He sat on the floor next to the bed, on her furry green rug, and just watched her.
Since the night she’d stabbed herself, they’d barely touched. She’d take his arm for help to get up, but not otherwise. They hadn’t kissed in almost a week.
He knew she was going through a lot of trauma, trauma that just kept piling on, but he hated that she was pulling away, and he hated that there wasn’t anything he could do to help her. He hadn’t even been able to get revenge on the person who’d done this to her. She’d almost fucking died because a stupid little bitch thought she was too high strung, and because her stupid little brother had a leash on his dick. She’d almost died for that bullshit. And there wasn’t anything he could do to make it right.
Her bangs were long and over her eyes. Every now and then, she’d blink in her sleep, as if the bangs tickled a little. Gently, carefully, Luca reached out and brushed them to her temple. His heartbeat picked up with guilt and pleasure both. If she’d been awake, she would have dodged this touch. But it felt so good to him. The warm satin of her skin, the cool silk of her hair.
She opened her eyes, and he jerked his hand back. But she smiled. He guessed the sedative had tamped down her fears and anxieties.
“Hey.” Her voice was nothing but a sexy breath.
“Hey, bit. Sorry to wake you.”
“Stalker.”
“Nah. Keeping watch.”
She stretched her arm out and cupped his face with her hand. Luca closed his eyes and tried not to move or breathe. He wanted that touch for as long as he could have it.
“Love you.” Her hand dropped, and her eyes closed. She was asleep again.
He wondered if she’d ever tell him she loved him when she wasn’t doped up. Maybe not. Maybe she’d only be able to say it when her defenses were down. Maybe she’d never even remember.
And yet he believed the words were true.
“Love you, too, little bit.”
~ 16 ~
“Luca, how about this one?”
Luca came around the end of the aisle. “What’d you find?”
Manny held up the box. “It’s like a carnival ride or something. Look—there’s like a little ticket booth, and little people, and I think that little guy has like cotton candy or something. Oh! And a tiny little teddy bear. Like a game prize, I guess?”
He pointed to the corner of the box. “Bit, look. It says ages sixteen and up. He’s only five.” Luca took the LEGO set from her and replaced it on the shelf. “We get Trey that, and Carlo will be thrilled—because he’ll get to put it together himself. Let’s look for LEGOs for a five-year-old.”
Manny had never been shopping for a kid before. She could probably count on one hand the number of times she’d been in a toy store in her entire life. When she was young enough to be the target demographic, she wasn’t exactly great with lots of unfamiliar stimuli. Not that she always was now—but then, when the orphanage was still fresh history, she was a whole lot worse. A toy superstore was nothing if not full of unfamiliar stimuli. When she’d first been in the States, her new world had been bright and loud and utterly incomprehensible in every way. She’d had two modes—silent and unresponsive or feral and out of control.
So no, she had not spent time in toy stores as a child.
She huffed. “I’m not good at this. I’m just gonna follow you around until you pick something.”
Luca gave her a look. “Okay. I thought you’d like it here. Lots of color and stuff.”
She did like it here. Now the color and clutter, all at arm’s length, was something she responded well to. And there weren’t many people around on this Friday evening, near closing time. But she was also dealing with weird memories of her childhood and weird anxiety about the next day’s party, and she just felt weird. Plus, her leg was getting sore.
Not in the mood to give him part of her life story—the part where, when Manny was around age nine, Dottie had figured out that she responded well to new things when they came into her life one at a time, and then she’d cleave to them with fervor, which had sort of built up in her a love of clutter—she just shrugged. “My leg is starting to hurt.”
His brow creased. “Yeah? You need to go? I can come back in the morning, before the party.”
“No. That’s silly. We’re here. We drove half an hour to get here. I just suck at picking out presents.” She really did. Successful gift-giving required a skill set that she simply did not have. That thing where people could look at some doodad and turn to their friend and say, Oh Marge, wouldn’t Eunice just LOVE this—Manny didn’t have that. She was a big fan of gift registries and wish lists. Eliminate the guesswork.
She sucked at a lot of things, in fact. A lot of important things.
“You know I can’t have kids, right? People like me are not people who should ever be parents. Or even babysitters. Or, like, have goldfish.”
Luca’s face did a thing. His eyes got big and bright, and his smile was wide open. She didn’t know what she’d said. She’d just told him yet another reason why she sucked, but he looked like he’d just won the lottery or something.
“What?” She crossed her arms. If he was making fun of her, she was going to kick him in his fake knee.
“I don’t want kids, sugar. Never did. I’m good being an uncle.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I love Trey. He’s an awesome kid. I like to play with him and hand him back. If anybody else has kids, that’ll be great. But I don’t want shitty diapers and runny noses and tantrums or any of that crap. No interest at all.”
Okay, well, that was good news. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“You don’t know what you said, do you?”
