cakes so far?”
“Good, chef. Just finished cutting them. Did you like yours?” Marcus asks, wiping off his bench.
“I loved my cake,” she says, clutching her clipboard against her chest. “Thank you…it was really thoughtful.”
“How was the balance?” Marcus asks, rubbing his hand over his navy beanie.
“Great, honestly. The lemon was just sharp enough, and I liked the way the raspberry curd complemented it. Menu worthy. How do you want to work it in?”
Marcus shrugs. “Maybe a dessert special? Could be a seasonal thing too.”
“Love that,” Syd says, “Both, maybe. Up to you, chef.”
Marcus nods and then leans back against the edge of his station. “So how are you really doing, Syd?”
“Good, actually,” she tells him, releasing her arms down to her sides.
“So…what's it like to get shot?” Marcus asks, lips rising in a bit of a smirk. “Not a question I ever thought I would be asking you,” he admits with a laugh.
“Not my favorite thing ever, to be honest,” she says, returning his smile.
“Well, you took it like a badass,” Marcus tells her, and she starts to laugh.
“I guess. I'm already sick of having to wait for it to heal,” she says.
“I hear that. So…can I see it?” he asks, gesturing to the spot on her arm where he knows the wound is bandaged under the starched long sleeves of her shirt.
Syd shakes her head. “I mean, I've got stitches and it's all bandaged up and sh*t. The stitches come out in a few more days, though. Maybe then,” she acquiesces.
“Word. I’m glad you’re good, Syd,” Marcus says.
“Thanks, Marcus,” Syd replies. As she starts to walk away, to finish the rest of her checks, she says back over her shoulder at him, “You could always ask Carmy to show you.”
“Ask Carmy? Sydney, what the hell are you on about?” Marcus asks. “And what's so f*cking funny?” he calls after her, as she belly laughs her way into the walk-in. “f*cking joker,” he says, under his breath.
“What is this white people sh*t, Ebra?” Richie asks, sitting down at the table for family.
“Peter told me about it. It's his special family recipe.”
“Yeah, that his grandma must have gotten off of the back of a f*cking can of cream of mushroom.”
“Oh, no,” Ebra says seriously. “Peter said that people might tell me that it should be the cream of mushroom, but in this special one, it's not.”
“Let me guess…it's cream of f*cking celery.”
“How did you know?” Ebra asks, accusatorily.
Sydney sits down towards the end of the long table and seconds later, Carmy finds the chair next to hers, shifting it over to sit as close to her as possible. Their shoulders touch and he slides his forearm to rest against hers on the tabletop.
“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly.
“Great,” she says. “Glad I'm back.”
“Good. Just…take breaks when you need to. Whatever you need.”
Syd nods, winding her pinky finger around his.
Plates are filled and passed down, and once everyone has been served, Richie stands. “I would like to raise a toast,” he begins.
“With f*cking water?” Marcus asks.
“And f*cking tuna noodle casserole,” Richie barbs back. He clears his throat and starts again. “I would like us to raise our glasses. To Sydney, who took a f*cking bullet like a champ. She didn't cry, much at least I don't think, and showed the honor with which she carries out her duty to The Beef. It is a great honor to serve with you in the trenches of our fine restaurant.”
“Is this f*cking MASH?” Sweeps asks, his chest shaking with amusem*nt.
Marcus joins in. “Some All Quiet on the Western Front sh*t?”
“Sydney, don't listen to these jagoffs,” Richie continues. “We’re glad you're back.”
“Good speech, Cousin. Thank you,” Carmy says, slipping his hand down to squeeze Syd's thigh under the table, suppressing his own amused reaction as much as he can.
“Yes, we're so glad you're okay, Chef,” Tina says, reaching across Richie to squeeze Syd's hand.
“And thank you all for the flowers,” Syd says.
“Mama, what's this?” Tina asks, turning Syd’s right hand in hers to inspect it before she lets it go. “You get some work done while you were out?”
“No,” Syd says.
“Then…” Tina trails off.
Syd shrugs.
Richie looks down at Syd’s hands on the table. “Cousin, you know about this? These look awfully f*cking familiar, sweetheart.”
“Downgraded to sweetheart again, damn,” Syd says with a laugh. “That didn't last long.”
“Don’t worry about it, Richie,” Carmy says.
“You wouldn't f*cking believe it anyway,” Syd says, shrugging.
“Yeah,” Marcus says, standing up. “And what was that sh*t about asking Carmy to see where you got shot?”
“Oh, this?” Carmy asks, pulling up his sleeve to show the scar.
