by L. D. Davis
It wasn’t until I felt that damn cool air on my bare legs that I remembered I had stripped out of my capris before climbing into bed. The shirt I’d borrowed from Marco was long enough to cover my ass and not much else.
Marco sat on a dark wicker loveseat a few feet away between his bedroom and mine, illuminated by soft-yellow string lights attached to the railing. He stood when he saw me, concern etched on his face.
“Are you okay, Tesoro?”
“Uhh,” I started with uncertainty and angled my head away from him, hoping he couldn’t see the red bloom on my face. “Well, I don’t have on pants.”
His concern quickly turned into amusement. “Is that a problem?”
“Maybe not for you.”
“Pants are overrated.”
I snorted as I finally looked at him again. “Says the man still wearing his britches.”
His fingers went to the button of his shorts. “I can fix that.”
I held up a hand. “No, no. That’s okay. Not necessary.”
His soft laughter made me scowl. When I turned to go back inside, Marco caught me by the elbow and steered me toward the loveseat.
“Whoa, okay, okay. I will keep my pants on. Come sit. I will get you a blanket, or pants. Whichever you prefer.”
I sighed. Struggling in and out of clothes again wasn’t my idea of a good time. “A blanket will be fine.”
His gaze flickered down to my knee, the one that hurt like a bitch, as if he knew. My limp must’ve been worse than I thought, even for the few steps I’d taken. He must’ve noticed.
“Do you need anything else, Tesoro? Can I bring you some ice?”
Yeah, he’d noticed. Reluctantly, I nodded. I hated admitting to my weaknesses, even if without words.
Marco returned less than a minute later with a blanket. He spread it across my lap, told me he’d be back in a few minutes, and went inside. I sat there, asking myself what the hell I was doing, sitting outside of Marco Mangini’s bedroom with no pants on in the dark. I should’ve stayed in my room and counted sheep until sleep came. I should have ignored the noise that I knew from the start was him rather than go outside. Instead, I’d been drawn to him like a moth to a flame—or a fly to a pile of shit. Not that Marco was a pile of shit, because he so wasn’t, even though I really wanted him to be.
Just when I started to believe that he’d gone all the way to the North Pole to chip the ice off a glacier, Marco finally returned with a tray in his hands.
“Hot cioccolata and your bag of ice.” He put the tray down on a small table.
“What a strange combination.”
“Strange combination for a strange girl.”
He grabbed one of the many chairs on the balcony, placed it in front of me, and gently elevated my feet.
“I’m not completely disabled,” I grumbled.
His brows pulled down. “You’re not disabled.”
When he lifted the blanket, it felt weird. It reminded me of being in the hospital, or worse yet, on a table in the gyno’s office when the doctor lifts the crinkly paper just before he views your personal bits, but he only lifted one corner to put the icepack on my knee.
The hot chocolate warmed me, and more because of the extra ingredient than because of the temperature. “This is no ordinary hot chocolate.”
Marco sat beside me, leaving no space between us. We sat so snugly together that he had to put his arm across the back of the couch behind me so he wouldn’t squish me.
“I like a little Bailey’s in my hot chocolate.”
My mouth curved with amusement. “It tastes like you like a little chocolate in your Bailey’s.”
My smile was replaced by a grimace when a spasm of pain shot through my thigh. Marco’s frown of concern as he stared at me made me wish I’d never stepped outside. I didn’t want his pity.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Tesoro? Can I get you something for the pain?”
I shook my head. “I don’t like to take pills. They make me loopy and I can’t afford to be drugged up when I have kids to take care of. It’ll go away eventually.”
“It is my fault you hurt tonight. I should have made you sit and relax, especially when we went through the woods.”
I scoffed. “Like you could’ve made me do anything I didn’t want to. It’s not your fault, and the pain is well worth it. The kids had a blast, and they’ve more than deserved it.”
All day, I’d been happy to watch the kids have a good time, but it comingled with the guilt I still carried for not thinking about how much they needed the kind of day Marco had given them. They’d suffered, too, even though none of them had been in the car with Gavin and me that day. They lost a father, and in a way, they’d lost me. I wasn’t the same mom they’d had years ago.
“What about you? Did you have a good day?”
“It was a good day for the kids, which makes me happy. So, yes.”
His fingers lightly stroked over my shoulder, making me want to wiggle to erase the ticklish yet good sensation. “That isn’t what I asked. Did you have a good day, Tesoro?”
I repeated myself slowly, as if he had cognitive issues. “Yes. It was a good day for the kids, which makes me happy. So, yes.”
With a noise of frustration, Marco shook his head and angled his face closer to mine. “I am not asking about your kids. I am asking about you. When was the last time you had a good day?”
I thought about it for a few seconds. “Any day that I go to bed with a clean house is a good day.”
He groaned and threw his head back as if I had just said the most ridiculous and irritating thing. “Tesoro, have you done anything for your own enjoyment? Anything at all? A day out by yourself, or an afternoon without the children to do as you please and not what must be done?”
