She got home much earlier than Angelo and was happy for it because it meant she would have time to think about what he might say and how she might respond to him. She went up into the room she shared with Caelin and closed the door once she found it empty.
No lock, which had her rolling her eyes. What could she do with a nine-year-old living in her shadow, anyway?
Shay flopped back on her bed and turned on some soft, airy music. A female voice, slow and melancholy. This type of music helped her to think the easiest and helped her to cry when she couldn't do it on her own.
Typically Shay would have closed her eyes to think, but she was too vulnerable to do that right then because she'd see It and hear Its laughter and then she'd shatter.
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He'd been raised in a world where secrets were everything. Where secrets were all that he was. So when he'd come to Manta Carlos, he'd said no more secrets. He'd made himself be honest, even when it wasn't the easiest route. And he did try, even if his work prevented it sometimes.
The revelation that Shay was dating someone almost as old as he was--maybe even the same age--was not a good one. He didn't want that for her, didn't want some old man going after her. She was barely legal! And as judgmental as it was, he couldn't help but judge the sort of person who'd be interested in someone who wasn't even eighteen. Shay was mature for her age, but she was still a kid in Angelo's mind, never quite growing up.
Angelo arrived home later then he would have liked, and finding Shay's shoes in the entrance way decided to avoid putting things off, heading up the stairs to her room and knocking once. Not letting himself in--he could, but didn't--but just knocking.
When Shay heard the knock on the door, she breathed out a long sigh, already knowing who it had to be. Part of her wore that mental battle armor. Living a life of strife had a person always ready to fight, even against their allies.
"Come in," she called and turned the music down to background noise. She might as well get it over with. Shay hated that this was giving her anxiety. Why was she worried? Why did she care what Angelo thought? It wasn't like they were -really- close. He didn't want to be her father, and he hadn't wanted to be her friend.
She had to get something out of the way right out the gate. "I'm not going to stop seeing him, Angelo." She had a whole spew, but Shay was going to see what he had to say first, but she was gearing up for war.
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He really didn't want it to go that far, but he was stressed enough as it was.
Even their conversation didn't start on a good foot.
"And I wasn't going to ask you to," Angelo said, folding his arms over his chest. "But I don't like the whole... sneaking around. Who he is... well, that's secondary to the fact that I found out almost by accident, in a public setting."
Shay sighed and turned off the music altogether, sitting on the edge of her bed to give Angelo more of her attention. She relaxed then, considering him sincerely.
"I started dating Fitz just a bit before d-- Klaus and Vito left." Shay paused to think about what she would say. "He was my friend. He was the person I went to first, after It and something weird kind of happened. Like, magic weird, I guess, but that's a tale for another time. He made me feel safe, and we got close.
"Met him well before the family broke apart," which to Shay sounded so much better than being left, "but I asked him out maybe half a month into the time I was freely wandering around again."
Shay counted mentally for a moment. "Three months, I think we've been dating. I didn't tell you, and I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to label anything or have him meet anyone. I didn't want to date again. I just wanted to enjoy his company. The cookout was the first time I called him my boyfriend. I was going to tell you either there or at home because I was finally ready for that step."
Which felt like an excuse, even if it were the truth. She blinked very slowly. "I'm sorry," she said. "Vito did use to tell me I had a habit of thinking my actions affected only myself and I guess he was true to an extent. I'm not used to..." she made a motion between them. "Whatever this is. This parenting stuff. The care. I'm used to doing things on my own, even when I lived with the Rosales."
Putting some distance between herself and the name (ironic because she still used the surname herself) made Shay feel a little better.
"So Fitzroy, or Fitz as he likes to be called. Well, he's an Urban Legend from Ireland. The Man in The Green Hat, friend to all. Good natured," Shay grinned, "funny and very clever. He's..."
Shay sought out the right words that goofy expression still unknowingly on her face. "He's sweet to me and not that phony kind of sweet," Shay wanted to say like Logan had been, but maybe that was too much dirty laundry.
Shay motioned to the Claddagh ring on her right finger, "don't worry about these, we both wear them. They're like promise rings. Loyalty, family, friendship, yadda yadda. They can be engagement rings, but only when they're on the left hand in this direction. While I'm mentioning things you don't have to worry about, Fitz gave me the key to his apartment after It.
"We don't sleep in the same room. I don't usually sleep over there at all unless I'm having a panic attack. It's a weird safe zone, I guess."
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It wasn't what Angelo wanted.
That said, Shay sure had listed off a lot of things to worry about. Promise rings. Keys to apartments. Angelo made a small noise in the back of his throat at the mention of that.
"You have to call." Better to get that out of the way. "If you're going over there you need to call, or contact me somehow - because lord knows the islands messy enough and the last thing I want is to be wondering where someone's gone because I haven't heard from them and it's three AM."
He'd had to deliver enough bad news in the early morning to people to know to be afraid of that.
"But I'm not going to say you can't go over there or whatever. I'm not going to act like you're a six year old who needs to have chaperoned play dates. But I... well, I'm the kind of guy who gets to see a lot of bad things in his line of work, so I'm just asking for you to keep me up to date."
Hopefully that was fair, because Angelo wasn't keen on the idea of compromise when it came to that.
