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03/14/2022 10:56 PM
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just another sunday. {drabble #53}
“Mom! We have to make cookies for tomorrow!” Della looked over at her oldest, she was standing in the door off her office, she was smiling. “I kind of forgot, can I do it here?” Della sighed, she hadn’t even wanted to be here but when you have a bar, Superbowl Sunday, takes on a whole new meaning.
And when Valentine’s Day is the next day, this was a new kind of fresh hell, this should be f***ing illegal. ‘Can’t tell you hate this holiday at all’. The voice in her head spoke loud and clear and she wasn’t even going to.
“I’ll help her.” The voice belonged to Parker Hawkins, “You don’t want your mom to miss this halftime show Viv, she hasn’t been this happy about a line up since NSYNC, Aerosmith and Britany Spears in like 2001, back when she was young.”
“Watch your mouth Parker James, I will call your girlfriend.” Della stood up and walked around the desk, “And I’ll have you know I would have killed to be at the halftime show. Killed.” Parker rolled his eyes at her, “Ask Libby or Nick. I still love Aerosmith and it was NSYNC, if it wasn’t-“
“Backstreet Boys. We know aunt B! We know.” Parker sighed, “Come on Vi we’ll go get things we need.” The two started out the door, “And maybe we will make it back to see your mom attempt rapping with Eminem.”
Della sighed, she wanted to yell at him for being a smart ass but since everything going on with Poppy and Oz she just couldn’t. The kid was half living with Russo and half not, he was basically living alone and still finding the time to annoy her and be around the kids. He was fifteen but he was an adult, more adult than she was most days.
Nick walked in the door, “Where are they going?” He had a twin in each arm, was it completely weird having her kids all here, probably but the twins lived in her office when they were in Malibu and Nick hadn’t wanted to be in Los Angeles during the Superbowl. So here everyone was.
“I hope to get things to make cookie, maybe rob a bank, I can’t tell anymore.” She fell on the couch as he shut the office door, it only mildly blocked out the sound off yelling. The home team must have done something good.
“Very funny Della.” The twins squirmed out of his arms and made there way to the couch next to her, “I was thinking nap time was a lost cause but maybe not.” He looked at her, “Shouldn’t you be out there yelling at the tv with the rest of the Rams fans?”
Della crinkled her nose at him, “You are confusing me for Olivia again.” He knew she was a Packers fan; he was screwing with her. Payback for the bank comment, maybe?
“I could never do that, but you love football, and you aren’t in here pouting about your football team not making it, so what’s wrong?”
“Oz won’t even add me to his visitor list.” Della sighed, again, she was doing a lot of that. “He won’t call, and I am not allowed to go visit him. It’s f***ed.” She flinched; she was trying not to say sh*t like that around the twins, but she couldn’t help it.
“Didn’t he tell you to wait until March, after he gets his sentence?” Nick sat down at her desk; he had been great about listen to her bitch about this since the whole thing happened in November.
“That’s what Russo said, he said. But who trusts Russo?” Nick just looked at her, “What even Lexi doesn’t…”
“Del.” She rolled her eyes at him, “I’m sure Russo isn’t going to lie about that, its Oz, he knows what Oz means to you.”
“He’s family and I don’t just mean because of Poppy and the triplets, he’s my last connection to Asher. No one else has stories of both Asher and Ash for that matter. It’s like becoming an orphan all over again.” She was just sad about everything, she was confused. “And don’t bring up dad, I know I have him but… he’s still Libby and Dylan’s father and just kinda got unlucky.”
“I get it.” Della wasn’t one to make a big deal out of things, she always kept things to herself, this was just how she had learned to cope with life from a very young age. And since she couldn’t talk about everything with anyone but Nick. “What about Poppy?”
“She has a, we don’t talk about Oz rule in place.” Not that one could blame her, no one understood just what the hell Oz was doing. “We don’t talk much unless its about the girls.” Sadly, Poppy was across the country and there was nothing Della could do about it. “I just don’t get it; Oz didn’t do it we know he didn’t so why is he doing it?” Nick wasn’t going to have an answer, no one had the answer, but Oz and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. She was never going to have the answers because like Asher and Ash, Oz was keeping secrets. Was it a wonder she had trust issues?
“Do you want to talk about Oz?” Nick asked the question she had been asking herself for months. From the moment she got the call that Oz was in jail. She knew he didn’t do what they said he had.
“No. I want to talk about anything but.” That was the truth, she wanted to talk about anything else because her mind was going to all the dark places, again.
“Come on lets get you a shot of whiskey, I know the owner.” Della smiled as she stood up and tossed the blanket over the now sleeping twosome. It was just another Sunday around here. “You know Parker and Viv are probably going to trash that kitchen in there to make cookies.” Della laughed, “His girlfriend is in there making herself pizza right now.”
“The Family Business Nick, Family Business.” Della said but she was drowned out by the cheering, ah, Superbowl Sunday. 
