Page 64 of Money Shot

SIENNA

March 16th,2015

The routine I had developed over the last nine months not only provided me with a sense of security, but gave me great satisfaction. My adult life, finally, was exactly where I had always hoped it would be. To have everything I had always dreamed of after spending five years doubting it would ever exist made the taste of it all so much sweeter.

I had read half a dozen books a week for as long as I could remember. The count was well into many thousands, and almost all of them had been romance novels. I had never, however, read a book that depicted a relationship or romance as sweet as the one I was living with Vince.

Having been raised by a father who instilled tremendous moral value, a mother who stressed the importance of loyalty and love, and a motorcycle club who required he be strong, fearless, and selfless, Vince was the perfect mixture of what made the perfect man the perfectman.

His mother was exactly as I pictured a mother should be; loving, caring, nurturing, demanding at times, sentimental when she needed to be, and funny. At this juncture in our relationship, my friendship I had developed with his mother was almost as important as the relationship I had with Vince.

“Bradley, you know better. Don’t ‘snatch’, it’s not polite,” she said as she waved her fork in Bradley’s direction.

Bradley had just aggressively taken a bite of tamale from Anita’s fingers before she told him he could have it. Now sitting on the floor beside her chair trying to decide if he wanted to chew the food and eat it or spit it on the floor, Bradley wallowed the tamale around in his mouth as if he’d been given a rubber ball to eat.

“That dog is going to explode. Who feeds their dog Mexican food? I’ll tell you who. Nobody, that’s who,” Vince said as he grabbed a tamale from the platter.

I shifted my eyes from Vince to Anita and waited for it…

“He wanted a bite,” Anita said. “He asked for it.”

I bit into my taco and shifted my eyes back to Vince.

“He’s a dog, Ma. A dog. He didn’t look at a menu and see we were having Mexican food and ask for a bite of tamale. He knows we’re sitting here eating, and he wanted some of what we were eating, because he’s fat and he’s always hungry. If he’d have known it was Mexican food, he wouldn’t have asked,” Vince explained.

And, back to Anita.

She pointed her fork at Vince and wagged the end of it up and down. “You know, for as smart as you are, and for as many books as you’ve read, sometimes you surprise me, Stephen. He knows it’s Mexican food, he sat in the kitchen and watched me make each and every bit of it. Long before you were here I might add.”

I glanced at Vince.

Vince poked a bite of tamale into his mouth, chewed it, and before he swallowed, spoke over his mouth full of food. “Oh, now he can recognize ingredients, huh?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Stephen. I swear, your father would have smacked you for that, and you know it,” she said in a scolding tone.

“He knows better, Honey. I’m sorry,” Anita said as she patted her hand against my knee.

I turned toward her and smiled. “The food’s so good. I love it.”

“Why, thank you,” she said.

“Watch this,” Vince said.

After we both shifted our eyes toward Vince, he reached for the bowl of homemade salsa, scooped out a large spoonful, and held it to his side.

“Bradley!” he said.

Bradley turned, realized he was being offered food, and ran to Vince’s side. After flopping his butt down on the floor, he looked at the spoon, looked up at Vince, and barked.

“Come on bud, it’s good,” Vince said as he wiggled the spoon.

Bradley glanced at the spoon, tilted his head back, and barked again.

“He doesn’t like salsa,” Anita said.

“Come on bud, look,” Vince said as he raised the spoon and pretended to eat some of it.

He lowered the spoon to his side again.