Chapter 36 Tell Me About Your Mother

Chapter 36 Tell Me About Your Mother
"You're supposed to be sleeping," Cedric said, closing the door behind him.
"So are you."
"I was working."
"I know. I watched." Falcone looked up, and there were those shadows under his eyes again, the tightness around his mouth. "You handled that situation well. With the customer who was flirting."
"Marco handled it."
"You let him. That's handling it." Falcone leaned back in his chair. "How was your shift?"
"Fine. Easy, like Natasha said it would be." Cedric moved further into the room, drawn by the exhaustion in Falcone's voice. "You should go to bed. Actually sleep this time, not just a few hours."
"Can't. Too much to do."
"Like what? Obsessing over Saturday's dinner menu some more?"
Falcone's lips twitched. "Rosa told you."
"Rosa tells everyone everything. Apparently the entire household staff is invested in this dinner going well." Cedric perched on the edge of the desk, the same spot he'd occupied that morning. "They're taking bets on whether my mom will like you."
"What are the odds?"
"Mixed. Rosa thinks you're charming. Mrs. Kozlov thinks my mom will see right through you. Maria's on the fence."
"And you? What do you think?"
Cedric considered this. What did he think would happen when Linda Santos met Gianni Falcone? When his mother's sharp eyes and sharper intuition collided with Falcone's carefully constructed presentation of himself?
"I think she'll know something's not quite right," he said finally. "She's too smart not to. But I also think she'll see that I'm happy. That I'm safe. That might be enough."
"Might be."
"Yeah. Might be." Cedric reached out, his fingers finding Falcone's jaw again, tracing that now-familiar stubble. "Come to bed. Please. You're going to make yourself sick if you keep this up."
"I need to~"
"You need to sleep. Everything else can wait." Cedric stood, holding out his hand. "Come on. I'll stay with you. Make sure you actually rest instead of lying there thinking about flower arrangements."
Falcone looked at Cedric's outstretched hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, he took it and let himself be pulled to his feet.
"You're bossy when you're worried about me."
"Someone has to be." Cedric laced their fingers together. "Besides, you like it when I'm bossy."
"I do." Falcone pulled him closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I like everything about you. It's inconvenient."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true." But Falcone was moving now, letting Cedric lead him out of the office and down the hall to his bedroom. "Everything about you disrupts my carefully organized life."
"Sorry not sorry."
They undressed in comfortable silence, the routine of it familiar now. Falcone in his pajama pants, Cedric in one of Falcone's t-shirts that was too big but comfortable. The bed was still unmade from that morning, the sheets tangled from their earlier nap.
They climbed in together, and Cedric immediately pressed himself against Falcone's side, head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
"Tell me about your mother," Falcone said quietly, his fingers finding Cedric's hair. "What was she like when you were growing up?"
Cedric closed his eyes, thinking back. "Tired, mostly. But in a good way, you know? Like she was tired because she was always doing things for us. Working double shifts, making sure we had dinner, helping with homework even though she was exhausted." His throat tightened. "She used to sing while she cooked. These old songs her mother taught her. I haven't heard her sing in years."
"What stopped her?"
"Life, I guess. Dad's gambling got worse. Then he died. Then Ray happened. Then everything just kept getting harder until there wasn't anything left to sing about."
Falcone's arms tightened around him. "I want to give that back to her. The singing. The lightness. Whatever we can."
"You can't fix everything."
"No. But I can try." His lips pressed against Cedric's hair. "I can make sure she never has to work herself to death again. Make sure Lily gets the best care possible. Make sure you have the future you were supposed to have before everything fell apart."
"That's a lot of weight to carry."
"I'm used to weight."
They fell quiet, just breathing together, the house settling around them. Outside, the city hummed its endless song~sirens and car horns and the distant rumble of subway trains. Life continuing, indifferent to their small corner of it.
"I'm scared," Cedric admitted to the darkness. "About Saturday. About what happens if she doesn't approve. About having to choose between her and... this."
"You won't have to choose."
"You don't know that."
"I do." Falcone's voice was certain. "Because I won't make you. Whatever happens Saturday, whatever your mother thinks of me or this situation~ I won't ask you to choose between your family and me. That's not love. That's control."
"But you like control."