The table roars. “What the f*ck is happening?” Richie asks.
“This some kind of practical joke?” Marcus asks. “Some kind of temporary tattoos? Is that like, special effects makeup? What the f*ck, guys?“
“Where did you even get the idea to do this sh*t?” Richie asks.
Carmy shakes his head. “Not a joke.”
“Don't f*cking believe this,” Richie says. “Oh…oh. Oh.” He has an odd expression on his face, like he's rewinding something in his head. “Natalie f*cking knows something about this already, doesn't she?”
“Yeah,” Carmy says.
Richie crosses his arms. “Care to share with the rest of the class, Cousin? Sydney?”
“It’s a long story…” Syd says, shrugging.
Everyone is quiet, waiting for them to say more. “We’re connected. We’re together now. That’s about it. Not that long of a story, I guess,” Carmy says.
“That doesn’t tell us anything,” Marcus says at the same time Tina squeaks, “Together together?”
“Yeah, together together,” Syd says. Several people whistle; she can't tell exactly who.
“Okay, okay,” Carmy says. “Let’s just eat this…delicious casserole…so we can get back to work. Thank you, Ebra.”
Richie stares them down for several beats before picking up his fork. “I can’t wait to give Pete sh*t about this,” he says, shifting the subject as he takes a bite. “Anybody see the Sox get pummeled by the Mariners last night?”
“Almost makes you wish you were a Cubs fan, right, Richie?” Sweeps asks, nudging Richie with his elbow. “They slaughtered the Diamondbacks yesterday.”
“f*cking Cubs. f*cking White Sox. f*cking tuna casserole,” Richie says. Everyone laughs. Carmy squeezes Syd’s thigh and she revels in the sense that things feel like normal, but gloriously better.
Carmy lets them into his apartment after they finish closing up after service that night. “I cleared out a drawer for you,” he tells Syd, hand sliding across her back as he pushes his front door open. “Top drawer of my dresser if you want to unpack. And, wherever there's space in the bathroom.”
Syd turns to face him, stepping into his space and pushing him back against the wall of his narrow entry as he pushes the door. It latches closed. Her reaction to his gesture pulses, warming through him. “You didn't need to…” she whispers.
“Yeah, I did,” he responds, before crushing his lips to hers. He breaks the kiss before it can intensify too much, electric as it is, tracing his thumb across her cheek. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she returns. Carmy wants to pinch himself, or ask her to stomp on his foot, so he knows he's not dreaming. He knows he would be left crushed and bereft to discover that he was.
“Make yourself at home,” he insists.
“You keep saying that,” she says, tilting her head. Carmy feels like he's standing at the edge of a cliff.
“I keep meaning it, too.” He has all the space in the world for her…in his apartment, in The Beef, in him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he answers. “Hungry?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Me either. Shower?” he asks and she nods. It's understood by them both that they'll go into his small bathroom together, discarding shoes and her backpack and errant pieces of clothing as they go.
Compared to their last shower, this one is perfunctory and efficient, loaded with the shared understanding that this is a quick stop along the journey of their evening, meant to wash away the sweat and scent of Italian beef from their skin. Syd's injury is still a minor complication that is easily overcome with another strip of plastic wrap secured around the bandage. Hands linger, swiping Carmy's wood-y scented body wash across each other's skin, but the event is altogether quick and orderly, a quiet prelude.
Carmy grabs her hand, leading her out of the shower once the spray abates. He steps away from her to grab what he already thinks of as her towel from the bar. He takes his time in drying her off again.
“I can't decide if this is delicious or excruciating,” Syd says, and Carmy thinks he can feel the electricity thrumming across her drying skin. “I guess it’s both,” she gasps out, the words propelled by the air that builds up inside her lungs as he finishes clearing the rest of the water from her body.
Carmy simply hums, his teeth gently scratching her shoulder as he unwraps the cling film from her arm.
“Did you have any idea it was me? Once you met me?” she asks, and he senses her watching him with darkened eyes as he quickly dries himself off with his own towel.
“No…but yes,” he says, managing to find the words. “I think I maybe knew it, deep down. Richie had to smack me with his elbow to get my brain working again after I talked to you on the phone for the first time.”
“Yeah?” Syd asks as she watches Carmy hang their towels back across the bar on the wall.
“I stood there for like, five whole minutes. Just dumbstruck,” he says, grabbing her hand and leading them into the bedroom.
“I felt like I had been electrocuted,” Syd tells him, as the bedside lamp clicks on and drapes them in soft light.