“Well,” I started, rather testily, because we’d been through this earlier at the penthouse, but then I stopped. “There was…” I stopped again. “Maybe last…” I trailed off once more. Marco watched me carefully as I really thought about it. When I finally answered, my voice was quieter, a little far away. “It’s been a very long time.”
Marco continued to stare at me, his brow creased. His expression almost seemed rather sad. I chose to ignore it and tried to change the tone of the conversation.
“I used to go out all the time when I was younger, before kids. I was pretty wild. I loved to drink. Loved dancing, and loved smoking weed. I’m pretty sure that’s all I did in my last year of high school and my first year of college. Drinkin’, dancin’, and smokin’.” I snorted and shook my head. “Drove my mom crazy.”
“Before I came to America, I was the opposite of all that.”
I narrowed my eyes with doubt, making him chuckle.
“I was. I was very boring dork.”
“How so?”
“Well, I was shy. Don’t look at me like that. I was shy. Like a clam.”
One corner of my mouth pulled up involuntarily. “Like a clam?”
His smile made even my iced knee feel warm.
“Yes, a clam. I stayed in my shell. It was my favorite place. I did not like parties or other social events. I didn’t know how to behave, what to say, what to do, and I felt awkward inside my body. I grew too fast, before I could get used to my long arms and legs. I didn’t know what to do with my hair, so it was always cut in this ugly cut with a part down the side.”
I laughed, totally at him, but he laughed at himself, too.
“I didn’t drink or smoke or anything like that, but I definitely did not dance. The few times Celia convinced me to dance, it did not work out well. I broke her toe once when I accidentally stomped on it.”
“Well, what happened? You aren’t socially awkward now. You’ve blossomed into a swan, so it seems.”
“I moved here, to the States. Away from my family, from Celia and Massimo, and all the emotions I carried toward them, I could discover myself. For the first time, I began to figure out who I was.”
I stared up at h
im, truly realizing for the first time how much bigger than me he was, how small my body was compared to his.
“And who were you—or are you?”
His gaze wandered over my face, lingered on my mouth. “The truth?”
“Yes.”
He bit his bottom lip as he continued to stare at my mouth.
“Well, the truth is…” Marco drew close again. “The truth is, Tesoro, my inner dork is still alive and thriving. As for the rest of me…I am still figuring that out, piece by piece. Who I am today may not be who I am tomorrow.”
It was a good and honest answer. Most people, myself included, would’ve bullshitted our way through that response with hollow confidence, with fictitious assurance in oneself. Hell, I was well-versed with fictitious assurance in oneself.
“How is your knee, Tesoro?” Staying close, Marco lifted the blanket to look.
“Cold. I think we can take the ice off.”
He removed the icepack and put it on the floor. When his palm touched my leg, I jumped about six thousand feet out of my seat.
“Just want to warm you up.” He began to rub warmth back into my knee.
“Any excuse to fondle me.”
He laughed softly but did not stop, and I didn’t try to stop him. The feel of his hand was warming, but also a little comforting. Everything about his body almost surrounding mine was oddly comforting, even if terrifying.
“Did you date anyone else before Celia?” I asked mostly out of curiosity, but also to take my mind off the fact that his hand was caressing my bare leg and I still didn’t have on pants.
Marco shook his head. “No, but she wasn’t my first kiss. That was courtesy of my older sister’s best friend after too much wine one night when I was fourteen and she was sixteen.”
I waggled my brows. “Was that the only kiss you shared with her, or was she enthralled?”
He laughed. “Let’s just say we practiced a lot that winter. How old were you for your first kiss, and who was the lucky boy?”
I covered my face for a second and shook my head. “My mom still doesn’t know this. If it ever comes up, the story I’ve stuck to all these years is that J.D. Harris was my first kiss in my freshman year of high school.”
“Oh, I am beyond curious now. Do tell the details, Tesoro.”
“As I said before, I was a wild one. My friends and I were boy crazy when we were in grade school, usually for older boys. Our school library always had copies of the high school yearbooks for some reason. We’d sit in the back of the library for hours searching out the pictures of all the older boys and giggling and yammering on about who was the cutest. There was one in particular I really liked. He was really cute, and he had this cool cockeyed grin. I even liked his name. Ethan Colt. It still sounds sexy all these years later.”
My description of Ethan seemed to make Marco grumpy. “Sounds stupid to me.”
“No, it sounds sexy. Anyway, Ethan was almost sixteen and a sophomore. He was on the football team. I didn’t have a big interest in football back then, but my friends and I would go to the games just to see him and the other guys we stalked. During halftime of one game, I overheard a couple cheerleaders talking about a party that night at Ethan’s house. Of course, doing my due diligence, I knew where the guy lived.”
“Don’t tell me you left a bunny boiling on his stove.”
I elbowed him lightly in the side, making him chuckle. He had stopped rubbing my knee, but now his hand rested on my thigh like a pleasant, warm weight. That was harder to ignore, but I went on with my story, hoping he didn’t notice the slight quaver in my voice.
“I did no such thing. I just went to the party, found his bedroom, and started snooping around.”
Marco laughed. “Oh, this is good, Tesoro.”