"I like having you. I'd rather have you with reservations and doubts and continued connections to your family than not have you at all." His hand cupped Cedric's face, tilting it up so they were eye to eye in the dim light. "You get to keep all the parts of your life that matter to you. That's not negotiable."
Cedric's eyes were burning again. "That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."
"It's the bare minimum of how you should be treated."
"Maybe. But it's more than I'm used to."
They kissed then, soft and slow, tasting like toothpaste and exhaustion and something sweeter underneath. When they broke apart, Falcone settled Cedric back against his chest, hand resuming its place in his hair.
"Sleep," Falcone murmured. "Tomorrow's Friday. We'll get through it together."
"And Saturday?"
"Saturday too. And Sunday. And every day after that." His voice was drowsy now, finally giving in to the exhaustion. "Every single day, Cedric. You and me. We'll figure it out."
Cedric closed his eyes and let those words settle over him like a blanket. You and me. We'll figure it out.
It wasn't a promise of perfection. Wasn't a guarantee that everything would work out the way they hoped. But it was a commitment to try. To stay. To build something together in the complicated space between their worlds.
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe that was everything.
He drifted toward sleep with Falcone's heartbeat steady beneath his ear and the future uncertain but no longer quite so terrifying.
In the morning, there would be anxiety and preparation and a thousand tiny details to worry about. But right now, in this moment, wrapped in expensive sheets and expensive arms and the expensive silence of a house too big for just two people~
Right now, he was okay.
They were okay.
And tomorrow could take care of itself.
Cedric woke to sunlight streaming through curtains he definitely hadn't closed and the smell of coffee strong enough to raise the dead.
Falcone's side of the bed was empty but still warm. He'd been up for a while then, but not too long. The bedroom door was cracked open, voices drifting up from somewhere below~Mrs. Kozlov giving instructions, someone responding in Spanish, the general bustle of a house coming alive.
Friday. One day before his mother's visit.
His stomach did a slow roll.
He forced himself out of bed, stumbling toward the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash water on his face. His reflection looked tired but not terrible~better than it had been a few weeks ago, at least. The dark circles were fading. His skin looked healthier. Even his hair seemed less lifeless, though that might have been wishful thinking.
The t-shirt he'd slept in~Falcone's shirt, soft and worn and smelling like him~was ridiculously comfortable. Cedric considered changing into his own clothes but decided against it. If he was going to be anxious all day, he might as well be comfortable while doing it.
Downstairs, the kitchen was in full operation. Maria and Rosa were working on something that smelled like cinnamon and butter. Mrs. Kozlov stood by the counter making notes in her ever-present leather-bound planner. And Falcone sat at the kitchen table~the actual kitchen table, not the dining room~with his laptop open and coffee going cold beside him.
He looked up when Cedric entered, and something in his expression softened immediately.
"Morning."
"Morning." Cedric moved toward the coffee pot, drawn by necessity and instinct. "You're in the kitchen."
"Mrs. Kozlov kicked me out of my office. Said I was 'disrupting the household flow.'"
"You were calling the florist for the fourth time," Mrs. Kozlov said without looking up from her planner. "At seven in the morning."
"They needed to confirm the~"
"They confirmed everything yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that." She made a mark in her planner with the precision of someone who'd been managing Falcone's life for years and had no patience for his spiral into nervous micromanagement. "The flowers will be perfect. The food will be perfect. Everything will be perfect because I am handling it."
Falcone looked like he wanted to argue but thought better of it. Smart man.
Cedric poured himself coffee and sat down across from Falcone, cradling the mug in both hands. "You're really freaking out about this, aren't you?"
"I'm not freaking out."
"Boss," Rosa interjected from the stove, "you called me at six to ask if we should serve the chicken or the lamb."
"That's a legitimate question."
"We're serving both. Like we discussed. Three times."
Falcone closed his laptop with slightly more force than necessary. "Everyone in this house is conspiring against me."
"Everyone in this house is trying to save you from yourself," Mrs. Kozlov corrected. "There's a difference." She turned to Cedric. "You. You're working tonight, yes?"
"Yeah. Last shift before Saturday."
"Good. Take him with you." She pointed at Falcone. "Get him out of the house. He's making everyone nervous."
"I don't need~"
"You do." Cedric surprised himself by agreeing with Mrs. Kozlov. "You're going to drive yourself crazy if you stay here obsessing over details that are already handled." He took a sip of coffee. "Come to the club tonight. Sit in your office or the VIP section or wherever. Just... be somewhere that isn't here for a few hours."