“Uh, yeah. Obviously.” He was making fun. Asshole.
“No, you don’t. Manny, why do kids matter?”
“I don’t know.” She had no idea what he was getting at, but apparently she should, so she searched her head. “Because…oh.”
His grin got even bigger. “Because you think we’re gonna be together long enough for the issue to come up. I like that.”
She smiled. She liked that she’d made him grin like a dork. “You know you have really shitty taste in women, right?”
“Nah. I have great taste. I like unique. And sugar, there is nobody in the world like you.” He pulled a big box from a high shelf and showed it to her. “Now this is right up Trey’s alley.” It was an elaborate LEGO construction site, complete with scaffolding, trucks, and little men with tool belts. Ages five and up.
“His alley, or yours?”
He winked. “Ours. He’ll love it. Come on, let’s get out of here and get you off your feet. Hey—how are you at wrapping packages?”
“Pretty good, unless you want some big, Liberace bow or something.”
“Good. I usually just shove it in a fancy bag, but this is too big for that.”
She was glad she was at least capable of folding colored paper neatly around a box. At least she could contribute that much.
oOo
Manny tried to think of Trey’s birthday as a do-over. Same place, same people. She was getting a second chance to not be a fucking freak. And this time, they wouldn’t be surprised by her presence. Last time, Luca had sort of dumped her on them.
No, they wouldn’t be surprised. Because they all knew she was psycho.
He hadn’t talked much about what had happened between him and his family after the Fourth, but she wasn’t so dense that she couldn’t figure out that whatever had happened was about her. She hadn’t thought she’d done a bad job at that party. She’d fucked up later, alone with Luca, but she’d thought she’d cried ‘uncle’—or ‘turbulence’—early enough that no one had seen her be overly weird. But she must have been wrong. Because Luca went from talking about his family all the time in the first week or so they were together to barely ever talking about them. And he got weird on Sundays. He was a little weird about this party, too, in fact.
Waiting for him t
o pick her up on the day of Trey’s party, Manny decided that they needed to talk.
So when he came in the apartment door, she crossed her arms and said, “We need to talk.”
His smile faltered. “Yeah? You okay?”
“Your family hates me, right? What am I walking into this time?”
“No. They don’t hate you. Sabina invited you personally.”
He had to stop being vague with the family stuff. It was exhausting trying to read between his lines. “Luca, please give me some tools to get through this day.”
He took a deep breath, then nodded and held his hand out toward her sofa. “Okay. Let’s sit. Let me talk, okay?”
“Fuck. It’s bad, right?” She sat, and then he did.
“No. I just need to tell you a story about Carlo.”
“Carlo hates me?”
“Manny, shut up and listen.”
She glared at him, but she nodded.
“Sabina is not Trey’s birth mom. She’s in the process of adopting him, but Carlo was married before, and that woman gave birth to Trey.”
“Okay…”
Luca gave her a look that said she should keep shutting up. “Jenny was her name. She had some…mental stuff. Bipolar, I guess. It’s all a wicked big mess, but the short version is she ran away from Carlo and Trey when Trey was three, then she came back a year later and kidnapped him at gunpoint. She shot Joey—that’s what’s up with him. He didn’t come back all the way from it.” He paused, but before she could interject, he continued, “Carlo and I are—were, maybe—close. I talked to him about you. Too much. He’s worried that you could be like Jenny.”
So, yeah. That was just about the worst-case scenario. “Oh, fuck me, Luca. I can’t—you can’t—what the fuck is his wife doing inviting me to the kid’s party, then?”
“I’m close with Sabina, too. She’s something else. She thinks Carlo’s being an asshole. Which he fucking is. She’s on our side, and she practically runs the family these days, so I’m sure she’s made your case. But I don’t know for sure about anybody else, because I’m not really talking to anybody right now. I’m sure they all know, though. Secrets don’t last long in my family.”
“No secrets in my house, either. It’s a rule.”
He laughed without much humor. “It’s not a rule for us. The Paganos just like flapping their lips and getting in everybody’s business. It’s not my favorite thing about my family.”
“Where’s what’s-her-name—Jenny—now?”
Luca’s eyes got slippery and slid away. “Dead.”
She laughed. “What—did the big, scary Paganos send her to sleep with the fishes or something?”
His eyes came back and held. It took her a second, but she got it. “Oh. Oh, shit.” She cleared her throat. “So what do they know, then? Exactly.”
“I told Carlo about where you came from and about the RAD. And…and…fuck. I’m sorry about this, but I told him about that guy at Quinn’s. That’s when he lost it.” He sighed. “I don’t know if Sabina said anything about you getting hurt. If anybody can keep a secret, it’s her.”
“I can’t go to this party.”