“So, I was just kind of hanging around in his room when he came in. He was surprised to find this strange girl there. I told him I had come to the party with some friends but that I’d had a headache from the music and all the smoke and just needed a place to chill for a bit. Amazingly, he believed me and was really cool about it. He admitted that even though it was his own party, he had needed a break, too. When he asked me who I was, how old I was, and where I was from, I lied my ass off. I gave him a fake name, told him I was fifteen and from some school on the other side of the county.”
“And he believed you? How old were you really?”
“I was twelve, almost thirteen, but I looked a little older. Maybe not as old as I claimed, but he was just a stupid boy, and I was a pretty girl in his room. We hid out there for about forty minutes and talked about music and movies. In the middle of a conversation about the latest sci-fi, he kissed me. It was a total horndog kiss.” I laughed. “He wasn’t kissing me because we had some musical tastes in common and both loved the Alien movies. He wanted to get into my mini skirt.”
Marco shifted. “I almost feel uncomfortable to hear this because of how young you were, but I am strangely intrigued to hear what happened next. Does that make me a pervert?”
“Total pervert, but it was just a kiss. As soon as he started to grope me, I got scared and jetted. I didn’t see him again—at least up close—until a few years later when I was a junior in high school and he was in college.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Marco asked, “Did you let him feel you up then?”
I snorted. “Of course. He was still sexy Ethan with the sexy name.”
“And where is this Ethan now?”
“He lives outside Chicago with his lovely wife, two kids, dog, and pet pig. At least that was the case a couple years ago. I haven’t really been up to date with my Facebook friends.”
Marco wrapped his arm around me and drew me closer. His hand moved off my thigh and began to idly skim up and down my arm. He smelled amazing, felt amazing, and I couldn’t help but melt into his embrace a little.
“I’ll bet a lot of boys chased after you.”
“Sometimes I even let them catch me.” There was no hiding the way my voice shook as I answered, or the tremble of my body under his touch. It took a lot of concentrated effort for me not to punch him in the face and bolt.
His hand closed over mine, and it was then that I realized Marco was also shaking, as if he were nervous, too. When I held my breath for a moment, I felt it, the slight tremble of his arm around me, the furious pace of his heart against my side.
“Will you let me catch you?”
And that was that. In the next moment, I was on my feet, unsteady, but standing and moving away from Marco. I held onto the railing for support as I gazed out at the lake. There was just enough moonlight to give it some illumination.
He gave me only about a minute of reprieve before I heard him stand as well. A few seconds later, he draped the blanket over my shoulders. Unfolded, it hung down the entire length of my body and pooled at my feet. With a small nod of thanks, I wrapped it around myself. Marco stood close but didn’t touch me as he leaned against the railing on folded arms. We stood like that for several minutes before he started to speak again, his voice low.
“Earlier this year when you and Lily started to talk again, I went over to check on her, to see how she was holding up with Kyle gone. When I got there, she was sitting on the couch surrounded by pictures. They were everywhere—on the table, the floor, and the couch. She had some in her lap and some in her hands. She told me she was feeling nostalgic. When I first walked in, I wasn’t paying attention to the television, but as I was looking for a place to sit in the mess, I heard a laugh that made my heart stop.”
Slowly, my gaze moved to him until I met his eyes.
“I turned to the TV and there you were. Mouth open wide, teeth gleaming, and so damn beautiful as you laughed. Then you made the ugliest face at the camera. I mean it was disgusting. And I loved it. Your hair was long then, darker, but when your pretty little hand pushed it off your face and pushed it behind your delicate little ear…”
He did it then, slowly pushed my hair from my cheek wit
h the tips of his fingers. His thumb traced the outline of my ear, making me shiver.
“I wanted to be the one to do that. I wanted it to be my hand, my fingers, and I wanted to…”
He leaned in. His lips brushed across my cheek, then my ear, and then I felt the tiny nip of his teeth. My eyes closed as I fought to gain control of my shaking body and tried not to collapse into a hot mess.
“I could not take my eyes off you.” He ran a hand over my shoulder and down my back. “I made your sister start the movie over so I could see you. We watched every video she had that day, and I could not stop staring at you in awe.”
It was only when he drew back to meet my eyes that I became aware that at some point my whole body had turned toward his, and my fingers were no longer holding on to the blanket but gripping his shirt.
“I looked at every picture that day. Every damn picture. I asked a million questions about you, and Lily was so relieved to have you again, that she had no problem talking about you until late into the night. Many times, when she spoke to you on the phone or in a video chat, I was right there, listening, watching. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to meet you myself, but when I finally did…you were…different. Your hair was different. You’d lost weight, and the light and brashness that was on your face in the videos and pictures were gone. You were sad. Depressed. Scared and insecure. Tragic. So damn feral and bold, and savage. So different from what I thought I knew, but so real. So damn real. So stunning. So wonderful. So much more than I had expected. You. Blew. Me. Away.”
I knew when he slipped his hand to the back of my neck what would happen next. He paused, with his nose touching mine, as he wordlessly gave me the seconds to decide. To run, or to stay.