Falcone looked like he wanted to object. Then, slowly, his shoulders dropped. "Fine. I'll come."
"Excellent." Mrs. Kozlov made another note in her planner. "Now both of you, out of my kitchen. I have work to do and you're both hovering like anxious birds."
They retreated to the solarium with their coffee and the strange, nervous energy that seemed to fill every corner of the house. Cedric curled up on the wicker chair by the windows while Falcone paced, which seemed to be his default state of being lately.
"You need to stop," Cedric said after watching him make the same circuit three times.
"Stop what?"
"The pacing. The worrying. The obsessing." Cedric set down his coffee. "My mom's not coming here to judge you. She's coming to see that I'm okay."
"And when she sees that you're living with someone who runs a criminal empire?"
"Then we'll deal with that. Together." Cedric pulled his legs up under him, watching Falcone continue his circuit. "But spiraling about it isn't going to change anything. It's just going to make you exhausted and miserable."
"I can't help it." Falcone stopped by the windows, staring out at the garden. "I keep thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. All the things I might say or do that will make her hate me. All the reasons she should tell you to leave and never look back."
"Do you want her to tell me that?"
"No." The answer was immediate, almost violent in its certainty. "God, no. But that doesn't mean she won't."
Cedric stood and crossed to where Falcone was standing. Wrapped his arms around him from behind, resting his cheek against his back. "She won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know my mother. I know she'll see how you look at me. How you take care of me. How you've given me back things I thought I'd lost forever." He tightened his arms. "That's going to matter more than anything else."
Falcone's hands came up to cover Cedric's, lacing their fingers together. "I hope you're right."
"I'm always right."
"That's demonstrably false."
"Okay, I'm right about this specific thing." Cedric pressed a kiss between Falcone's shoulder blades. "Now come on. Let's go do something normal. Watch a movie, read books, sit in silence and pretend tomorrow isn't terrifying. Something."
They ended up in the library, which had become one of Cedric's favorite rooms in the house. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, comfortable furniture, the smell of old paper and leather. Quiet without being oppressive. Peaceful.
Cedric grabbed one of his veterinary textbooks~the animal behavior one he'd been working through~and curled up in the oversized armchair by the window. Falcone took the matching chair with some business documents, though Cedric suspected he was just staring at them rather than actually reading.
They sat like that for hours, comfortable in each other's presence. Occasionally Cedric would read something interesting out loud. Occasionally Falcone would respond. Mostly they just existed together, the way people did when words weren't necessary.
Around noon, Maria brought lunch~sandwiches and fruit and cookies that were still warm from the oven. They ate without leaving the library, crumbs on expensive furniture and no one there to care.
"I like this," Cedric said eventually, breaking the comfortable silence.
"Like what?"
"This. Just... being. Together. Not doing anything important. Just existing in the same space."
Falcone set down his documents. "Me too."
"When's the last time you did this? Just sat and read for pleasure?"
"Years." Falcone looked almost surprised by his own answer. "Maybe not since before my father died. There was always something that needed doing, someone who needed managing, some crisis that required attention."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It was. Is." He rubbed his eyes. "I don't think I realized how exhausting until you started making me slow down."
"Is that what I'm doing?"
"Yes. And I'm... I'm grateful for it. Even when it's uncomfortable."
Cedric wanted to ask more~about Falcone's father, his childhood, what made him choose this life~but the words wouldn't come. Some conversations needed the right moment, and this wasn't it. Not yet.
His phone buzzed. He glanced at it: a text from his mother.
"So excited for tomorrow! What time should I arrive?"
He showed the screen to Falcone, who immediately tensed.
"What time works?" Cedric asked.
"Six? That gives us time to prepare and her time to get here without rushing."
Cedric typed back: 6 PM. Can't wait for you to see the place. Love you.
Her response was immediate: Love you too, baby. See you tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Less than twenty-four hours away.
Cedric set his phone down and went back to his textbook, trying to focus on the words about canine social hierarchies and pack behavior. Trying not to think about what tomorrow might bring.
Trying not to imagine all the ways it could go wrong.
But Falcone's hand found his across the space between their chairs, fingers interlacing, holding tight.
And that helped.
That helped a lot.