“Did some competitive fighting in my twenties.”
“And now?”
“I throw down some, yeah. When it’s called for. And I’m training a guy for the cage. Mixed martial arts.”
“I know what the cage is. Did Manny tell you that she’s violent?”
“Yeah. On our first date, she told me what she did to her mom.”
At that, Adam grinned broadly—proudly. “That’s my girl. She puts the truth right out on top.” The grin went away. “She could have killed Dottie. She was having trouble with some stupid art project for school, and Dottie was helping her, and she just…she missed the sign that Manny was done. She pushed too hard, and then our little girl was shrieking ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t’ and stabbing her mother with scissors. That’s what happens when you push Manny past her limits. We call it raging out, and that’s exactly what it is.”
“I saw that a little, before I asked her out. She cut a guy at a bar. He got too familiar.”
Adam nodded. Luca wasn’t sure if he knew that particular story already or whether it simply didn’t surprise him. “She needs a calm man, not a fighter. A man with a temper is a bad mix for her.”
“Yeah, I’m a fighter. It doesn’t mean I have a temper. In fact, a guy like me needs a good lid on his emotions.” He was hedging a little. The truth was that Manny pushed at that lid more than anyone he’d ever known. But other than his drunk trip to her house on Saturday night, he thought he was doing a damn fine job keeping himself in check.
Going after Carlo on Sunday afternoon didn’t count. That had been about Manny, but she hadn’t been around to be affected by it.
Adam considered Luca for an uncomfortably long time. “My wife will tell you what you need to do to bring Manny down from a rage and how to try to keep her from one. She’s better at explaining that stuff. I’m here to tell you that I don’t give the tiniest fuck how big and tough you are. I don’t care if it’s some cliché to say it. If you hurt that girl, if you make her lose ground she’s worked so hard for, I will come for you. And I will kill you bloody. Manny has fought hard to learn to live in the world. Dottie and me, we have fought hard with her. For her. I love her so much it hurts. But she is not easy. You can’t know how hard it is to love a girl who hates that love like poison. That’s the little girl we brought home. That’s the little girl we fought and bled and suffered to help. And we helped her. We love her, and now she loves us back. You can’t just come into this world we helped her make and think you understand it. The Manny you know is hard work, but she is wonderful. If you do anything to make her lose that, I will make you pay. I will make it the work of the rest of my life if I have to, but I will make you pay. So you leave now, or you stick.”
He gestured with his empty bottle to the bottle in Luca’s hand. “You done with that?”
“What? Oh.” Stunned by Adam’s monologue, his head feeling stuffed full, Luca looked down stupidly at his nearly-full beer. He lifted it to his mouth and drained it. “Yeah, thanks.”
Adam took the fresh empty from him and set all the bottles in a plastic tub on the floor next to his workbench. “What’s it gonna be?”
“Huh?”
“Leave or stick.” He said it like a command, not a question.
“I’m sticking.” He felt like he had to say something about himself, something that would convince this protective father that he was not just fucking around. “I hear you. I admire you for the way you take care of your daughter. I want to be able to take care of her, too. I know I don’t know everything, but I want to learn.” He took a breath and went on, deciding to lay something of himself out for her father’s consideration. “I’ve never been serious with a girl before. I got my play, but I was never interested enough to take one serious. But I think I felt serious about Manny before I ever took her out—I wouldn’t be putting the effort in if that wasn’t true. Excuse my language, sir, but she’s too much work to be just a fuck. She says and does some shit that hurts. She’s worth it, though. She’s something special. I’m not afraid of hard work, and I don’t go off half-cocked. I’m sticking, Mr. Timko.”
Again, Manny’s father simply stared, examining him, for a long time. Then he said, “Adam. You can call me Adam. We should head in. Around here, we all chip in. You and me can set the table.”
oOo
Dinner was a decent spread of pot roast, scalloped potatoes, fresh bread, zucchini salad, and strawberry pie. With only the four of them around the table, conversation was quiet—or, at least, quieter than Luca’s experience with family meals. There was only one conversation going on, for one thing, and everybody took their turn. That was not the way it worked when his family got together.
He liked watching Manny with her family. She was comfortable here in a way he’d never seen her before, at ease and happy. They all had a way of speaking that he recognized—he was developing it, too. You said what you meant and left very little unsaid. Manny got sarcasm—she was, in fact, good at it—but she didn’t get other kinds of subtlety. Without the physical and auditory cues that she’d learned for sarcasm, she took what was said at face value and got defensive if it became clear that she’d missed a joke or something that others had gotten. So that kind of innuendo was not part of this dinner-table talk.