“Same,” Carmy says, pulling her into him. And he demonstrates the exhilaration of their connection by kissing her until they are both breathless. “Are you…?” he begins asking as his lungs quaver behind his ribs, expanding into Sydney's.
“Hmmm?” she says, tracing the pad of her thumb across his bottom lip. “Am I…?”
“How are you feeling, I guess?” he asks, before catching her thumb gently under his teeth.
“Good, Carmy,” she says, slipping her thumb away from his mouth. He worries about hurrying her, or hurting her injured arm. She must intuit his concern, as she gently presses on his shoulders until he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed. He shifts backwards until he is pressed up against the wall. “I’m so good,” she reiterates, settling herself straddled across his lap. They are already naked; Carmy knows there’s no disguising his hardness from her. And anyway, she’s already gently rocking her hips over him in small motions that send shock waves pulsing up his spine. She catches his bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. He gasps into her mouth and revels in the giggle she emits in response.
“I'm trying to be mindful of your arm, and, like everything,” he tells her, sliding a hand up her right arm to cradle the back of her neck.
“Carmy, I told you, I’m good,” she says, resting her hands against the muscles of his upper chest.
He nods, and admits, “And all of this is new to us.”
“It is,” she agrees.
“Sydney, I don’t want to push you,” he tells her.
She shakes her head. “If anything, I feel like I’m the one pushing you right now,” she says, illustrating her point through the slick slide of her wetness against the length of him. Carmy knows enough to know that a small shift of position for either of them would bring the conversation to a point, and he wants it, desperately, more than he thinks he wants to keep breathing.
It’s his turn to shake his head. “You’re not pushing me,” he tells her, before guiding her lips down to meet his. He thinks about their last time together, and all his brain can manage is to let the same pretty word escape from his lips that had fallen from hers to spur him to delicious, sublime action. “Please,” he says. She repeats it back to him, and then their voices devolve into a chorus of mutual pleas. He punctuates the words with the gentle attention of his teeth and lips charting a course down her throat.
“Yes,” she says, with another shift of her hips. Carmy moans and for the first time considers who lives in the apartment next to his. The thought of his neighbors is fleeting, though, as it’s impossible for his mind to stray away from her for more than the fraction of a second it took for the words to formulate. “Oh,” Syd exhales. “Yeah…I’m…birth control. I’m on it.”
“Good,” Carmy says before claiming her lips again. His hand returns to her neck, squeezing for a moment, before using his hand to support it as he shifts their position, taking special care to keep from jostling her arm too much as he rolls her next to him.
Her shining eyes meet his and even with the burning desire for her screaming through every beat of his heart, every pulse of his veins, he’s nearly overcome with not only the physical aspects of their heightening connection but with the absolute certainty that they are about to experience the pinnacle of their bond, their link, their congruence to this point.
He traces his fingers down her body, weaving a winding course across her chest. He plucks a nipple between his fingers, wringing a moan from her lips that he thinks could sustain him for days. But Carmy feels greedy, certain it’s not enough, that anything less than an entire lifetime of everything with Sydney will never be enough.
He shifts down the bed, allowing him to swirl his tongue around the bud of her cl*t. But he only lets himself continue until she’s writhing beneath him, before he can fully lose himself in the taste of her and the sweet moans emanating from her lips.
Carmy breaks himself free, and then shifts back up her body. He holds himself up, and finds himself in the depths of her eyes. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she agrees, and he takes himself in hand for a couple of pumps of his fist, before aligning their bodies. His hips press forward and he watches the infinitesimal changes in the expression in her eyes as they find themselves together, finally, completely. For a moment the entire universe is still, until her hips shift and they both start to find their rhythm, shared and innate. They are twin flames, united; it’s spiritual and infinite and explicative.
His hand slips between them, a coaxing touch as persistent as the motion of their hips. Their moans collide under the crush of their lips together as they reach the pinnacle almost simultaneously, Sydney’s release spurring on Carmy’s. They fall together, breathless and vibrating, and it’s a long moment before their pulses settle. Carmy’s eyes finally find Sydney’s again, and he realizes they are both beaming.
After they have cleaned up and tucked themselves into bed for the night, Carmy's fingers find the scar from Syd’s appendix removal on the side of her abdomen.
“You wanna know something?” she asks sleepily, smothering a yawn with the press of the back of her hand against her mouth.
“What's that?” Carmy replies.
“My great-great-great grandparents shared scars on their bodies too.”
She can feel Carmy lean up on his elbow to look at her, even through the darkness. “Yeah?”