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11/26/2021 08:46 PM
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incoming call. {dabble #49}
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Incoming text. GODDAMIT MARTIN PICK UP YOUR PHONE!
Della was sitting in front of a fireplace; she had half a glass of wine in her hand and her phone was sitting next to her. It was silently blowing up. She didn’t bother looking after she turned everything down when she had sat down for dinner. The polite thing to do, she wasn’t avoiding anything. Maybe?
Dinner with Nick’s parents had been nice, as holiday dinners go, this one was great. It wasn’t lost on her the last time she had been to Thanksgiving dinner with just them was when they were engaged. Now the kids were around, and it was all different but the same.
Ring.
Ring,
Ring.
Incoming text.
Incoming text.
Della sipped her wine and was half paying attention to the football game on the tv. The kids were busy helping decorate the Christmas tree, this was family, right? Della knew her version of the holidays was always f***ed. Evelyn made it that way.
Nick handed her a plate, “Have some pie.” Della looked up and smiled, Libby had made a joke about her bailing on her dinner for dinner with the in laws and Della had scoffed. But a quite thanksgiving had been just what she needed. She had been a mess since Katie ended and she tossed herself into the brewery. She hadn’t stopped. Go. Go. Go. That was all of 2021 for her.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Nick was carrying two very sleepy kids out to the car; the night was coming to an end. There were leftovers coming home with them and two full pies. Vivian was already halfway to the car when she stopped and held up her phone. “Russo has called you a whole lot.” Della rolled her eyes, “Like a lot.”
“He’s been texting me nonstop too, you might want to check on him.” Nick looked across the car at her. They were buckling in the twins. She hated that; Russo was supposed to leave them alone. “It might actually be important this time.” She shot him a look. “You know not just about trying to keep Parker alive this time.”
That was an old joke, from back when Parker moved in with Russo, the kid was fifteen and didn’t need to be kept alive. Russo did though. “If he is just calling to ask me to do something stupid, I will fly to New Orleans kill him and you will have to come post bail.”
“Only because Vivian will make me.” Della rolled her eyes and took her phone from Vivian. He didn’t mean it; he would do it anyway. She shut the door and walked around the car.
25 missed calls.
A countless number of texts.
‘What the f*** could the dumbass want now….’ She didn’t bother reading a text or listing to the voicemails. She just called him back. It rang once and she didn’t even her out a hello.
“Martin! It’s been hours! I know you don’t like talking to me, but this isn’t a f***ing joke…” He spoke something in Italian and Della blinked, reverting to Italian meant he was either drunk, pissed or, “Oz is in jail, in Las Vegas… for like awhile now.”
That snapped her out of her own thoughts. “Russo what the hell did you just say?” Oz. Jail. The wine had made her happy she was suddenly sober. “You are f***ing with me right, this payback for helping Parker decorate your apartment, right?”
“Do I sound like I’m f***ing joking Martin? Does this sound like I’d joke about this? His sister would come back from the dead and murder me! Poppy let it slip this morning, did you know he never moved in here?”
Della leaned on the car, she was lightheaded, none of this made sense. So much for her happy thanksgiving. “For what? What is he… what do they think he did?”
“In New York or in Vegas?” Della blinked, the hand not holding the phone reached to brace herself on the car. “Doesn’t matter, answers the same. They think he killed someone, two someone’s.”
“Who?” She asked but the voice in her head screamed, ‘Please don’t let him say Evelyn, please don’t let him say Evelyn’
And then he said it, the words she would never forget. “In New York, the guy who killed Ellie. In Nevada, Addison De Luca, not Evelyn, I know your head went there….” And that was where her head went, she thought it for a nano second. She was going to have to live that again and she couldn’t take it. “Della I can’t come back to California; someone has to stay in town here, she won’t come back there, and you are closer to Vegas right now.”
“What about Parker?”
“I already called the girl next door; she’s going to watch him and my apartment.”
“He’s taking the fall for Ashton… for Luke…” Della could barely speak, “Did he help?”
“I don’t know, you got to ask him when you see him. I got to go Poppy didn’t want me to tell you any of this. And Oz is going to hate me for telling you. Maybe check in on Parker and Ash… when he gets back.” The phone when dead in her hand.
She stared at it for a long time. “Hey Della...” Nick taped her on the shoulder, “What did Russo want?” She shook her head, she couldn’t wrap her own head around it, so she just got in the car. When they were home, and she could pour herself a glass of whiskey she told him. “Are you going to Vegas?” That was a damn good question, she didn’t know yet. He refilled her glass; it was a whiskey night. She had a lot running though her mind and she was halfway into her second glass when she remembered she hadn’t asked about the guy who killed Ellie, she was a bad friend, she should have asked Russo if he was okay. That had been a cold case no one thought was going to be solved. Could Oz really have found him after all this time?
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