by Pippa Grant
He slowly swivels his head to stare at me.
Lucky for him, I’m used to that look, and it’s easy to smile at him and offer an explanation of how I know so much about cars. “I do a lot of reading. And research. One time, when I was writing—”
“Thank you.”
My eyebrows shoot so high they take flight off my forehead and soar to the moon.
I am aware that he’s using the element of surprise to make me stop talking, but I didn’t expect him to do it with manners. Also, this probably isn’t the right time to tell him I suspect his car trouble was his Nonna’s doing.
But it makes sense—of course she’d want to keep him from running away from The Eye.
He thrusts his hands through that thick mane of hair that belongs on the cover of a romance novel, and a sigh leaks out of him like he’s letting go of all the demons and ghosts that have been haunting his family for more generations than he can count.
I feel like this moment calls for silence, even though now it’s past the don’t talk to him because he’s grumpy about the cat and the towel and the dog thing in front of his friends stage and into what would normally be my I must talk to cover the awkwardness stage.
After fourteen seconds that last fourteen decades, his lips part, and after another three years, words come out. “I don’t want to be one of those assholes who forgets where he came from.”
It takes me a minute to catch up to where he’s staring, and then, despite everything Jerry ever said about how Luca was too good for his old friends, it all clicks into place. “You didn’t have air conditioning growing up?”
A muscle in his jaw ticks, which is better than his entire face ticking. I must be growing on him.
Hopefully that won’t make his lessons in how to not fall in love harder.
Or if they do get harder, at least I’ll learn something, and I’ll be even stronger the next time I meet a new guy.
“I didn’t have much of anything growing up.”
“But didn’t your dad—”
His gaze sharpens and threatens to gut me from my nose to my hooha if I finish that sentence about his dad also playing pro sports, so I pinch my lips together.
“It’s not the house that makes the man. It’s the man that makes the man.”
Well.
That’s telling.
And not at all what I’d expect of him after everything Jerry always said. We have to invite Luca Rossi, because my mom would kill me if I didn’t, but that dude…he’s not the same guy I grew up with. Doesn’t have time for losers like me.
I’d assured Jerry that he wasn’t a loser.
Of course, all my writer friends online have been telling me for weeks now that any guy who’ll kiss his former best friend’s mother to get out of marrying me is a loser. And I’m also beginning to suspect that Jerry might not have been the most reliable narrator when it comes to matters of Luca Rossi, especially if the rumors Elsa keeps relaying from our mother that Jerry’s dating Morgan Rossi are true.
“It’s something you should know if Nonna asks,” Luca adds.
I realize he’s still talking about living in this house to stay humble, but before I can open my mouth to reply, or to ask questions, because I have lots of them now, he’s climbing out of the car and heading for the door.
I hustle out to follow him, almost knocking myself out as my towel gets caught wrong against the ceiling of my SUV, but I right myself without dropping the cat and catch up to him as he’s sliding his key into the lock.
Nonna’s nowhere in sight when we step inside.
There’s still a hint of smoke from the ziti fire hanging around us. The air feels like warm bathwater trying to tiptoe into my lungs, and the eerie shadow cast by the ladder against the side living room wall is making me think about haunted houses.
Specifically, of sneaking through haunted houses, waiting for the scary zombies and the dude with the chainsaw to jump out, and do you know what?
Luca’s house would make the best haunted house.
Which might not be the best thing to be thinking right now.
He takes the stairs directly in front of us two at a time, but my legs are short, so I go one at a time, which would be fine if the first stair didn’t give an ominous creak and bend beneath my foot as soon as I put all my weight on it.
Naturally, I freeze, because while I like writing about scary things, my scary things are usually funny—I mean, I write about sentient sticks of butter, and who can take that seriously?—and I don’t want to know what might be hiding under this stairwell if I fall through it.
Or what will happen to my slippers.
Pooks is already looking worse for wear after being impaled by the tail of the bobblehead dragon at Mackenzie’s apartment, which is probably Brooks’s apartment, but it felt like it had a woman’s touch, so I’m gonna call it Mackenzie’s place.
Plus, my feet are sweating with how warm it is in here, and that’s probably not good for my slippers either.
“Are you seriously standing there thinking that hard about how to walk up the stairs?” Luca whispers.
I jerk my head up to him, and the movement makes the stair beneath me give an even more ominous creak.
“Skip that step,” he hisses.
“My legs are short,” I hiss back.
“Do you want to live, or do you want the stairs to eat you?”
I blink at him, because did he invade my mind and beat me to a joke that I’d totally make if I weren’t the one in danger of being swallowed by the ancient, possessed staircase?
His entire face twitches again.
I leap to the next step, grateful to land on a more solid surface, and make a mental note to learn how to navigate this house without dying. It goes right after the mental note about writing down every single quirk of the house, because this house has to go in a book.