“Mmmm,” Syd hums. “It all seems to make my dad really uncomfortable but I know my mom used to tell him stories about their scars. She called them ‘soul scars.’”
“Do you know any of them, the stories?” Carmy asks.
“He was bucked off of a horse and somehow sliced his forehead open, down the side of his temple,” she tells Carmy, tracing her fingers down the side of his face in a similar path. “It happened before they met. The story goes that she was proud of the mark, and would go out of her way to foil her Mama's attempts at covering it up. She wouldn’t cover it with hair or a bonnet or a hat. It was like she had some sense that it meant something important for her life.”
“Do you know how they ended up meeting?” Carmy asks.
“Just that one day he was walking out of their parish church as she was walking in, and right away they noticed the marks on each other's faces.”
“Yeah?” he says as he settles back down next to her.
“I guess it was instantaneous but it was a very complicated situation. They came from different classes, and their society was pretty hierarchical.”
“I bet that was hard for them,” Carmy says.
“Yeah,” Syd sighs, fidgeting with the edge of the sheet covering them. “I think so, anyway. Like I said, my dad doesn't like to talk about this. It has always felt like he knows more than he's told me, and it’s like pulling teeth to try. Like not talking about it will keep it from being true.”
“Or not seeing the marks means they’re not really there.”
“You get it,” Syd says.
“Yeah,” Carmy agrees.
“Donna?”
She can feel Carmy nod against her. “It’s good that I had Nat.”
“I’m so glad you had her,” Sydney says.
“And you. Even before we met, I always had you. And you saved me.”
“If it wasn't already clear by the way I'm covered in your tattoos and your scars…I'm yours, Carmy.”
“Yeah?”
“How could you even doubt it?”
“No, I'm not,” he says. “I just…I'm yours, too. You have to know.”
“I love you, Carmy,” she admits, barely louder than a whisper.
“Those aren’t easy words for me,” he tells her. “Except when it comes to you. It’s not even a question.” He finds her lips and claims them. “I love you, Sydney.”
Their lips crash together again, and again, and they forget about history and stories and her dad’s seeming disapproval and work at The Beef in the morning…everything except for the fire between them.
A few days later, Sydney and Carmy get off of the Blue line at the UIC-Halsted stop, to meet Emmanuel for an early dinner in Greek Town. As they exit the station, Carmy has to guide Syd north instead of south.
“Sorry…I guess I'm just nervous about this,” she says.
“I am too, if that helps.”
“You know, it kinda does,” she says. “And of course it would be humid and gross as hell out today.” The haze seems to be radiating off of the hot sidewalks. “You eat at many places in Greek Town before? I can’t decide if it seems like something your family would do a lot. Dad likes it, so we would come every once in a while. He picked Greek Islands this time, but I always liked Costas better…before it burned down. You know, suspiciously,” she adds. “We went a couple of times when I was a kid.”
“Tell that to Richie,” Carmy says, squeezing her hand in his.
“Oh god, he probably has opinions. I mean…I have opinions. But Richie probably has opinions and then I’ll get a lecture about, I don’t know, the distilling of ethnic identities in Chicago neighborhoods or mob ties to the restaurant industry or how to make an intentional fire look like an accident…” Syd takes a deep breath as they wait for the light to change at Jackson. “Sorry, I’m babbling.”
“It’s cute,” Carmy says, and Syd doesn’t miss the fond look on his face.
“Shut up,” Syd replies, unable to stop the smile from pulling the edges of her mouth far enough her cheeks ache momentarily. She loses herself in her own worry about their coming meal as they walk up Halsted. She sobers after a half a block, and stops him from turning the corner onto Adams. Moves them out of the way of other foot traffic against the valet parking sign on the building. “Just…my dad could be an ass to you today. I hope he’s not; he says he will behave. I guess I just want to say that I’m preemptively sorry in case he doesn’t.”
Carmy presses his lips to hers, a quick gesture of reassurance that Syd feels down through her feet. “I know,” Carmy tells her. “I’ll do my best too. And if it goes sideways, it’s not your fault, Syd.”
She lets out a breath, working to settle herself. “I know,” she agrees. “Ready?”
He nods, and she pulls him by the hand to the front door of the restaurant. She can see Emmanuel waiting next to the host stand, and her anxiety builds in a way that reminds her of being handed scantron answer sheets in school.
“Hey, baby,” Emmanuel says in greeting, pressing a kiss to Sydney’s cheek. “And you must be Carmen.”
Carmy turns to Emmanuel, holding out his hand. “It's nice to meet you, Sir. Sydney has told me a lot about you.”