While he was the center of the conversation and fielded a lot of questions about his work and family, about his interests and hobbies—which he assumed was the usual talk at a dinner like this—he didn’t feel grilled. Manny’s mom was good at turning a pointed question into a topic for general discussion.
What he didn’t hear any of were stories about Manny. So far, all he knew about her childhood was that she had had rages and had stabbed some people. There had to be more than that, there had to be happy moments in there somewhere, but he wasn’t sure how to ask. He stared at the small, beautiful woman across the table, who was laughing and smiling with her parents, and wondered where she’d come from.
After dinner, her parents did another surprisingly subtle switcheroo, and Luca found himself in the kitchen, helping Dottie with the dishes, while Manny and her father went into the living room. Luca figured it was time for the other half of the talk. Hopefully this part would not include threats against his life.
“Did Adam try to scare you?” Dottie asked as she took a plate Luca had just rinsed and put it in the dishwasher.
“Yes, ma’am, he did. I don’t scare easy, though.”
“That’s good. That’s important. Manny needs steadiness around her. Calm.”
“I understand. I’ve seen that myself.”
“I expect you have. What else have you seen?”
Luca thought about the things he’d learned about Reactive Attachment Disorder and the insights he’d gotten into Manny. He wanted her mom to know he was doing this smart. “Besides her sensory defensiveness, it seems like anxiety and attention problems are her biggest issues. The other stuff rises from that. She takes Xanax just about every day. She hasn’t said much yet about her other meds.”
Dottie stopped and gave him a look. He kept his eyes steady. “You did some studying.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you know none of her meds are really for the RAD but for the problems it causes.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned back to the sink and picked up another plate; they resumed working as they talked.
“So you know nothing is curing the RAD.”
He nodded. “She’ll always have to do things on purpose that other people don’t have to think about.”
“Yes. Besides her problems with physical contact and reading social cues, it means that other people’s needs and wants don’t occur to her unless she’s actively working to think about that.”
He chuckled. “Oh, I know.”
Dottie gave him a sharp look and turned off the water he was rinsing over a serving platter. “Luca. You seem like a nice man. The fact that you’re here tells me that you’re a nice man. But I know you’ve put pressure on M
anny beyond what she could take, and you got a taste of the consequences of that.”
Luca blinked, hoping to Christ she wasn’t talking about the night of the Fourth and knowing damn well that was exactly what she was talking about. But he wasn’t going to bring it up. If she wanted to hint, she could hint. That shit could remain unsaid.
“When Manny told me about you, I told her to go slow. That was dumb. She doesn’t have the experience or the wiring to know how to go slow. It’s advice you needed. But you didn’t go slow, either. And now it’s too late. You can’t expect her to change the way her brain works overnight. You can’t expect it in a week. Or even a month. The best you can get in that time is her willingness to try. It might be the best you can ever get. It probably will be.”
“It’s hard not to be able to touch her. The way I feel…I want to hold her all the time. I just want to hold her.” He’d spoken low, and the words had come out almost as if Dottie had applied some kind of mystical force. He couldn’t believe he’d said so much. Too much, maybe. He cleared his throat, feeling exposed and awkward.
Dottie smiled and patted his arm. Then she let her hand fall to his and squeezed it. “I know. She’s my little girl, and I saw the place she started her life in. She didn’t even have a name. Since I first met her, since she was six years old, I’ve wanted to hug my girl. I still can’t, not in the way I want to. She’ll let me, if I tell her I need it. But it hurts her. When I even put my hand on hers, her whole body goes stiff. Can you be with her if that’s your future with her, too?”
He thought about that hug at the Corner. That first hug. She’d let him lift her and wrap her up tight, tuck her close and breathe her in. Her heart had been racing like a little mouse’s, her pulse fluttering against his face. He’d felt her stiffen up almost immediately, and then mere seconds later, she’d said her drop-everything-and-save-me word, and he’d set her away.
It was the best few seconds of his fucking life. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but maybe not. Whatever, that was the moment he’d been done for. When she’d let him hold her. What had happened the night before that didn’t matter. With that hug, he understood things better. And he knew that she was trying to give him what he needed, too. She had to try a lot harder than he did. He’d felt like he was making all the concessions, but in those few seconds that he’d really had her, he saw how hard she was working, how much she wanted the same thing. What he wanted came easily to him. What she wanted was a fight for her.
In the two days since, she’d let him hold her five times. Each time only for a few seconds, and each time it had been quite clear that only he was getting anything out of the contact. That hurt, to be honest—that she didn’t feel the same powerful connection in their touch that he did. But he knew she wanted to feel it. And he knew there was love in her attempt.
