Toes

“Simone, I swear to God, I will rip your pinky’s off if you keep touching me.”

“Jesus Christ, Gio, chill out a little, huh?”

Gio snapped the oven’s gas line into place. “Chill out? I’m over here trying to relight this stove and you’re putting your nasty toes on my back. Which, why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

Simone wiggles his dirty toes in his worn Birkenstocks “Why would I wear shoes when I’ve got these? Give up the shoe prisons, Gio. Embrace the air!” Gio drags a hand across his face.

“Mom should have stopped having kids after Vinnie. Both you and Carmella are a nightmare.” Simone opens his mouth in mock shock.

“And I suppose you think you’re the golden boy? ‘Oh, Gio, he can fix anything!’ Is that how you think mama talks about you? Marone! You have such an ego….”

Gio lifts his eyes back up from the stove to glare at Simone. You can tell the brothers apart by the crooked break in the middle of Gio’s nose. Otherwise, the brothers look like duplicate raven-haired harbingers of mischief. Their sharp eyes often provided cutting looks to one another, but god forbid someone else try to insult them.

“It’s not ego if it’s true. Now give me that wrench beside you. I want to get out of here before Franklin comes back to moan about how his gravy recipe is almost perfected.”

“We don’t need any more of that. You’d think the old man believed his sauce was made from moly flowers.”

“Moly flowers? Seriously? You been reading the Odyssey lately?”

“What else am I supposed to read after you and Vinnie stole all the good comics? You know I don’t like going to Central Library. There’s something about the hallways in there— they aren’t normal,” Simone said.