Man Law

by Adrienne Giordano

  “Sit,” she said to him.

  “Actually,” he said, holding up the empty bottle of wine, “your mom wants more of this red and there’s none out there.”

  Roxann pointed to one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

  He stayed standing. He knew Roxi well enough to know she had something on her mind, and it most likely involved the smackdown in his office, but he wouldn’t let himself get sucked into some lame-ass conversation about how he screwed up. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to have a lobotomy.”

  Oh, what the fuck? “I’m outta here.”

  She beat him to the door. “No, you don’t. Have a seat.”

  “Rox, it’s been a hellacious day. I’m not up for this.”

  “You’re not going to let Gina go, are you?”

  Vic analyzed her. What the hell kind of angle could she be playing?

  “You obviously have feelings for her, or you wouldn’t have behaved so poorly today.”

  He sat. “Did Mike tell you? Or Gina?”

  “Gina.”

  “Good. I’m not sure how much Mike knows—I’m assuming you know about what happened on the beach?”

  Roxi nodded and he tried to ignore the burning in his cheeks. “Like I said, I don’t know how much Mike knows. Hopefully not a lot, and I need it to stay that way. He gets fucked—excuse my French—in the head about this subject.”

  “Tell me about it. I live with him.”

  With his elbows propped on the table, Vic lowered his head into his hands. “I’m tired.” His Southern drawl slipped and he smacked his lips together. He’d learned to hide the accent, but at times it made itself evident.

  Roxi squeezed his wrist. “I know, but you have to fix this. I’ll deal with Michael. He was wrong to interfere. It’s not fair to Gina, though. Did you at least apologize?”

  Vic eyed the door.

  “You didn’t?” Roxann shook her head.

  “Sort of.”

  She put up her hands. “Did you say the words I’m sorry? Nothing else counts.”

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. What. The. Fuck. “She’s got me all twisted up. I’m trying to do the right thing. Mike asked me to stay away, given the dangerous job and all, and I do care about Gina. I don’t want her to get hurt again.”

  Roxann sighed.

  He had to make her understand. “Rox, I love my job and I’m good at it. I can’t throw away years of training.”

  “So, it’s the job or Gina? No happy medium?”

  “No. I’m alone for a reason. I don’t have to worry about anyone but me.”

  Good thing too, because right now, with this Sirhan crap, he only had himself to worry about.

  “Why couldn’t you help run the business rather than going into the field?”

  Vic scoffed. “You’re not listening. I want to be in the middle of it. I like it.”

  Gina came through the door. And glared at Vic.

  “Rox, I’m sorry,” she said. “Lily isn’t feeling well and we’re going to head home. Michael said he’d take us.”

  Roxann puckered her lips. That couldn’t be good for him.

  “Vic can take you.”

  What the fuck? “Huh?”

  “I need Michael to help me here. The boys can stay and have dinner. We’ll bring them later. You take care of Lily.”

  The two of them stared at her, but Rox had that blonde girl smile going for her and Vic didn’t want to argue. Not in her own home. At least some of his aunt’s lessons had stuck.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Great,” Gina said.

  “Wonderful,” Roxann said.

  Lily fell asleep in the car. Poor kid was dead on her feet. Vic pulled his Tahoe into the driveway behind Gina’s house and parked next to her mini SUV. The narrow alley had houses packed tight on both sides, and when a car went barreling through, Vic had the urge to holler at the driver to slow down. What if Lily had been playing in the driveway? Asshole.

  The evening sun faded fast, but the temperature was hanging in there. He looked up at the sky—no clouds. Stars would abound. A good night for a sail.

  “I’ll carry her in,” he said.

  “It’s okay. I’ll wake her up. Roxann is waiting dinner for you.”

  He snorted. “Roxann is not waiting and you know it.”

  Nothing doin’ on that idea. She sent enough food with Gina to feed them for three days. No, Roxann pretty much beat him over the head with the idea he should not come back. She wanted him to square things with Gina. He wanted to square things with Gina. He couldn’t take her being pissed at him.