“Oh, she has, has she?” Emmanuel asks, eyeing Carmy's hand before reaching out with his own to shake it. “Interesting. Well, thanks for joining us today, Carmen.”
“Thanks for letting me,” Carmy says.
They are taken to a table near a window in the main dining room of the restaurant. Carmy pulls out a chair for Syd, who accepts, noticing the crease that grows between Emmanuel’s eyebrows.
“Nice manners,” Emmanuel quips.
“Thanks,” Carmy says, taking the seat next to Syd. Emmanuel sits across from her, and Syd follows the way his eyes study Carmy over the top of the oversized menu the waiter gave him, feels the vibration of Carmy’s leg shaking next to hers.
“How’s the engine rebuild going, Dad?” She turns to Carmy. “Some guy hired Dad’s shop to rebuild the engine of a 1932 Ford.”
Emmanuel sets the menu down across the plate in front of him. “Long. Frustrating. Having trouble getting a part I need.”
“Whoa,” Carmy says. “Honestly, I don’t know anything about old cars but that sounds really interesting.”
“Should’ve had Richie come…I’m sure he does,” Syd says with a laugh, earning a smile from Carmy, though not enough of one to release some of the tension she can tell he’s holding in his face.
Emmanuel crosses his arms over his chest. “It has its moments.”
The waiter comes back; they order co*kes all around and Emmanuel asks for an order of saganaki to share. The table is quiet as they set out a loaf of crusty bread coated in sesame seeds, along with butter and nice olive oil. Syd rips off the end slice before handing the bread basket to Carmy.
“Have you worked on many old cars like that before?” Carmy asks.
“A few; it’s becoming something of a specialty interest for the shop,” Emmanuel replies while accepting the bread basket from Carmy. “And what about you? Have you always wanted to make Italian beef sandwiches?”
“Dad…” Syd attempts to interject. Emmanuel shakes his head. Their drinks appear at the table.
“Sorry,” Emmanuel begins again. “How long have you been at The Beef?”
“Uhm…less than a year this time,” Carmy says. “Before that, I was in New York.”
“Big demand for beefs there?”
“Jesus, Dad, Carmy was the CDC at a three-star Michelin restaurant in New York, Eleven Madison Park. And before that, he was at f*cking Noma in Denmark. The French Laundry in Malibu.”
“Language, Sydney,” Emmanuel says.
She rolls her eyes. “Right,” she says. “Because that’s the important part.”
They fall into silence again. The waiter drops off their drinks and places another bread basket in the middle of the table.
“So…why did you come back?” Emmanuel asks Carmy.
“My brother passed away. He left me the restaurant in his will.” Syd’s hand settles on Carmy’s thigh.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Emmanuel says.
“Thanks,” Carmy says, fingers linking with Syd’s under the table.
“How did you…?” Syd asks.
Emmanuel shrugs. “I read the papers.”
“Oh,” Carmy says. Syd can feel the way it weighs Carmy down. “Carmy is trying to revitalize the restaurant. Make it into the kind of place he and his brother talked about it becoming when they were kids.”
“What kind of place is that?” Emmanuel asks. Syd rubs her hand over her face at his tone.
Their waiter rejoins the table, holding a tray carrying a plate with a square of soft kasseri cheese. He douses the cheese with a shot of brandy and with a dramatic flair that feels incongruous to the weight of the conversation they’ve been having, uses the flick of a lighter to start it on fire.
“Opa!” the waiter cries. The flames flicker for another few seconds before burning themselves out. He squeezes a slice of lemon over the crust that formed in the fire, before serving slices on the small plates sitting in front of each of them.
“Thank you,” Emmanuel tells the waiter. His knife scratches against his plate as he slices a sliver of cheese. He asks again: “So, what kind of place are you trying to make your restaurant?”
Carmy’s focus is on the ooze of the cheese on his plate as it continues to melt in its own radiant heat. “As good of a sandwich shop with a dinner menu can be, I guess. Great food, solid service. Innovating as it makes sense while still honoring the past.”
“That’s an interesting goal, knowing what The Beef has been like,” Emmanuel says, pulling another slice of bread off the loaf, crust crackling as he does.
Syd drops her knife on her plate. The clang rings through the restaurant, the reverberation rippling through the space as if she dropped it in an empty room. Nearby conversation quiets. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Emmanuel shakes his head.
“Are you ready to order?” the waiter interrupts, forceful cheerfulness an indication that he is willfully ignoring the tension at the table. The tempest swirling in Syd’s stomach dulls her appetite even further. She points to a random item on the page outlining the specials when the waiter asks for her to start.
