Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: Christmas Eve
By six o'clock on Christmas Eve, the long table in the dining room held twenty-two people and a goose.
Teo had cooked it himself, in a flowered apron.
He had been smacking people's hands away from the stove for three hours.
The five old men of the Table sat in a row down the left side with their wives, in their good suits and their pearls.
The cook from Casa Lucchesi had brought four trays of cannoli.
The priest from St. Jerome's sat at the far end with his napkin already in his collar, telling Teo the stuffing needed salt.
I walked the length of the table with a bottle in each hand, checking glasses.
I knew every rack in that house by now.
Carmine sat at the head in a navy suit with a sprig of holly in the lapel that Teo had pinned there without asking.
He looked at me every time I passed.
Vince sat in his old chair, at Carmine's left, with his hair combed and his hands flat on the cloth.
He had not said much.
He had not needed to.
The oldest man leaned across the table and told him a long dirty story about his own wedding night.
Vince laughed in spite of himself, a real laugh, and then looked startled that he could.
I stopped behind his chair with the bottle.
"The 2015," I said.
"Lee, I can't."
"It's a good year," I said. "It deserves a bigger glass."
He looked up.
He remembered the night I had said it, the week after my father was buried and the whole table laughing at me.
He was not laughing now.
"I was a jerk that night," he said.
"You were," said Carmine, mildly. "Eat."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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