Not Exactly What I Had in Mind

by
Merricat K

Do you love her? Vinnie, following Sonny out of the church hall, didn't say it, but Sonny turned around anyway, smiling at him.

"What?" He touched Vinnie, lightly, on the chest.

"What, what? I didn't say anything."

Sonny didn't argue, just smiled at him again, that slow, sleepy smile that said things. Things Vinnie wanted to hear, and didn't want to hear. Things Vinnie wanted to say.

"Where're you going?" Sonny asked, and Vinnie looked at him, not getting the question.

"I thought I was going with you. Aren't I?"

"Yeah. You're going with me." Sonny got in the car, smiling.

*

Do you love her? Vinnie was hating this, playing "we're not getting along," which wasn't much of a game. They hadn't been getting along, not very well, not since Joey Romanowsky was killed. Some of it was Vinnie, put off by Sonny's seeming indifference to the chain of events he'd begun. Some of it was Sonny, who always seemed to be thinking of something else. He was having lunch every week with Mahoney. He was going places by himself, leaving Vinnie behind, telling him to catch up on his sleep. He seemed to be regarding Vinnie as an unknown quantity, which made Vinnie wonder what Mack was saying to him.

And now Vinnie was stuck with Aldo, who was about as smart as a box of rocks. You could actually see him thinking, it happened so slowly, and the end results were hardly worth the effort. And you're gonna get stuck with this guy as a brother-in-law, what're you gonna do with him, where're you gonna put him that he won't gum up the works--

OK, quit worrying about that. It doesn't matter. What difference does it make who your brother-in-law is when you're in the state pen?

Aldo was telling jokes. They weren't very good, and no one was listening to him. Sonny was--what was Sonny doing? Vinnie looked in the rear view mirror again, quickly, saw Sonny's face in Theresa's hair. She was laughing. Vinnie reminded himself to tell Frank his next assignment should be someplace far away from the future Mrs. Steelgrave, who he suspected would cut his heart out with her nail file if she thought he had anything to do with Sonny going to prison.

There was no question about that, anyway: she loved him.

*

Do you love her? It was stupid to keep wondering that; why should Vinnie care who Sonny loved? Why should Vinnie care that Sonny seemed not to want to spend time with him, or that he'd asked Patrice to be his best man? Why should he care about any of it, except getting out with his skin intact?

Still, when Sonny asked him what he was doing for dinner--which was weird because Sonny never asked him things like that, Sonny told him--he said he didn't have plans.

That was a mistake because he ended up having to agree to go out to dinner with Sonny and Theresa, and Theresa's maid-of-honor, whose name he couldn't remember, probably because he didn't want to remember it.

He asked Sonny about this set-up--he thought the maid-of-honor matched up with the best man, which made Sonny laugh like Vinnie hadn't seen him in a long time. "Yeah, I'll bring Paul along, that'd be a lot of fun." Sonny rolled his eyes at this stupidity. "Be ready at eight."

Fun. He was supposed to be fun. Sonny thought he was fun.

*

Vinnie spent the evening talking to this friend of Theresa's, dancing with her, remembering to laugh at the right times, trying to be fun, a good date, all the while wondering what was going on. Was he being fixed up?

Will you for God's sake stop worrying about that? It's the least of your problems!

He drove, Linda, Louise, whatever her name was, sitting in the front seat with him, Sonny and Theresa in the back, Sonny doing--

What was Sonny doing? Whatever it was, Theresa seemed to like it, even if she did keep saying his name in that feminine "stop it!" way. It was too dark to see into the back seat, and Vinnie didn't think he could come up with a way to legitimately explain turning on the dome light. He chatted with Lydia, Laura, Lucille, he was charming, he smiled a lot.

Theresa was laughing. It wasn't because Vinnie was charming, or amusing. Sonny was laughing too, and it had nothing to do with amusement. Leticia, Lorraine, smiled at him, an "isn't it wonderful that they're in love?" smile that Vinnie answered with his own insincere "yes, he's going to prison soon" smile.

They dropped off the girls. Sonny moved to the front seat.

"Getting late," he said diffidently, and Vinnie glanced at the clock. It was nearly two. But that was all right, Vinnie was well caught up on his sleep.

"Yeah, it's tomorrow already."

Sonny smiled. "Yeah. You like her?"

