by Bonnie Dee
Not the kind of friends I had. I didn’t think Dale would bring me chicken soup for a cold. Or even J.D., who, incidentally, didn’t know I’d hurt my foot. I’d texted him and the rest of my staff to say I had a flu, and I’d asked him to run things while I kept my germs to myself. If I still limped when I saw my brother again, I’d tell him I twisted my ankle on the stairs. He wouldn’t question it. I’m a good liar and a little clumsy.
Gina set a plate of eggs, toast, and bacon in front of me, along with a steaming mug of coffee. My stomach roared to life at the delicious scents, and I dug in, wolfing everything down in less time than it had taken her to make it.
At the end of the meal, I burped my gratitude. “Sorry. I was kind of starving.”
Gina sat across from me at the table, working more slowly through her own breakfast. “I’m glad you liked it.”
I couldn’t remember when a woman had cooked for me. I’d been so careful not to have that close a personal friendship with any. The bachelor life suited me fine. Yet I had to admit it was nice to be cared for like that, and to have a woman whose company I enjoyed sitting down for a meal with me.
In fact, I liked it too much. That panicky need to escape from the situation rushed through me again. “Listen—” I started, ready to put an end to this domestic scene and send Gina on her way.
“I can’t stay long,” she interrupted before I had a chance to continue. “I’ve got to get back to Mrs. Heidelberg. Are you going to be okay? You won’t overdose on those painkillers, or trip and fall or anything? And you’ll rest up until you’re really healed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She chewed one last bite of toast as she rose. “Okay. I should be going, then. I’ll check in with you later in the day, all right?”
“Yeah. That’d be good.” I rose to see her to the door and winced at the shooting pain.
“Go sit on the couch. Remember to keep your leg raised to keep down the swelling. That’s important. And keep icing it. Why don’t I get you set up?”
I kind of liked being bossed around and fussed over. I hobbled to the couch and flopped down. Skipping the vegetables this time, Gina made a pack out of ice cubes wrapped in a dishcloth and draped it over my foot, which she propped on a couple of pillows. Then she gave me a Percocet and made sure I had plenty of water nearby, covered me with a blanket, and placed more pillows behind me. She even turned on the TV and handed me the remote so I wouldn’t have to reach for it. I felt like a king. I wanted her to stay and do more fussing.
I grabbed hold of her before she could move away and pulled her down to me. A few kisses convinced me I was an idiot for not having taken advantage of having her in my bed all night. Stupid drugs had knocked me out.
She molded to me like soft pillows, and her skin and hair smelled sweet yet sexily earthy too. We both needed showers. Maybe I should swear I needed her help getting washed up and seduce her into the shower with me.
But Gina pulled away with a final peck on my lips. “I’ve really gotta go. If I get a reputation for being late, no one’s going to want to fill in for me when I need them to. Bye.”
“Bye.” I watched the action in her rear as she walked away.
She stopped at the door and turned around. “Say, this might seem weird to ask but…I’m having dinner at my mom’s house next Sunday. I thought if you’re not doing anything and if your foot’s feeling better, you might like to go.” She wrinkled her nose and pushed back her hair with a nervous gesture. “I don’t mean anything by it. The thing is my mom’s been harassing me about dating. She wants to set me up with some friend’s son, so I’d actually be using you as a prop—if you’re willing. My mom’s a great cook.”
Her blush was so cute, I kept her hanging a few beats while I considered. In my entire life, no one had ever asked me to meet their parents. I was more the type of guy girls snuck out to meet and didn’t acknowledge in the light of day—and I was cool with that.
“Could be fun,” I finally said. “Do you want me to shock them or charm them?”
“No shocking! Charm, please. Two of my brothers will be there too. And Frank has a serious girlfriend now, so that will suck up a lot of my mom’s attention.”
“I’ll just be your prop. Got it.” I smiled. “Sure. Why not.”
I had to meet the family that had produced this woman.
