Lacey Luzzi: Spiced: a humorous, cozy mystery! (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries Book 8)

by Gina LaManna

  “A few pairs?”

  “I haven’t even done laundry at your place. I go home for laundry day.”

  “Why don’t you leave it for the housekeeper?”

  “Because that would be presumptuous. And so would showing up with a suitcase or a U-Haul out of the blue and stacking my stuffed animals on the bed.”

  “I don’t really ‘do’ stuffed animals.”

  “Good, because I don’t have any, I’m just trying to make a point.”

  “Will you please just spell out what I should be saying to make everything okay? I don’t know what you want right now.”

  Sitting up, I spun around to face Anthony, still sort of on his lap. I adjusted so that my legs fell on either side of his body and our noses were inches apart. In retrospect, maybe straddling my very hot boyfriend was not a good way to start what should be a serious conversation. Especially when his gaze started to droop towards my chest.

  I zipped up my jacket even higher. “Anthony. Focus.”

  His neck snapped up. “Sorry.”

  “I just wanted you to ask me to move in. Officially. Give up my old apartment and go all in. Everything.” I couldn’t meet Anthony’s eyes. I was probably making a big deal out of nothing, but somehow, it didn’t feel like nothing. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, come here. I love you.” Anthony pulled me close, the fabrics of our jackets swishing as we hugged. “You’re upset about something, and I don’t want to make you feel that way.”

  “I’m just being stupid.”

  “Stop that.” Anthony pulled me far enough backwards that my eyes were level with his. I slid off his lap and sat next to him. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. You have feelings, and those feelings are justified. Whether you think it’s stupid or not, you still feel that way.”

  “But—”

  “Let me put it this way. If you were sad because someone wore the same color shoes as you to the mall, you might say that you were sad over something stupid, right?”

  “I don’t really care about shoes.”

  “Play along. This is an example.”

  “Okay, well, yes. I’d say that’s stupid.”

  “Right, but that’s not the point.” Anthony’s dark eyes glittered in the cave, his focus drilled on me, and only me. Even after half a year of dating, his stare still unnerved me at times. “The point is that you’re sad. And I’m here to cheer you up, regardless of what got you down in the first place.”

  I nodded, trying to look away.

  “You’re not getting away that easy.” He pulled my chin to face him. “Look at me. I’m not good at all of this stuff – knowing what to say and when to say it. Sometimes you have to be blunt with me or tell me to pull my head out of my ass. That’s fine, I can handle it. I know how to deal with that type of feedback, but I don’t know how to understand your feelings when you don’t tell them to me.”

  I swallowed down a wave of emotion. “I don’t know how we found each other, but I’m glad we did.”

  “Me too,” he said. “And since we have a long time left on this earth together, can you please explain what I should have said in order to avoid a misunderstanding?”

  I shrugged, pulling my knees up to my chest and hugging them close to my body. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I guess I just wanted us living together to be a conscious choice, not an accident. I wanted it to be a real, firm step forward in our relationship.”

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner? If you’d brought it up on Christmas Day, I would’ve told you to haul your things over right away.” Anthony reached out a hand and rested it on my thigh. “I don’t notice certain things, Lacey. I don’t notice if there’s extra shirts in the closet, or if you’ve left your shoes on the rack by the door. I don’t notice if you take up the second dresser in the bedroom or stash your cereal boxes in the cupboard.”

  “You notice tampons in the bathroom.” I smiled wryly at the ground.

  Anthony returned my sarcastic grin. “Yeah, but that’s different.”

  I built a miniature sand castle between my knees, not quite sure where Anthony was going with this.

  “What I do notice is that the house is warm because of you. It’s filled with laughs and candy and decorations. We have friends over, people visiting and dropping by to say hello. We have a place I’m proud to call home. And that’s what I notice.” Anthony scooped me into his arms, flattening the sand castle and sliding me onto his lap so my legs hung off to the side. “I notice when you’re not there because the bed is cold and the house is quiet.”