Shay gave Angelo a look when he made a noise in the back of his throat like he was worried. "Don't worry. The apartment key was after..." she trailed off and looked at one of the walls past him rather than at him. "– It was given to me as a friend. And the promise rings was just a stupid way for me to ask him out. I'm kind of a coward with emotional pain like that."
She listened as he listed off his... suggestions? Shay wasn't sure what to call them. This entire situation was bizarre. Vito had made demands, and most of the time Klaus did too when he wasn't being incredibly easygoing.
Shay pursed her lips and nodded before lying back on her back and looking at the ceiling, so she didn't have to look at him because for some reason it hurt when it had no right to.
"That's fair," she said after a moment of deliberation where she tried to figure out how up to date he wanted to be. "How up to date? Are you expecting me to come to you in a week and tell you I'm engaged like Sherry, with someone I haven't been with long enough to know them from a log? We haven't had sex if that's what you're asking."
Shay was sure it wasn't, but she was angry. Mad -- not even at Angelo. Maybe angry wasn't the right word. Shay didn't want to hurt things or scream. She was sore. She wanted to cry because she was sore that even Angelo thought her taste in people was deplorable.
"I get it," she said somewhat thickly, still refusing to give him her eyes, "Vito and Klaus never trusted anyone I liked either. Not even friends. Vito even went as far as to tell me my tastes would get me raped, murdered, and my body left in a ditch somewhere." She laughed without any humor. "He wasn't far off, but he should practice his gift of divination a little more."
Shay sighed. "Look... I know what's right for me and my body. You probably hear that a lot from stupid fucking kids, but I'm not one of those. I'm not about to run off and get married, I'm not going to end up on Teen Mom, and I'm not going to let someone treat me like shit.
"I like him because he's not someone who is going to lead me down any of those paths and he sure as hell won't follow me blindly into a fire. He was there, and I could talk to him. He was there through all this bullshit that should have driven him away. That's loyalty I've only ever seen in the likes of Theo. Maybe when you look at you, you won't see that side, maybe never or maybe just now, but I do. I see it, and it makes me feel..."
The right word. What was the right word? She knew it, but she was scared of saying it. "It makes me feel fuckin' safe. I feel safe, Angelo. Can you understand how important that is? You must because you were almost here, where I am now, once. You were almost here. Am I making any sense?"
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But there was really only so much he could take, and Angelo's face darkened as the conversation continued.
"I'm going to stop trying to be the responsible adult for a moment here to say that Vito is a fucking monster who deserves whatever he has coming to him." The idea of saying that to someone--to someone who was supposed to be your daughter especially--was monstrous. "That shit is something you should never say to anyone, least of all someone that much younger then you. Fuck, I wouldn't say that to a friend. You might say you're worried about the people they're hanging out with, but saying that shit?"
Angelo paused, trying to drag his anger back under control. He didn't often get angry, and he doubted that a few years ago he would have gotten mad at all about it. But hearing it from Shay like she believed it... That pissed him off.
"I don't care about that stuff. I just want... want normal chatter. Like normal people do. Like, 'how was school?' 'Oh it was fine I aced the math test'. Or 'I'm going out for dinner with some friends and Theo's going to be there'. Shit like that. That's all I want, so that I can know that you're safe and happy and not experiencing something awful you aren't telling me about. That's all I want."
Angelo was not nearly as composed as he'd been, to say the least.
Shay turned her attention to Angelo as he got that dark look in his eye. While he spoke, her mask broke, and she stared at him as if looking at him in a new light. Some kind of understanding, a wary trust, glinted in her gaze.
She sat up slowly and swung her feet off the side of her bed, looking toward the carpet there with glassy eyes. Shay pursed her lips and let out a shaky breath before standing and going to her dresser. She opened one of the middle drawers and rummaged around until she pulled out a burner phone.
Shay held the phone out to Angelo. "We weren't normal," she told him at the end of it all, back to smiling ruefully.
"In the orphanage, you had to learn to survive knowing nothing was yours, and anything that might have been could be taken away from you. That was normal for us. With Klaus and Vito, there was the illusion that things were better, but nothing had ever been ours there either. You still had to win favor. You had to keep secrets," she motioned with her chin to the burner phone. "You played by the rules of others. Not because they were wiser or deserved it, but because they were more powerful."
Shay locked eyes with Angelo, raising her chin like a soldier facing a sword, but the sword of a respected opponent. "But I'm not in the orphanage anymore, or with the Rosales. I will never be normal," she trailed off, let that sentence sit. "But I can try."
"I'll try for you."
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"There's no games here," Angelo said. "I don't have the time or energy for that kinda shit. Your stuff is yours. And no secrets, and no winning favor unless you're trying to get me to make some exhausting dinner or something. I'm not - I'm not going to be a good dad, but I know what a good dad is like. Not my dad - my bio dad was beyond useless - but the guy who ran the mafia I grew up in. He was a good father. Cared a lot about his son, and about me. Helped me leave, and that... it mattered a lot. So I'm going to try and be like him, or what I hope he'd be like if he wasn't the head of the fucking mafia."
Maybe he was swearing too much. No, he was definitely swearing too much, and Angelo made a point to try and hold it back. "I'm going to try and be fair. And if you feel like I'm not being fair, you tell me that, and you explain your points, and I'll make things fair."