  Vic opened the rear passenger door and scooped Lily up. The kid was a peanut. “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Let me get her settled first.”

  He cradled Lily in his arms and got a whiff of strawberries. Probably her shampoo. Lily was obsessed with strawberries. She ate them nonstop, wore them on her clothes, her barrettes, her socks. Whatever she could think of. Sweet kid. He kissed her on the forehead.

  “She feels hot. Does she have a fever?”

  “I think so. I’ll give her something.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Damn, he adored Lily.

  “It’s probably the stomach flu.”

  Vic went through the kitchen and dining room to the living room. Gina’s house had to be a hundred years old. One of those old brick deals that could withstand the worst hurricane-force winds. The carpet had a broken-in feel he liked. He hated houses resembling museums. He didn’t want to get screamed at when he accidentally dumped a beer.

  He marched up the creaking steps into Lily’s room and deposited her on the bed. He glanced around the pretty room. A typical little girl space with dolls on the shelves and pink bed linens. One tall dresser, white with pink trim, and a framed picture of her dad on top sat along the far wall. Oh, and how could he have guessed? Strawberries on the wallpaper.

  He snorted. “I’ll wait downstairs. We’ll talk when you’re done here.”

  Talking. His favorite thing in the world. Kill me now.

  Vic had set food and dishes on the table. Gina stood in the doorway of her little kitchen trying to remember the last time she’d found a meal ready for her. Danny had done it, but she couldn’t place when and the agony that came with being a widow shattered her rib cage. Losing the memory of those little moments destroyed her. How could she not remember the last time her husband, her high school sweetheart and a man she’d treasured, had prepared a meal? She’d taken too much for granted back then.

  After Danny died, she repainted the kitchen a bright, sunny yellow. Mealtime had been family time and they’d spent countless hours huddled around the table, laughing, telling stories, hearing about everyone’s day. In the beginning, the memories were too painful and altering the kitchen seemed like a fresh start. She and the kids still did family time, but there was now a new cherry table for four to go with the updated wall color.

  Vic stuck his head up from the refrigerator. “Salad dressing?”

  “On the shelf. Toward the back. The kids can’t remember to put it on the door.” She looked at the table again. He’d even put her place setting in the spot she usually sat. “This is nice. Thank you.”

  He cracked open the bottle of salad dressing. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m eating too. I’m starved and it’ll probably take me the next hour to figure out how to convince you I’m sorry. I figure we can eat while I talk.”

  She smiled at his logic. Nothing came between a man and a good meal. “You’re allowed to eat. Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean I never want to see you again.”

  Scraping the chair back for her, Vic held out a hand and she sat down. At least they were being civil.

  Gina began doling out food. “I’m confused about today. We seem to be stuck between friends and something more.”

  This would be torture for Vic, but why should they beat around the bush? Sweat peppered his upper lip. Sweat? Over a conversation? T
his man was completely terrified of emotional upheaval.

  “Here it is,” he said. “When you told me you’d been with someone else, it surprised me. I try not to think about you being on dates. I also don’t bring dates around when I know you’ll be there.”

  The fork stopped midway to her mouth. “You do that?”

  He huffed. “Can you give me some credit for being a decent guy? I don’t think it would be right to put some girl in front of you after what happened downstairs. And on the beach.”

  “I wasn’t flaunting that I’d been with someone. At least, I didn’t set out to.”

  He propped his elbows on the table. “I’m sorry for being shitty to you. Like every other time my emotions take over, I acted like an ass. I’m sorry.”

  Gina took her half-eaten meal to the sink. She needed something to do. Were they really having this conversation? Would it get them anywhere? She stared out the kitchen window at the house on the other side of the alley. The Jeffersons lived there, and every time Danny would see them he’d sing the theme song from the old sitcom. She could still hear him. “Movin’ on up…” She laughed at the thought.