“The lamb?” he checks. Her shoulders and head shift in an odd contortion of a half shrug, half nod motion the waiter takes as her confirmation.
Carmy says, “Me too,” without looking up from the wrinkled napkin draped over his saganaki plate.
Emmanuel asks for the combination platter, and a refill on his co*ke. Sydney glares in his direction.
“More bread?” the waiter asks.
“No, thank you,” Emmanuel says, and they are left to themselves. Several moments pass in rigid silence.
“Dad,” Syd says, unable to bear her curiosity any longer.
“Sir?” Carmy seconds.
Syd pushes her chair back from the table and it scratches, wood against stone, across the floor. “Dad. Tell me. What do you mean by what you said before the waiter came?”
Emmanuel wads up the cloth napkin from his lap, dropping it unceremoniously next to his plate. Sighs loud enough that it sends tingles up Syd’s neck. She feels primed to fight.
“I…knew…your parents,” Emmanuel says simply, staring at a spot in front of Carmy’s plate.
“What?” Syd nearly spits, hands fisting at her sides. “How? When? How?”
Next to her, Carmy stills. “You know my parents?”
Emmanuel nods. “Before Sydney. Before you, mostly, but I did see you as a baby once or twice.”
Sydney lets out a sound close to a squeak, confused and stricken, along with a strangled, “What?”
“And I know what they got up to at that restaurant, how they raised you. What you are.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Syd screeches.
Carmy shakes his head once, then twice. Then he can’t seem to stop the motion of his head back and forth. “Then what am I?” he asks Emmanuel.
“Troubled,” Emmanuel says with a certainty that rankles Syd, forcing her to stalk around the table. She’s sure she feels the eyes of everyone in the area on them, but the anger spiking through her blood dims her perception of the reactions of the wider room.
“Jesus, Dad, you don't even know him,” she says, pinning her arms to her sides in a motion. “Or what his family’s like now, his sister. And it's not like you don't know anything about heavy sh*t in your own life. And do not say anything about my language.”
“Sydney, sit down,” Emmanuel insists.
“Tell me what you know,” Carmy pleas quietly.
“Drugs,” Emmanuel begins. “Schemes, money problems. Abuse, I think. Donna had a black eye once or twice when we were there I’m pretty sure. I…we…just liked the food, at first. But then the cracks showed. I didn’t need my wife to be exposed to that.”
“Mom?” Syd asks.
“Dipped, sweet peppers,” Emmanuel says with a mirthless chuckle. “Dipped and hot for me.” He looks at his hands. “And somehow, you got pulled in anyway, all these years later.”
“I need some air,” Carmy says, mostly to Syd. “I promise I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Syd whispers back. She’s quiet for the seconds it takes for Carmy to appear out on the sidewalk, visible out of the window next to her chair. “I cannot believe you. For some f*cking reason you keep telling me you've told me everything you know, but then you hold onto pieces of information and then you, you dangle them like f*cking carrots in front of us to try keep the situation to what you think is your advantage.”
“Language, Sydney.”
“Honestly? I’m past caring about any delicate sensibilities you have around my language. And it's supremely f*cking frustrating that that's your takeaway from what I said.”
“I'm not done caring about you doing something that's going to ruin your life.”
“And has it even occurred to you that by trying to keep me from ruining my own life, you're coming dangerously close to doing it for me?”
“Sydney…be reasonable.”
“And all I’ve wanted is for you to be honest with me. Completely honest. I have asked you so many times, and you keep telling me that you’ve told me everything there is to know. But every time there’s something new, it kills me. The secrets and obfuscations…how can I trust you? Ever? Why couldn’t you just tell me, Dad? Why wouldn’t you? Why won’t you?” Syd sniffs, digs her nails into her palms to distract the tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
Emmanuel sighs, falling back in his chair. “I know, baby. I don’t like any of this. Sydney…all I’ve tried to do your whole life is protect you…and I feel like I keep making the wrong decisions on how to handle this at every turn.”
“You should have just told me the truth,” Syd insists.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“And you’re not just hurting me, which should be enough so that we never would have ended up here, but you’re hurting the man I love, who has never been anything other than excellent to me, and open to getting to know you. And your mind is so closed…you are so selfish and stubborn that you don’t even seem to care about hurting either of us.”
“I’m terrified of losing you,” Emmanuel says.
“I know, you told me. But you need to start acting like it, Dad, because this isn’t it. I’m half tempted to walk out of here right now.”
“It’s probably what I deserve,” Emmanuel agrees.