“Thanks. I’d really appreciate it, and you might have some fun too. My family’s pretty great. At the very least, you’ll have a good home-cooked meal.”
She smiled and stole my heart again before walking out the door.
I lay on the couch picturing what a pretty great family might be like. In my experience, most people only complained about their families. The only pretty great ones I’d seen were on TV, and even those seemed to have plenty of drama. Gina’s family probably didn’t have piles of dirty laundry or crazy secrets to keep hidden.
I wondered what her mom would be like. Probably not freaky religious like mine had been, who’d been gung-ho for Jesus when she wasn’t sleeping around. DNA evidence or no, I had my doubts about the whole paternity thing.
Considering my messy background, it would be like visiting a foreign country to share a meal with Gina Torrio’s well-adjusted working-class family.
Why was I doing this? I was getting sucked in too deep. We should’ve had sex by now; then I could tip my hat and move on. This no-sex friendship thing we had going was strange and wrong and not my style at all. It could only lead to trouble.
The Darth Vader theme blared from my phone, interrupting my worrying about Gina and about what Dale and I had gotten ourselves into.
I picked up the phone and gazed at the name that was even more upsetting than the Chechens. My fucking brother Jonah, the man who’d had his sense of humor surgically removed.
“What?” I answered at last.
“What’s going on with J.D.?” Jonah’s tone was as sharp and direct as his words. No how you doin’ or it’s been a long time.
“Whaddya mean?”
“With this woman,” he answered impatiently. “He can hardly take care of himself, and now he’s got some blind woman wanting him to take care of her too?”
“It ain’t like that. Leah’s good for him. And she comes from money. She’s not depending on him.”
“Then she’ll have expectations he’s never going to live up to. The kid’s talking about getting engaged.”
It was the first I’d heard of it, and the news threw me, but I hid my surprise. “It’s his life. He’s not a kid anymore. I think he knows what he wants and what he’s doing.”
“I’m coming up there to see what the hell’s going on.”
Jonah’s fucking bossy, know-it-all attitude made me itch all over. It had always been this way between us. If he said the sky was blue, I insisted it was red. Even when he was right, he was always wrong to me, and vice versa.
“J.D. survived a tour and being a prisoner of war. He’s all grown up, and he doesn’t need your advice anymore or you coming to check up on him.”
“I’m coming,” Jonah said flatly. “Maybe as soon as next week. You make sure he doesn’t do something stupid in the meantime, like go down to the courthouse and tie the knot.”
“You’re crazy. Those two aren’t even close to that point. And if they are, there’s worse things J.D. could do than marry Leah. She’s a really sweet girl.”
“What about you? You keeping your nose clean for a change?” He abruptly shifted gear.
I pictured the warehouse with its stacks of long boxes. “I’m just great. An upstanding businessman now.”
“Hm,” Jonah grunted doubtfully. As if he had any room to judge me. When I left Kentucky, his weed empire was still growing. He was the kingpin in our county, and everybody bowed to his will. His head was so big, it was amazing he could walk through doorways.
“That’s good,” he added. “You keep yourself straight and you’ll do okay. It’s good you left here.”
For him, that w
as the same as saying love you, bro, and I thawed a little. Jonah wasn’t a terrible guy, just tough as hell. He’d had to be, filling in for our dad like he had all those years. Twelve years old and he’d managed to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies every day.
“Well, it’s about time you came for a visit,” I said. “I’m looking forward to showing you The Roost. It’s pretty great. I recently had the electrical system upgraded and…”
I suddenly realized I was talking to dead air. His mission accomplished, Jonah had hung up.
That was my big brother. I wondered what Gina’s would be like.
I tossed aside the phone and pondered what Jonah had said about J.D. getting engaged. Was it true or only something he’d read into their conversation? I wanted to call J.D. and ask about it, but figured he’d tell me when he was ready to, if it was even a real thing.
My little brother getting married would be weird. And I agreed with Jonah that J.D. wasn’t ready for it. As nice as Leah was, they were both too young to be thinking that way. Hell, I was three years older, and I wouldn’t consider it.