  I leaned against his warm, solid body, the moonlight filtering through the cave and sparkling against the sand, the ground shining as if made from diamonds. “Thank you for saying all that.”

  “I love you, and I don’t ever want your half of the bed to be cold.” He gathered me in a hug, his breath warm against my ear. “Will you move in with me and make it official?”

  I let my body sink into his until we combined into one toasty bundle. “Do I get to bring a U-Haul?”

  “Bring a caravan.”

  “And I can take the tampons out from behind the plastic bags and put them in a normal cupboard?”

  “Only if we never speak of this again.”

  I slid my arms around Anthony’s neck. “I would love nothing more than to move in with you.”

  Anthony’s eyes, so black they blended into the dark backdrop of the cave, softened as he closed the distance between our bodies. “Good.” He gave me a light kiss on the lips. “Because I thought you already were living with me.”

  “Anthony—” Before I could argue, he swept my words away with a kiss.

  He held me tight, his arms snug around my back, and I knew that if Anthony had asked me to live in a cave with him, I would’ve said yes.

  When we broke apart, the kiss hovered between our lips for a second, our breath steaming up the cold night air, our gaze held in a suspended moment of time.

  Until the silence was broken. Suddenly, a noise at the back of the cave shattered the moment. I leapt up, squealing at the flutter of wings as a ball of motion flew straight at me. I hit the sand screaming a word that sounded like duck. Anthony scooped me up and hauled me out from inside the cave.

  “Relax, Lacey, it’s a little bat.” Anthony, however, had moved so fast he was breathing heavy. Stepping into the open field, his breath swirled towards the heavens and froze the second it came out of his mouth. “It’s just my cave buddy. She’s not going to hurt you.”

  “She?” I wiggled against Anthony’s chest until he set me down. “You named her?”

  Anthony raised his eyebrow. Instead of answering, he reached for my hand. “I have one more question.”

  We strolled up the path next to a small, winding creek covered with ice. “What’s your question?”

  “You seriously carried underwear in your purse for a month?”

  I stopped walking, my jaw hanging open. “I almost died in that cave, thanks to the bat, and that’s your first question?” I shook my head until the humor of the moment hit me. Then I bent down, a wave of silliness bubbling up as I snatched a snowball. I threw it at Anthony, hard. It smacked him in the chest. “Take that, roomie.”

  Anthony cocked his head to one side.

  “Oh, no,” I said, a mixture of terror and laughter combining to form a weird giggle, a giggle that was more of a hyena who’d swallowed a bottle of champagne. “No! Truce, truce!”

  “I don’t think so.” Anthony blinked once, and then it was game on.

  I turned and sprinted away from him, my breath coming in gulps as I half-slid, half-ran away, trying to fling snowballs over my shoulder. “Truce! Truce!”

  Anthony caught up to me in two seconds flat. He had me on my back one second later, and his hand under my head with his lips hovering above mine half a second after that. “You can’t throw a snowball and then straightaway call a truce. That ain’t fair.”

  “Life’s not fair,” I whispered, the t
wo of us covered in snow, illuminated by the moonlight. The moment was perfect.

  Until he lowered his lips and kissed me, his mouth warm, his tongue hot, his body on fire. And he kissed me until I realized I had been wrong a minute ago; this was perfect.

  CHAPTER 26

  After some good kissing, Anthony rolled over onto his side. Even though I didn’t want to move, he was squishing my intestines a little bit, and I needed a breath of fresh air. Sometimes he smooched me so hard I forgot to breathe.

  Together, our chests rose and fell as we lay next to one another. I’m not a fan of the cold, and I dislike snow except on Christmas Eve, but even I could appreciate the winter wonderland tonight; the world muted, softened by a coating of fluffy flakes.

  I breathed in and out, watching my breath form small tornados and disappear into the quiet night. Anthony reached out a hand and clasped it to mine as we lay there for minutes on end, so many minutes that eventually they might have stacked up into an hour, though I couldn’t be sure. But with each breath, a bit of my nervous energy seeped out, and a little bit of peacefulness settled into my chest.