“Food’s here!” the waiter enthusiastically says, holding a large tray with three heaping plates, taking his time in placing them at each seat, arranging them just so. Syd wonders how much of the conversation he’s overheard, sensing that he’s reveling in the drama of the moment in the slow late afternoon service.
“I’m going to go check on Carmy,” Syd says.
“No…please…let me.”
“Dad…”
“Sydney, I truly am sorry. Let me try to help.”
“Okay,” she says. “Just…whatever you do, please don’t make it worse. I will be watching.” And Emmanuel follows along behind the waiter as he leaves the table.
It's humid outside, and uncomfortable because of it, but Carmy feels like he can breathe again as soon as he leaves the restaurant. He paces up and down the sidewalk in an attempt to settle himself, counting and recounting the squares as he passes over them. There's a part of him that wants to find a dark and quiet space to burrow, something he always seems to want to do when confronted with the unexpected. But he would never leave and let Sydney down, so he does the only other thing he can think of.
“Two f*cking phone calls in a week, I think this might be a new record,” Natalie gleefully exclaims instead of greeting Carmy. “So proud of you, Bear.”
“Nat.” He senses her sobering at his tone. “I…I…f*ck, I don't know.”
“Carmy, what's wrong?” He stops pacing, but doesn't stand still; his focus shifts to trying to jostle a small pebble out of a moss-filled hole in the sidewalk with the toe of his shoe.
“What was it like at The Beef when you were little?”
“Where is this coming from?”
“Jimmy said the last time he talked to Dad they fought about alcohol and drugs and gambling and just like, Dad's sh*tty decisions.”
“I mean…yeah, I’m sure he was mixed up in some sh*t. I don't know a lot of the details, though. You’d have to talk to Mom…”
“I'm not f*cking calling Mom about this sh*t,” Carmy interrupts.
“Or Jimmy. You could call Jimmy.”
“No,” Carmy says.
“What is bringing all of this on, Bear?”
“We are at Greek Islands, me and Syd, with her dad. And her dad…”
“Her dad?”
“I guess he knows our parents, or he used to.”
“Not good?”
“Of course it's not f*cking good, Natalie. I wouldn't be calling you if it was f*cking sunshine and roses, if they all had like, f*cking bible study or went to the same f*cking supper club.”
“What did he say about them?”
“f*cking drugs and money problems and scheming and something about mom having a black eye.”
“You have to remember how they fought…”
“Yeah, I guess,” Carmy says, pulling out the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Kinda, maybe. I don’t know, Nat.” He lights one, and is disappointed to find the nicotine doesn’t settle him like it usually does. “Was it like that?”
“I don’t know…sometimes. I guess I’m not surprised you don’t really remember.”
“Nat, he f*cking hates me.”
“How can he possibly hate you, Carmy. He doesn't even know you, not really.”
“Well, he's f*cking holding their sh*t over my head. Like…I…I barely feel like I fit in our f*cking family anyway, Nat. Like, I spent my whole childhood having everyone telling me how weird I f*cking was all the time, and like why couldn't I just be normal? Why couldn't I sit still and why couldn't I focus and why couldn’t I get my head out of the clouds and why couldn't I ever stop getting unexplained marks all over myself?”
“That part makes sense now…”
Carmy interrupts again. “Mom always gave me sh*t, and even Mikey, and like I barely can remember what Dad looked like or sounded like, so how could I have even learned how to be exactly like him? When I don't fit in our family, and I basically don't remember him anyway? Don’t remember what he and mom were like together. Don’t remember how f*cked up our sh*t was even then, because I was a f*cking baby,” Carmy pauses, breathing shallow but heavy against his chest.
“And like…I know I've f*cked up plenty in my life, Natalie. I know I'm not perfect or anything even close. But I'm f*cking trying. I have been so f*cking worried about how this dinner was going to go, for Sydney. She just wants things to go well and I'm trying so hard, Nat. Her dad keeps insinuating that I'm only going to hurt her because I’m like them, because I came from them. And like…he can f*cking say whatever he wants to me. I will sit there and I will f*cking take all of it and eat the lamb or whatever sh*t I ordered and just f*cking grin and bear it. Natalie, I would do anything for Sydney, even have her dad make me feel like absolute sh*t about myself and where I came from at dinner once a week every week from now until forever, if it's what she wanted from me.”
“Carmy…”
“I love her, Natalie. I've loved her for her entire life. What else can I do?”
“I know you do, Carm. I think you just keep loving her. And keep trying.”
He grinds out his cigarette under his shoe. “I can do that. I will do that.”