He faced her mother full on. “I like straight talk, just like Manny. I figure you do, too. So here it is, straight. I’ve never had a girl before. I was a dog for a lot of years, hooking up with women who just wanted to play around. So I’m flying blind. But I think I’m in love with your daughter. This feels like love. When I was fighting, I had a rep for being the guy who wouldn’t tap out, no matter what. You know what that means?”
“I do. Adam and Dimi watch UFC. I try to watch a little with them, but it’s really brutal. To beat you, a guy had to knock you out.”
He nodded. “I don’t tap. I love Manny, and I don’t tap.”
oOo
It was nearing midnight when he got back to his apartment that night. He’d spent some time with Manny on her couch after he got her home.
It would probably be some time before they got into a bed together again. And who the hell knew how long it would be before they actually slept in the same bed together. Hopefully someday. Luca couldn’t believe that was something he was hoping for, but he was.
He was surprised to see Carlo’s Porsche Macan parked in the lot outside his building. The car’s windows were open, and he could see his older brother sleeping in the driver’s seat. He went over and gave his shoulder a shove, grinning when Carlo jumped like he’d been poked with a cattle prod.
“What the fuck?!” Carlo yelled as he came awake. One eye still didn’t open all the way, and his lips were split on the same side—partners to Luca’s still slightly-swollen cheek.
“Taking up stalking, big brother?”
“We need to talk, and you won’t return my fucking calls.”
Luca’s good humor left him. “If it’s about Manny, stow it. Go home.” He turned and headed to his building. Behind him, the thunk of a car door closing told him that Carlo had gotten out and was following him.
“Luc, hold up!”
Luca stopped, turned, and sat down on the wide steps in front of the main door to his building. Carlo caught up and sat, too, a few feet away. Beyond arm’s reach.
Carlo had come at him Sunday afternoon at the house, full of questions about Manny—the slightly off things he’d picked up on, the way they’d left suddenly, before the party had even really gotten swinging. Luca, smarting from what had happened after and feeling low because he’d been pretty sure they were through, had probably said too much.
No, he knew for sure he’d said too much. He’d told Carlo just about everything. Not about the sex stuff, but about the RAD. And, to his eternal regret, about the guy she’d slashed at Quinn’s.
Carlo had blown a damn gasket. Luca was stupid for spending even a second with a woman like that. Luca was blind for not seeing that he was doing the same thing Carlo had done with Jenny, and he should remember what had happened with that. Luca was selfish for putting his family at risk, bringing an unstable and violent woman around Trey. That unstable and violent woman would never be welcome in the house on Caravel Road or anywhere around Carlo’s wife and child, not ever.
That was when Luca had snapped, and they’d ended up rolling around in the yard, Elsa, Carlo’s big dog, barking furiously at them. Their father and brother had yanked them apart, but not after blood had been spilled.
Luca had left right then. He figured Carlo had filled everybody in on the story. Their father had been quiet and watchful at work the past two days, but neither of them had brought the subject up. That Carlo Sr. had not mentioned anything about Luca having a girlfriend was evidence enough that the family was scandalized about Manny.
He’d had every intention of avoiding his brother, maybe his whole family, for a good, long time, but here Carlo was, his face misshapen, looking weary. Luca was surprised at how much hurt he’d laid on him; he must have raged out a little himself.
“Do not say shit about Manny, bro. Do not.”
“Bina says I’m an ass.” Carlo sighed and looked out over the lot.
Unable to help himself, Luca laughed. “I agree. But I don’t see that sentence coming out of your wife’s mouth.” Sabina was Argentine, and despite years in the States had a slightly odd, almost lyrical way of phrasing her words.
Carlo made a half grin around his swollen face. More of a grimace, but he got the idea across. “No. I’m paraphrasing. The point is the same. She wants to talk to you, because I fucked it up.”
“Her I’ll talk to about Manny. You need to keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“You know why I got so upset, though, right? You get it?”
“She’s not Jenny. She’s like the anti-Jenny. Jenny was clingy and needy and fucking manipulative. She was always going off her meds and pretending she didn’t have a problem. Manny is nothing like that at all. Jenny was weak. Manny is strong.”
“But she’s violent.”
“Carlo, forget about it. You want to talk about violent? I swear to God, I will beat you down right here, and this time there’s no one to call me off.”
His brother didn’t respond, and they sat there silently, for minutes. Finally, for something to say that would hopefully break this up and get his brother on his way, Luca asked, “How long were you out here?”
Carlo checked his w
atch and then chuckled. “About three hours. I knew you’d end up at home, and I didn’t expect you to be out so late on a school night. Where were you?”
He shouldn’t answer. He should not answer. “I had dinner at her folks’ in Providence.”
“Luca. Goddammit.”
Luca stood. “Go home, Carlo. Tell your wife I’ll call her.” He left his brother sitting on the step and went inside.
Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2) Page 16