  I closed my eyes, the world spinning slightly in its complete and utter silence until I began to feel drops on my face. Wet, splashy drops that melted as soon as they hit my cheeks. I opened my eyes and stuck out my tongue, smiling as snow swirled down, the flakes so large God must have fashioned them himself, just to drop them on us here tonight. My smile grew and grew until I couldn’t contain it anymore. So, to let off a little steam, I flapped my arms once or twice, moving my legs along with them.

  “Are you okay?” Anthony asked.

  “I’m making a snow angel!” I did some more flapping. “Wanna try?”

  “I don’t make snow angels.”

  I faux-frowned, still flapping my arms and legs. “You’re missing out.”

  “I prefer to watch my own little angel.” Anthony’s gaze held onto mine, never letting go. “My special little angel.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I flapped harder. “I’m not all that special.”

  “Well, there’s nobody else like you, that’s for sure.”

  An idea hit me as his eyes twinkled. “Hey, Anthony, kiss me.”

  Anthony blinked once in surprise, then shrugged. “Okay.”

  As he leaned in, I could hardly kiss him back because I was grinning so hard. See, these drops of snow were so damp they practically counted as rain. And if that were the case, I’d just kissed a bad boy in the rain and checked another item off of my bucket list. My mom would be proud.

  “What’s so funny?” Anthony lay back in our little cocoon. I almost could pretend I was warm.

  “Oh, nothing,” I sighed with content. “Except that you never told me why you brought me here.”

  He shook his head, words seeming to elude him.

  I rolled onto my shoulder. It was his turn to close his eyes, and I could imagine the soft world spinning as he lay there, snowflakes dotting his cheeks for a flash before they melted away. One particularly large flake landed on his eyelash, and I kissed it away before continuing. “Anthony, I love you. Nothing you can tell me tonight will change that.”

  He opened his lids, the droplet of water from the snow decorating his lashes, giving those chocolatey eyes a dewy, beautiful expression. Innocent, almost, as if his memories were taking him back to a time when he worried more about snowball fights than bad guys. Back when he had the carelessness of a boy instead of the stress of a man.

  “Why are you with me, Lacey?”

  I cocked my head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “Me.” Anthony looked past my shoulder and into the sky. “Why me? You could have anyone.”

  “Well, that’s not true, and even if it were, I don’t need everyone, I just need you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” I sighed. “There are too many reasons to name.”

  “Try a few.”

  I planted a kiss on his cheek, stalling as I sorted through the millions of reasons and selected a few of the top ones. “Well for starters, I like your butt.”

  Anthony’s eye flew open, then crinkled into a grin when he saw me smiling. “Go on…”

  “Really, there are too many reasons to say, and anything I do come up with won’t do you justice.” I reached a hand up and brushed a lock of damp hair off his forehead. “But if I had to start somewhere, I would say that you respect me. More than anyone else I’ve ever met, you respect me. You ask my opinion, you care what I think, you never belittle me. Plus, you have a moral compass as straight as they come, even if your job is…well, what it is.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “It is true, Anthony.” I hugged his arm. “I don’t know where you get this belief that you’re a bad man. You’re not. Your heart is good.”

  Anthony shook his head, slow at first, then faster.

  “When I’m next to you, I want to be a better person,” I said. Before Anthony could argue, I held up a finger. “For example, when I go to the grocery store alone, I eat all the samples. Three times each. A fourth maybe, if nobody’s looking. When I go with you, I only eat them once. See? You make an honest woman out of me.”

  Anthony laughed. “Costco can send me a royalty check for all the money I’ve saved them in samples.”

  I pinched his nose. “Not funny.”

  He swatted my hand away. Then in a single motion, he leapt to his feet, pulling me up with him, and started down the path.

  “Um. Where are we going?”

  “For a stroll.” Anthony’s stroll had the feeling of a hundred-yard dash. I had to sprint to keep up.

  “Oh, this is relaxing,” I said, the sarcasm heavy as my breath came in ungraceful gulps. “May I ask what’s the rush?”