“I love you, Bear. You, and Sydney too. I’m so proud of you. I’m sorry this is so hard.”
“I love you too, Nat. Thank you.”
“Anytime. I can’t even think of the last time you told me out loud that you love me too. I’m going to explode, I think.”
“Shut the f*ck up, Nat,” Carmy says warmly.
“Now, go play nice. Have some baklava for me,” she says, before disconnecting the call.
Emmanuel stalks past the host stand and through the revolving door. Right away, he sees Carmy resting against a lamp post a few feet down the block, holding his phone up to his ear. Carmy doesn't react to his presence at all, his attention fixed to a spot on the ground in front of him, so Emmanuel stands watching him. Emmanuel tucks his hands into his pockets and feels a little guilty as he tries to gather as many words from Carmy’s conversation as he can, adding the very public eavesdropping to his own lengthy list of sins. Lying. Passing judgment. Criticism. Worry. Refusing to repent. He shakes his head, knowing he could lose himself in the cataloging of them. Emmanuel refocuses his ears on the monologue, which is thrumming out of Carmy with an intensity he can feel even several feet away. He listens to Carmy detail the situation to his sister, stomach dropping when he hears how out of place Carmy has felt with his own family, how much he’s willing to take on to make Sydney happy.
“I love her, Natalie,” he hears Carmy say. “I've loved her for her entire life. What else can I do?”
Emmanuel watches Carmy drop his cigarette to the ground, grinding it under his shoe. “I can do that. I will do that.” A moment passes. “I love you too, Nat. Thank you.” Emmanuel watches a smile pull at the corners of Carmy’s mouth, recognizing the name of Carmy’s sister when he hears it. “Shut the f*ck up, Nat,” Carmy says, and Emmanuel’s regrets only grow as he starts to understand Carmy’s love for his sister.
When the call disconnects, Carmy slips his phone back into the back pocket of his jeans and looks up, surprise crossing his face when he spots Emmanuel standing nearby.
“Food is at the table,” Emmanuel says, unsure of exactly how to begin.
“Okay,” Carmy replies.
“I…” Emmanuel starts, recognizing how comforting a distraction the spot on the sidewalk in front of Carmy must have been once it captures his attention too. A siren song of a tar splatter or some kind of paint stain.
“I don’t know exactly what you heard,” Carmy offers.
“I’m sorry…listening to your phone call is another thing I need to apologize for, another thing on top of everything else I already need to…”
“It’s okay,” Carmy cuts in, deflecting.
“Son, it’s really not.”
“Oh. Yeah. I mean…I know it’s not.”
“I’ve been unfair to you, and needlessly untrusting of you both.”
“Yeah,” Carmy says, running his hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I’ve done anything personally to make you feel like you shouldn’t trust me…”
“No, you haven’t. And my discomfort with your family I think is tied up with a lot of stuff I’ve never really worked through, about Cecile’s illness. It just happened at the same time and I have been holding it against you without really knowing who you are. And your tattoos…”
“I swear, I didn’t know that she would have them, too, not until she got her first one. Otherwise I never would have gotten them. I thought the scars were something else…I guess I don’t know what I thought they were, except that sometimes I felt her with me. And, Mr. Adamu, that has meant everything to me.”
“Sydney has tattoos? I didn’t know…”
“A few of her own, yeah.”
“I guess I didn’t know that. And you have them too?”
Carmy nods. “Just like she has mine.”
“You told your sister that you love Sydney.”
“I do.”
“And Sydney told me that you’ve always been excellent to her.”
“She saved me, even before she knew me.”
Emmanuel sighs. “I still don’t know what to think about all of this, these soul scars. The story meant a lot to Cecile, Sydney’s mama, and their family.”
“Syd told me.”
“And even if I’m not sure, Sydney is, and I think I need to learn how to trust her. Trust you.”
“Thank you,” Carmy says. “I know this has all been weighing heavily on her. And I don’t want to come between you. It’s clear you love her very much, even if…”
“Even if I keep messing it all up.”
“Yeah,” Carmy agrees.
“I’m sorry, Carmen,” Emmanuel offers, holding out his hand.
Carmy looks at Emmanuel’s hand, then meets his eyes before shaking. “It’s nice to meet you,” Carmy says.
“You too,” Emmanuel says. “Ready to head back inside?”
“Please,” Carmy says, moving towards the revolving door, ready to rejoin Syd at their table.
The food ends up cold, but the three of them eat it anyways, lukewarm bites improved by conversation that is at last tentative and hopeful.