Marriage was for suckers anyway. It never lasted. Nothing good ever came of it. And somebody always left.
Chapter Twelve
Gina
I stared at the shoes on my feet; a high-heeled sling-back on the right and a low-heeled pump on the left. Sexy or safe? Which choice was better for spending a Sunday dinner with my family?
The answer was fairly obvious. Trouble was I wanted Micah to see me in the sexy high heels I’d only worn twice before. I loved those shoes that made my short legs appear longer. I wanted to be desirable, to signal I was ready to graduate to the next stage. But was an afternoon dinner date with my parents the right time to be broadcasting that news?
I sighed and went with the sensible low heels, a pencil skirt, and a fuzzy sweater that made me look like a 1960s secretary. All I needed was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Micah might think that retro look was sexy.
Normally, I wouldn’t dress up for dinner with my family. Jeans and tennis shoes were what we wore. But my mom had told me to “look nice” to give Frank’s girlfriend a good impression.
“I think this one may be a keeper,” she’d said. “Frankie asked me about your Grandma Wasinski’s ring, since Michael didn’t use it for Marybeth. Now why would he be asking about an engagement ring if it wasn’t headed that way?”
So I might possibly have a new sister-in-law soon. I hoped she wasn’t a bad-tempered witch like Michael’s Marybeth. But the new girlfriend, Selena, hardly occupied a fragment of my mind, which was mostly consumed with the topic of Micah.
What had possessed me to ask the man to meet my parents—a gesture that carried way too much significance? He’d just looked so lonely and pathetic lying on that couch with no family to take care of him. He’d called me, not his brother, when he needed someone. I thought of my own loud, loving family and how nurturing my mom was, and I wanted to share them with him. Was that so wrong? Of course not.
I repeated that party line until I almost believed it as I drove over to pick up Micah. I swept my own muddled feelings under a rug and told myself this day out was all for Micah’s good.
I called him when I got close so I wouldn’t have to find a parking spot, and he was waiting outside the bar for me, looking dapper in 1970s-style knit slacks and a polo shirt, his hair slicked back. My dad would feel right at home with him.
Micah quickly got in the car and set a bag of something in the backseat.
“Hope your dad likes bourbon. I’ve got a bottle of wine too.”
“You’re moving better,” I remarked. “Glad your foot’s healing up.”
“Yeah.” He rotated his ankle, and I smiled at the shiny tasseled loafer on his foot. “Mostly better.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I concentrated on driving. It had been four days since my slumber party with Micah. We’d talked on the phone a few times and texted but hadn’t seen each other, and I felt awkward, uncertain of where we stood after that mostly platonic evening. Were we just friends who occasionally made out? Was this a friend date or an actual date, and how would the evening end?
“Tell me more about your family,” Micah said. “I want to know who I’ll be meeting.”
“My parents are Louis and Julie. He got laid off from U.S. Steel a few years ago. He’s on disability for his back and does small appliance repair work when he can. My mom’s a clerk at a Costco. Things have been pretty tough since Dad got laid off, but they own their house and are debt free, so they’re getting by.”
I glanced over to see if I’d lost my audience with too much detail. Micah nodded. “And your brothers?”
“Michael is thirty-three. He and his best friend from high school own a garage together. His wife is his high school sweetheart Marybeth. They’re…intense, to put it mildly, so try to ignore them sniping at each other.”
“You want intense you should meet my brother Jonah. In fact, you might, because he’s coming up for a visit soon.”
Which meant Micah envisioned us continuing to hang together. From what J.D. had said before I even met Micah, he didn’t have actual relationships with women, so what did this mean, if anything?
“My middle brother, Tony, is busy and won’t be there,” I continued. “He’s a pharmaceutical rep and spends a lot of the time on the road. Frank is almost exactly a year older than me. His new girlfriend’s name is Selena. I guess he’s got a job at her father’s company, but I’m not sure exactly what he does there. Frankie tends to drift from one thing to another. Maybe this one will stick.”
