Calendar Girl (March) Chapter 3: Mamma Mia! It’s a Big-a Twist-a!

Calendar Girl (March) Chapter 3: Mamma Mia! It’s a Big-a Twist-a!:

Mia goes to meet her new client, and she arrives just as he’s getting out of the shower. She talks about how ripped and sexy he is for about twenty minutes, and just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, BAM:

“Papi, Mia arrived,” were the first words out of his perfectly full mouth.

Wait…Papi?

Another man strode into the space and hooked an arm around body god’s waist. A huge smile adorned his face. Where Anthony was massive, this man was smaller but still in shape with a washboard stomach and little to no fat that I could see. And I could see plenty. His body style reminded me of my Frenchman. Not quite slight, but then again the massive wall of muscles he leaned into could make any good sized hottie seem less than average.

IT’S A SHAKE UP! I’m excited, you guys. We might get more ad revenue because we won’t have to remove some ads from explicit posts. I can’t wait to see what the struggles in this book will actually be. Mia has to pretend to be Tony’s finance to appease his family for a month, so maybe the struggle will be to convince them she really is his finance OR to get Anthony to be real with his fam and have them and the world accept him for who he is? We’ll find out soon enough.

Before I get too much into Tony’s murky backstory, let’s meet his boyfriend:

“Smart girl you picked out,” the unnamed man said. Then his eyes did a loop from top to toe. “And ridiculously beautiful.” His eyebrows narrowed. “Did you have to pick out the prettiest one?” He moved away from Anthony, crossed his arms over his chest and puffed out a breath of air dramatically. “Should I be worried?” He tapped a foot, actually tapped his foot like a chick about to nail her man.

Anthony’s eyes seemed to tiptoe along my curves before he grinned wickedly. “May-be.” He drew out the word. “And yeah, I had to pick the best girl. My family would want me to be with the perfect one.” He extended his hand but looked at the man by his side. “She’s pretty damned perfect, wouldn’t you agree?”

The Hispanic man’s lips pursed and then dropped into a scowl. “Si. You are very beautiful.” He finally spoke directly to me.

So this is Hector, and I’m hoping he becomes more than a bitchy/jealous stereotype. I have no idea what the fuck tapping your foot like a chick about to nail her man means, but I didn’t like it one bit.

The guys go to get dressed and Mia hangs out with them later. Everyone is cracking jokes and drinking loads of wine. How has Mia’s job gotten even better at this point? Now she gets to paid to be the beard for a guy and hang out with him and his fun boyfriend drinking wine. And I bet you anything they’ll love her so much they’ll pay her the extra sex bonus even though they don’t sleep with her. The magical, enchanted world of call girls everywhere.

Hector continues to be ridiculous:

Hector clinked his shoulder with mine breaking me from my stupor. “Hey, eyes on your sandwich, missy. All that hunky hotness,”—he tipped his chin at Tony and then back to me—“is mine and mine alone. You get that, we’ll be just fine.”

Ug shut up Hector. But I do sort of like him when he chills out and just has a nice conversation with Mia later.

Anyway, the guys let her know that tomorrow morning she’s going to meet Ma, and Mia is like, “Mamma Mia! How am I going to convince her we’re in love so soon? She’ll see right through me!” Tony and Hector assure her that she is strong enough to stand up to tough Italian women (Tony has four sisters too!) and since she likes Italian food she’ll be fine.

I honestly can’t believe there hasn’t been a mamma mia joke in this entire chapter that continually stresses how Italian Tony’s family is and there is a character named Mia. I was spoon-fed this shit.

Apparently, they meet the whole family every Friday night for dinner, and it sounds like Hector is included, but somehow the family is allegedly clueless about their relationship. They need Mia in the picture to protect Tony’s boxing prospects, his family business, and to alleviate his family’s concern about the family name not being passed along…what? But like how is having a fake fiance for one month a solution to any of this?

Hector sighed then hugged me close. We flopped backwards to lean against the couch shoulder to shoulder, his side plastered against mine. It felt nice. Kind of like it would if I had a brother. “You see, My Anthony, does not want to deal with the press, his family, or business issues if he were to come clean about his sexual orientation.”

“That’s messed up.” I was surprised at how strong my tone came across.

“You’re telling me!” Hector clinked glasses with mine.

Tony set his glass on the table. “Look, it’s hard enough being a young boxer turned businessman. Add being gay to that and I’ve got a disaster on my hands. The league might not let me box.”

Mia is appropriately outraged and confused by this. Boxers turned businessmen are already such a marginalized group of people that this situation really is quite the predicament.

BUT WAIT! What about the family name thing?

He sat down on the arm of the couch. “Yes. I am the sole heir to my father’s company, even though all of my sisters participate in some way. We make many of the decisions together.” He shook his head then laid his head in his hands. “It’s more than that. You see, I’m the only male Fasano left. If I don’t have a child, our name dies with me. And with me being gay…” his words trailed off and his head hung again, seemingly carrying theT entire weight of the world.

“Do you want children?” I blurted out the question, as was my way when consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

Tony raked his fingers through the layers of his hair. His gaze went to Hector. “Um, well, we never really talked about it.”

Hector seemed to get taller in his seat. He stood and walked over to Tony and cupped his cheeks. “Baby, do you want kids?”

…So all they had to do was hire a fake fiance to ask them a standard question in order to finally discuss a really fucking obvious solution to this problem. I think this is going to be the best, I really do. Mia’s gonna help solve all their problems and learn some lessons about herself along the way too, I bet. Look, it’s already happening by the end of the chapter:

“We can find a way, adopt or you know, maybe a surrogate.”

I smiled so wide then socked back the rest of my wine in one gulp allowing it to burn a trail down my throat. Standing up I flung out a hand to brace myself trying to get my legs back in working order.

“That’s my cue. My work here is done.” I bent over and bowed. The two men didn’t even notice, too lost in each other. They just held one another, foreheads touching whispering words only they could hear. It was beautiful. More than that. It was special, and I was glad I got to experience it.