Luca shifted off the sofa and squatted in front of her, but he didn’t touch her. They still hadn’t touched much or kissed at all since the night of the E. Two weeks exactly. “Manny, listen to me. I need you to try. I’m so sorry I fucked it up the last time. I should have eased the way for you. But I’ve never done any of this, either, and I was still just getting to know you, and I just fucked it up. It’s ripping me apart to be away from my family. I didn’t think it would hurt like it does. I’ve always been half a step off with them. More than that, with my pop. So I thought I’d be okay on my own. But fuck, I even miss Mass on Sundays. If they won’t accept you, then I’ll be done. But I need to try more first. Please.”
“They think I’m like the woman that stole your nephew and shot your brother. The crazy woman. The dead woman. And maybe I am! Luca, Jesus fucking Christ!”
“You’re not! And they don’t think that. Carlo might. But, bit, you are nothing like Jenny. Nothing at all. He’ll see that—they’ll all see that, and it’ll be okay.”
“You are a fucking moron if you think that’s true.”
He dropped his head for a minute, as if she’d worn him out. When he looked back at her, his green eyes were fierce. “So you keep saying. I need this, Manny. Please do this for me. Please just try. If you need your word, use it and we’ll go. But please just try.” He took a breath and stared hard at her. “If…if you love me, then please try.”
It was stupid. The day was going to be a disaster of epic proportions. But she nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.”
oOo
In fact, the day went okay, overall. All of the attention was on Trey, and Manny could just sidle around on her own if she wanted. Luca stuck pretty close, but it was clear even to her that he missed his family, and when he started to get wrapped up in a conversation with Carmen and John, she let him forget about her for awhile.
Sabina, playing hostess, Manny supposed, but being really nice, made sure that she knew to get drinks or snacks at will. She was kind of a creepily great hostess—making even Manny feel almost comfortable but not hovering at all.
Carlo avoided her, but he didn’t, like, send nasty looks her way or anything. He just seemed always to be leaving where she was coming. She did notice that he lurked around some when she was down by the water. She’d cuffed her jeans and gone down to walk on the sand, right at the water line. She’d never spent much time at the beach, but she’d always loved the wash of water over her toes, and the way the sand oozed out when the waves rolled back. Trey and that humungous dog were playing in the sand. Carlo stayed close—whether just to keep track of his kid or because he thought she was too close to said kid, Manny didn’t know. She made a choice not to think too much about it.
Carlo Sr. seemed fine. He gave her a nod once. A wink another time. He didn’t go out of his way to talk to her, but that was just dandy, as far as she was concerned.
For half a second, Manny thought she might be able to have a cool talk with Luca’s little sister, Rosa. She was wearing a Skinny Puppy tour t-shirt over her bathing suit, and Manny went over and actually started the conversation, asking if she’d seen them on that tour. But she was wearing an old boyfriend’s shirt and had no idea what Skinny Puppy really was.
But they’d talked for a few minutes about college. Manny had always kind of wanted to go to college. She’d liked history in school. That would’ve been cool to study. But her school record had been…colorful, and her grades had been…various. And anyway, a college campus would probably be just another place for her to rage out in spectacular, public fashion.
Rosa was studying political science and preparing to start her senior year. Manny sat at the fire pit with her for probably half an hour and peppered her with questions about school, and living in the dorms, and whatever. Rosa seemed to like to talk, so it went pretty well. Then she got a call on a sparkly pink phone, and Manny was on her own again. She went to find Luca.
He was talking with Carmen and Sabina. When she came up, he asked, “How’s the flight?”
She knew that he was asking if she needed to use her word. “Pretty smooth so far.” He grinned and brought her into his conversation, which was something about the attic at the family house, and Manny was quickly bored.
She went into Carmen’s house and found Joey sitting alone watching television. She said hey, and he said hey. She asked if he wanted company, and he said no. Okay, then. She totally got that.
When she went back outside, she saw Carlo coming around the house as if he’d just been to his car for something. Struck by a sudden impulse, as he was even with the porch she was standing on, she called out, “Hey!”
He stopped and turned to her. “Yeah?”
“You think I’m gonna hurt your kid.”
He blinked. Good. She’d surprised him. “Where’s Luca?”
�
��You that afraid of me? Dude, I’m four-eleven. I weigh ninety-six pounds. I think you can take me. I mean, I do fight dirty, but your advantage is pretty tremendous.”
He stepped up onto the porch and crossed his arms over his bare chest. He was taller and leaner than Luca. Still wicked cut, just in a different way. He got close enough to her that she had to tip her head far back to maintain eye contact.
“I think you could hurt my kid. Yes, I do.”
“Well, you’re honest. I like that. I’m honest, too. I’m crazy. That’s a fact. And you don’t want me looking after your kid. That’s a fact, too. I’d probably forget to feed him or something. Or I’d lose track of him. But I’ve never hurt a kid. I’ve never hurt anybody who wasn’t hurting me…or trying to restrain me. I don’t see Trey in either situation.”
Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2) Page 22
