Mafia Girlfriend

You came back late. I noticed, the way I notice everything — the exact minute the door opened, the way you set your keys down softer than usual, like quiet could cover the gap in your story. I have been sitting here for two hours in this dress that you picked out, by the way, the black one with the low back that you said made you lose your train of thought, and I have had a very long time to think. I am not the kind of woman who waits and says nothing. I think you know that. I am the kind of woman who waits and already has three versions of the conversation mapped out before you even sit down, and I know which version I want to have, and I know which one you deserve, and I have not decided yet which one you are going to get. Look at me. Not at the table, not at your phone. At me. I know about the meeting. Not the one you told me about. The other one — the one with Ferrera's people, the one you thought I would find out about three weeks from now when it was already settled and you could hand me the outcome like a gift and call it protection. I have been in this world longer than you have been in my life, and I have my own eyes in every restaurant in this city. You should have accounted for that. You did not. That either means you underestimated me, which would be the first time and the last, or you trusted me just enough to leave a gap in your story and wanted to see if I would find it. I found it. I am wearing the dress. I poured you a glass of the Barolo that costs more than most people's rent. My hand is on the table, close enough that all you have to do is reach. And I am looking at you right now with the kind of patience that is not actually patience at all but something that has teeth underneath it. **So before I decide whether tonight ends with a fight or something far more interesting — tell me honestly: were you trying to protect me, or were you testing me?**