"If I say yes, do I hafta marry her?" Vinnie asked, and Sonny laughed.

"Not right away. Sonny was looking out the window, away from Vinnie. "There's a place up here, a motel, I want you to stop at. The Garden Gate. Take the next exit."

"OK, Sonny, sure."

*

It was a rundown place that maybe once had been not too bad. Vinnie started to park near the office, figuring Sonny wanted to talk to the owner, probably about some money, but Sonny had him drive around to the back, and park in a dark corner. He got out of the car, Vinnie following, and walked to a door at the end of the row, unlocked the door and went inside.

The dark room was chilly; the a/c running at noisy full-blast. Sonny flipped on the light, went over to the temperature control, and turned the air down. The blinds were already pulled. There was a nice bottle of red wine on top of the TV that was bolted to the wall. Two glasses sat next to it.

"You want a drink?" Sonny asked, looked at Vinnie, who was still standing in the doorway. "Close the door. Lock it, too." Vinnie did. Sonny was opening the wine, pouring himself some in a glass that probably came from the bathroom. He set down the glass, looked at Vinnie, motioning with the bottle.

"No, thanks," Vinnie said. He had no idea what was going on. He wasn't nervous, even though everything in his brain was telling him he should be.

Sonny shrugged, put down the bottle, picked up his glass.

"What're we doing here? Checking out the competition? 'Cause, Sonny, I don't think you've got anything to worry about." But Sonny seemed disinclined to talk about it. His eyes were focused on the middle distance, and he was taking small, quick sips of his wine.

"I meant Theresa," Sonny said, clarifying something Vinnie didn't know he hadn't understood. "Do you like her?"

"Do I like Theresa?" The question surprised him; why should it matter whether he liked Theresa or not? "Yeah, she seems really--" Vinnie was going to say something superficial; then he didn't. "Good for you. She seems really good for you." Do you love her?

Sonny was nodding. "I've known her forever. She knows this life. She'll be--yeah. Yeah." He poured himself some more wine. Vinnie did want some, but he wanted a clear head more because something was going on and he didn't know what it was, and though he wasn't frightened by it, he wanted to be alert. He picked up the other glass, went into the bathroom, and let the cold tap run. Sonny was talking to him, but he couldn't understand him over the sound of the water.

"What?"

"I said, she understands me."

"That's good." Vinnie drank some of his water. Why were they standing in a crummy motel room talking about Theresa? Vinnie put his glass of water on the floor and sat down on the edge of the bed. There was only one bed, a king size, which was unusual in his experience. More expensive, maybe. Usually there were two beds, two queen size, or maybe full size. Was there a difference? There was something strange going on, and it was making it hard for Vinnie to think clearly.

Sonny set down his empty glass, walked over to Vinnie, put his hand in Vinnie's hair, and kissed him on the mouth.

*

Vinnie's shirt got torn, and later neither of them could find Sonny's tie. And there were places on Vinnie's body that didn't feel like they belonged to him anymore Check-out time came and they went to the car, Vinnie sliding a little painfully behind the wheel, his brain doing something he couldn't quite, couldn't quite-- Sonny wasn't looking at him, but that was all right, Sonny had looked at him plenty in the last few hours, Sonny had looked at him inside and out, Sonny had seen everything, almost.

Vinnie started the car, pulled out of the parking lot, out onto the street, but he was heading the wrong way. Sonny started to say something about that, but Vinnie interrupted him. "I know. I know. I gotta get turned around." He wanted to say something else, he wanted to tell Sonny something, tell him everything, the truth and the lies and everything. You know I'm an OCB agent, don't you? Which was crazy, because Sonny's reaction to finding out Vinnie was a cop wouldn't have been what they just did. He could still feel Sonny's mouth on his. "Or I could just head for Canada," Vinnie said, lightly, trying to sound like he was kidding.

"I leave Joe Baglia's daughter standing at the altar, I better head for Canada," Sonny agreed.

"We could, though. Just disappear into the woods." Sonny didn't say anything; he understood the offer, but he didn't know the reason, and how could Vinnie tell him? "Do you love her?"

Sonny didn't say anything. Vinnie got the car turned around, got them heading back in the right direction.

"Yeah," Sonny said, his hand on Vinnie's thigh, moving slightly up and down. "Yeah."

The End