Probably one about a vampire lord who’s been thrown out from his kingdom after succumbing to a sleeping spell cast by a troublesome fairy who ends up being the love of his life.
I seriously love love.
“You know you’re terrifying when you smile like that?” Luca breathes in my ear as I join him at the top step.
“Do your teammates know you’re terrified of anything happy?”
“I’m not terrified of happiness. I’m terrified of you. And no, they don’t know that, and they won’t, or else I’ll propose to you. Got it?”
I suck in a breath at his threat and follow him to peek into the guest room.
Nonna’s snoring.
Dammit.
So much for that lingering hope that she would’ve left so I wouldn’t have to share a bedroom with Luca.
His sigh suggests he’s feeling the same.
We creep down the short hallway past the lone bathroom in the house—seriously, it doesn’t even have a powder room on the first floor, and I’d honestly like to know how you’re supposed to have friends over when there’s not a spare toilet, except not having guests is probably exactly his plan—and before I know it, Luca’s shutting the door to his bedroom.
With just him and me inside.
In the total darkness.
He hits the light switch, and a woman sits up in bed and screams.
I’m not one to hear a random unexpected scream and not join in, so I scream too.
Dogzilla leaps out of my arms with a yowl and lands in the middle of Luca’s back, where she digs in with her claws, and now he’s screaming too.
“Get it off!”
“Intruder!” I shriek.
“Pastrami on rye!” the intruder yells.
“Mother?”
I stop screaming.
Dogzilla gives up the fight and falls off Luca’s back.
And his mother pulls the threadbare sheet up to cover—gah.
Look away, Henri.
Look.
Away.
The door flies open, smacking me in the shoulder and sending me tumbling into Luca, who smells like a fresh spr
ing rain shower in paradise.
The man can’t smell like a simple spring rain shower. That would be too easy.
Nonna charges in, rainbow hair flowing behind her and leaving no doubt where Luca got his hair genes, her arm raised and ready to throw the rusty tea kettle she’s armed with. “Who? What? When? Why? How? Where?”
I can agree with some of those questions, because was she sleeping with a rusty tea kettle?
It’s a good thing Luca’s teaching me how to not fall in love, because his family is adorable.
Mostly.
When they’re not dating my ex or being terrifying with their Eye.
So maybe adorable isn’t the right word here.
“Put the damn kettle down, Irene,” Luca’s mom snaps.
I glance at her, see the outline of her nipples behind the sheet again, and whip my head back up to the ceiling.
There’s only so much a woman can take, and seeing the breasts that I now know Jerry fantasizes about, sleeping in my fake boyfriend’s bed where I was supposed to sleep, is one of those things that makes me wish I could drink.
It’s not that I dislike her.
It’s that the sight of her makes me sad, because if I wasn’t what Jerry wanted, why didn’t he go for what he wanted in the first place instead of spending so many months building me up as being the one person who would finally make his life complete?
I know.
I know.
It’s me.
You don’t get left by five fiancés without figuring out it’s me.
“I told you to leave,” Nonna growls.
“And I told you I was staying right here until I got to talk to my son,” Luca’s mom snaps back.
I can’t stop picturing Jerry kissing her in that coat closet, and it’s making me sad.
So sad.
I hate being sad.
“What are you doing here?” Luca asks his mother.
Dogzilla echoes the question with a lazy half-meow from where she’s settled almost under the ancient dresser in the corner.
“You weren’t answering my calls.”
“He probably didn’t want to talk to you. Completely understandable.” Nonna’s still waving the tea kettle, and I get the impression she’s only holding back on throwing it because she doesn’t want to see Luca’s mom naked either.
“Oh, and he wants to talk to you? You’re probably threatening to put The Eye on him so he’ll do something stupid like—”
She looks at me and freezes, and I fill in the blanks.
He’ll do something stupid like start dating Henri Bacon, the loser who’s addicted to love but can’t actually find it.
I don’t wait for her to regroup her thoughts and stammer something else, because while I like to think I’m a happy, positive, always-see-the-bright-side person, I’m not an idiot, and I have my limits.
And right now, my limits are ordering me to grab my cat, which I do, and march out of this house and go find a hotel, because I’m the freaky weirdo in panda slippers and mismatched pajamas and a bath towel wrapped around my crazy hair that I chopped off when my fifth fiancé left me before we got to the aisle, and of course Luca’s mother doesn’t want him to do something like date a woman like me.
Let’s be honest.
His grandmother doesn’t either.
When she Eyed him, she was thinking he’d get involved with someone cute and perky and put together.
She probably even had a candidate ready to roll in right behind her.
Not with someone like me.
What am I even doing here?
Do I really think Luca can teach me to not fall in love?
He’s as messed up as I am, in his own way.
I hit the bottom step, which groans and sags beneath my angry weight, and I lose my balance and go flying.
Poor Dogzilla goes flying too.
Again.
The top of my towel hits the wall and slides off my hair, and a large philodendron that was not there this morning catches my fall.