I glanced at Micah again. He was still watching me, only now his gaze was on the bare thigh showing beneath the hem of my skirt.
He noticed me looking at him and gave me a grin. “Can’t help where the eyes wander. Your skirt and sweater are crazy sexy. Too many curves and I have no brakes.”
“Where do you get these lines?” I asked.
“I’m a bartender. I hear them all. Some even work if there are already sparks between the couple.” He gave me a coy look from beneath his brows. “Is that one working?”
Stupidly enough, it was. I liked that he admired my curves, since this was the body I was blessed with and no amount of dieting was going to ever change it. Not that I tried very hard. I love food too much to keep my appetite in check.
“You could set a thousand rat traps with all the cheese you keep on hand.” I smirked and turned my attention back to the road.
He laughed loudly. “You make that one up yourself?”
“It’s a work in progress.”
“Maybe make it you could catch a five-hundred-pound rodent with all your cheese,” Micah suggested.
I nodded. “Not bad.”
“I’m serious about those curves, though. And I bet you need a map to find out how far those legs go up.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Really? That’s not your best material.”
He reached out and rested a hand on my right knee, and things suddenly felt a lot more serious. Then he massaged my thigh lightly just a few times before withdrawing his hand. It was enough to dry up any further jokes.
“You’ll meet Cartman and Butters too,” I blurted. “Those are our dogs. The boys insisted on those names. They were heavy into South Park when we got the pups. Both of them are really old now. Cartman’s nearly lost his sight, and Butters has a bad hip. And then there’s the cat, Lady Sparkles. I named her when I was six. We used to have a couple of other cats too, but they died.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of pets. I always wanted a dog, but we couldn’t afford to keep one. I used to play with the neighbor’s hound a lot, though. They didn’t pay him much mind, so I pretended he belonged to me, ticks, fleas, and all.”
I glanced at his handsome profile, the sharp blade of a nose, and the stray curls escaping from his slicked-back style. His dark blue eyes were more thoughtful than twinkling just now, and it occurred to me I’d begun to know the m
an underneath the joker. There were more layers under that slick surface for me to discover.
We continued to chat about our childhoods and families as I drove along the lakeshore and across Skyline Drive toward Gary, that lovely industrial city on Lake Michigan. As I took the exit leading to rundown neighborhoods of cookie-cutter houses, we discussed Leah and J.D. Somehow, Micah had it in his head there was an engagement brewing. I told him he was nuts. No way was Leah thinking about that so soon. But I began to wonder if I was wrong. I hadn’t checked in with her in a while, and things were moving fast in that relationship.
“Anyway, even if it’s true, an engagement isn’t a wedding. They could be engaged for a long time.” I frowned. “Besides, what would be so terrible if they did get married sooner rather than later? People used to get married young all the time. My parents did, right out of high school.”
“So did mine. Turned out real good for them.” Micah scoffed. “Anyway, I ain’t the one worried about it. It’s my brother Jonah. He’s coming up here planning to throw his weight around. He’s an asshole.”
“Sounds like Michael. Oldest brothers suck. Which you’ll see for yourself in about a minute, ’cause here we are.”
I pulled up in front of the white-and-green bi-level in a row of similar houses. The working-class neighborhood appeared tired and worn, sort of like my parents. This had been a fairly nice area once a long time ago, and some houses still had well-kept little yards, but neglect had overtaken other homes here, along with poverty and crime. I wished my parents would sell while they could still get enough out of the place to give them a down payment someplace better. But they’d probably stay there till the house collapsed around them.
I got out of the car and collected the dessert I’d made from the backseat, shooting another glance at Micah as he picked up his bag of booze. He’d make my mom laugh. She loved men with a bit of devilish humor about them. My brothers would probably give him the stink eye, but they’d always done that to whatever guy I was dating. Anyway, Frank would be too focused on introducing his girlfriend to our family to worry about whom I was with.