  “What if I tell you these stories, and you decide I’m not the man you think I am?” Anthony turned around, his eyes cutting with their dark glimmer, sharp as diamonds, dangerous as broken glass. “Because I’m not your golden boy, Lacey. I’m far from it.”

  I stepped up to Anthony, my toes colliding with his, my eyes smarting as I blinked them once, twice, then a third time before speaking. “You are, Anthony. Your past builds you into exactly the person you are today. Without every one of your experiences – good and bad – you’d have never landed in this moment.” I leaned in and brushed my lips against his. “And you are exactly where you are supposed to be.”

  Anthony reached out and gripped me to his side, his arms rough against my body, his side-arm hug so tight my lungs constricted. He held me there for a minute, a long minute, contemplating something I couldn’t begin to understand.

  Then without a word, we resumed handholding and he led me down the twisting path, the crackle of ice under our feet providing a backdrop to our nighttime stroll.

  “After Nora and Carlos gave me everything when I moved here, I took advantage of it.” Anthony’s fingers tightened on mine. “They took me in and gave me a chance. Nora cooked for me, Carlos gave me a job, and they invited me into their home. More than that, they invited me into their family.”

  From experience, I knew the sometimes-overwhelming sensations Anthony was trying to describe. After not having a whole lot of family in my childhood, being welcomed into the biggest family I could imagine was a lot to handle.

  “Carlos started giving me larger jobs. More and more responsibility. First, I ran a few errands for him, helped gather materials.” Anthony pursed his lips. “Then the jobs got bigger. I was asked to find out information about certain people. Bad people, mostly. I didn’t have a problem with any of the jobs. It was money, and he was my family. I didn’t ask too many questions.”

  Again, I understood. I gave his hand a squeeze.

  “Then one day, he sat me down. He asked me to join the family.” Anthony looked at me, probably testing to see whether or not I understood.

  “He explained everything,” I said.

  “Yes, and I agreed, of course. There was no questio
n about it. I didn’t know any other relatives, and I didn’t have anyone else to trust. There was no other place to go. Carlos had been good to me, as had Nora. They’d never asked me to do something I felt uncomfortable doing.”

  “Carlos gets a bad rap, but I’m convinced he’s more than a mobster,” I said softly. “He’s smart, he’s a hard-ass, but he’s got a gentle side.”

  Anthony gave a hint of a smile. “You won’t hear me saying that since I would prefer to keep all of my fingers attached.”

  I gave a short laugh. “What happened after you agreed to join?”

  “I’m getting there.” Anthony inhaled and exhaled before continuing. “My first assignment should have been simple. Someone had stolen a hundred thousand dollars from Carlos. It was your grandfather’s money, his legitimate money. A former employee of the estate stole cash from the safe.”

  “Let me guess. Carlos wanted it back, so he sent you after it.”

  “The first part was easy. I found the money, and I found the ex-employee, no problem,” Anthony said. “My mistake was assuming that Carlos wouldn’t miss such a small sum.”

  “A small sum?”

  Anthony frowned. “For your grandfather, 100k is a drop in the bucket. But when I was young and stupid, I didn’t realize that it was about the principle, and not the actual cash.”

  “Carlos is a stickler for the rules, I’ll give him that.”

  Anthony didn’t crack a smile. “Yes, well, I thought I was above the rules.”

  “What happened after you found the thief?”

  Anthony shook his head, his face turning a shade of red I’d never seen him wear before. But instead of an embarrassed blush, this one stemmed from a place of shame, if I had to guess from the outside.

  “What went wrong?”

  “I pocketed the money.” Anthony stopped walking. “I returned to your grandfather with the guy in handcuffs, and I forced the thief to say he’d spent all the money. It was a lie; I had the money. I took it for myself, and I strong-armed the guy into saying he’d used it all up.”

  I swallowed. “You stole from Carlos.”

  “That’s not all of it.” His teeth gleamed as he bit his lower lip. “I took the money, and then I ran away. Looking back, Carlos must have realized then and there that I was lying. But he let me go. He let me walk away with the money.”