I end up with a mouthful of leaves that I’m spitting out as someone thunders down the stairs behind me. “Christ on a parmesan sandwich,” Luca mutters as he lifts me out of the plant, fully dislodging the rest of the towel from my head. “Are you okay?”
I pick a few more leaves off my chin and hold one up. “I probably wouldn’t serve it on a salad, especially since they’re poisonous, but I’ve eaten worse.”
He gapes at me while I look around, verify that Dogzilla is fine—which she is, since she’s sitting in the middle of the floor licking her butt, which probably means she’s irritated with me, but at least she’s not hurt—and then I remember I’m mad, and I switch my almost-smile to a scowl. “I’m fine. Thank you very much for removing me from the woman-eating plant. I don’t think this house is big enough for all the baggage, let alone the four different sides heading straight into war, so I’m going to go get a hotel room, and maybe you can call me after your away games this week.”
“I’m kicking them out. You can stay.”
“I’m not sleeping on sheets that have been against your mother’s naked body.”
He shudders. “I’m not sleeping on sheets that have been against my mother’s naked body either.”
Wait.
Did he say he’s kicking them out?
I drop my voice and go up on tiptoe to get closer to his ear, which makes me inhale that sweet spring scent all over again. He could be a flower. The masculine kind of flower that you wouldn’t mind having naked in your bed. “You can’t kick your grandmother out. What will her Eye do to you then?”
“Her Eye can get over it.”
Huh. I can feel his face twitching when I’m this close to him, even if trying to look at it makes me go cross-eyed.
Also, there’s this hint of fear in his voice that suggests he doesn’t believe himself.
I sigh.
This is the problem I’ve had with every other man I’ve ever been engaged to. They legit always make me solve all of their problems, and I never even realize it until we’re done. “Do you have a tent?”
He pulls back and looks down at his jeans-covered crotch, and I swear he mutters I wish, which doesn’t make any sense, because Luca Rossi isn’t the least bit attracted to me, nor should he be if our mutual goals are going to work.
“A camping tent,” I hiss.
That gets his attention. “A camping tent? No, I don’t have a camping tent. Why would I have a camping tent?”
“No matter. Grab some blankets. We’ll sleep under the stars in the back yard.”
He stares at me.
“Unless you have a tree house? Ohmygosh, tell me you have a tree house.”
More staring.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think my nose hairs had grown and shape-shifted into dancing mushrooms and were making a wavy mustache for me right now.
“Do you have a better idea?” I whisper. “Also, your mother and your grandmother are watching us at the top of the stairs.”
Without warning, he dips his head and presses his mouth to mine.
But it’s not like the awkward kiss this morning when I was practically licking his nose hairs.
This is a real kiss.
The kind with hot, wet lips and eager tongue and fingers thrust through my short hair and his body pressed against mine.
It’s the kind of kiss I like to write about.
The only thing missing is a solid rod poking me in the belly that would suggest he’s having an undeniable hormonal reaction to my feminine allures.
“You know she recently got left at the altar for the fifth time,” Luca’s mom says. “Your evil plans won’t work.”
“The Eye always works,” his grandmother replies.
His shoulders hitch.
My shoulders hitch.
We break apart, but he wraps his arm around me and turns us both to face his family. “You’re both leaving first thing in the morning. We’re going to sleep under the stars, and I�
��ll change my fucking phone number and move if either of you say one more bad thing about Henri or only take sides to piss each other off. I’m done with both of you being assholes to each other over shit that went down twenty years ago. Understood?”
I elbow him. “Don’t say fuck to your mom and grandmother.”
“They fucking earned it.”
Nonna lifts a brow. “You have balls, Luca Antonio. I’ll give you that. But if you think you can escape what’s best for you, think again.”
Are goosebumps contagious?
Not asking for a friend.
Because as soon as Luca’s skin pebbles beside mine, the hairs on my arms stand straight up too.
“Let’s go to bed, Henri,” he says in a deadly calm voice.
And honestly?
That’s more of a turn-on than having a boner pressed into my belly would’ve been.
I smile and finger-wave at the matriarchs, and then I follow him out to the back yard.
13
Luca
I’m beginning to understand why Henri’s been engaged five times.
When the woman makes up her mind about something, it gets done.
Tracking me down? Check.
Making my Nonna materialize out of thin air so she has an excuse to play my fake girlfriend and stay with me to execute this plan of hers where I teach her how to not fall in love? Check.
Convincing me to sleep on the grass with god only knows what kind of city creatures lurking, with too much ambient light to see the stars, and most likely a few rocks under my back?
Yep, she did that too.
It almost begs the question how she hasn’t succeeded in getting married five times, except the explanation is right there in her drive.
Takes one hell of a man to be able to commit to forever with that.
I couldn’t even commit to forever with someone with half that much drive, though drive wasn’t the problem. Not in the same way, anyway.