  “You know, after Danny died, one of his firefighter friends brought me a letter he’d written.” She stopped. Swallowed hard. Let the chill running through her subside. “He must have sensed something might happen, because he wrote it a few months before he died.”

  She turned toward the table.

  Vic shifted in his chair. “You shouldn’t tell me this. It’s between you and Danny.”

  “It’s okay. I need for you to understand.” She took the seat next to Vic. She’d never told anyone about the letter and felt a pang of something inside. Regret? Guilt for sharing Danny’s thoughts?

  She shook it off. “He apologized for leaving me to raise three kids. He shared his hopes for the kids, things he wanted me to tell them, but the important thing was he asked me to give them a stable home. To make them as comfortable as I could without a dad.”

  Gina stopped, cleared her clogging throat. She grabbed a napkin from the table, blew her nose.

  “Please. Let’s not do this.”

  Vic’s lips went white. Probably from the pressure of squeezing them shut. He had to learn to relax about this stuff. He was easygoing about everything else, but anything involving emotions seemed taboo with him.

  “I need you to understand,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. Suppose you and I decide we want to be a couple, and I start bringing you around. We have dinners together, go places with the kids. They’d get used to it. They love you anyway, so it would be easy for them.”

  With a nod, he said, “It would be easy for me too.”

  “I don’t know what your real job is. I think I make pretty accurate assumptions because I run the company checks. I see your expense reports. I know you’ve been in Afghanistan and Israel over the last two months. Those are dangerous places. If you become part of our lives and I have to sit home while you’re on a trip, I’ll go crazy. I would always wonder if you’re okay. Heck, I wonder a little bit now. If we were a couple, it would distract me from giving my kids what my husband asked. Part of having a stable environment is having a mother who is consistent with her emotions.”

  Vic shrugged. “I get that. Believe me. It’s why I’m not married. It’s why I never let myself get close to thinking about it. I don’t want to check in. I need to stay focused and I can’t do that when I get emotional. You saw it today.”

  The phone rang. Gina thought about ignoring it, but what if it was one of the boys? She grabbed the cordless from the base on the wall, checked the ID.

  “It’s Michael’s number.” She clicked the talk button. “Hello? Hi, Rox. Lily’s fine. She’s sleeping. Vic and I are talking…Hmmm. Are you sure? No, I don’t mind.”

  She hung up. Oh boy.

  “What’s up?” he asked, putting his dirty dish in the sink.

  “The boys are staying there tonight. They want to watch Friday the 13th on Michael’s new television.”

  Vic laughed. “I don’t blame them. It’s a kick-ass TV.”

  “Boys and their toys. Anyway, are we going anywhere with this conversation?”

  Leaning against the counter, dressed in his faded jeans and his beat-up sandals, he finally relaxed.

  “We probably understand each other better.”

  Gina went to him but stayed back a foot. No sense getting too close and self-combusting. Whenever she entered his orbit, something in her brain went whacky and all she wanted was to cuddle up with him.

  “We can’t continue to avoid each other,” she said. “If we’re not going to move forward, we should feel free to date other people. You’re at all of our family functions. Why should you feel like you can’t bring women around?”

  “I don’t like that idea.”

  Holding her hands palm up, Gina asked, “What are we going to do, spend the next ten years not bringing dates around? That’s not okay with me. I want to be able to have someone in my life again. I don’t need a man, but I’d like companionship. I’d like my kids to have a man around.”

  And if Vic couldn’t be that man, she had to let him go. Disappointment crept into her heart. Maybe she wouldn’t get over lusting after him, but she’d live with it. She’d had practice.

  Gina held his attention as he took a deep breath and shook his head. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

  For a thirty-six-year-old man who’d seen so much death, he was clueless. “When you care about someone, it should be hard. We can’t continue to do this. It’s not fair to either one of us. It doesn’t mean we can’t care about each other.”

  God, this sucked. Her body went numb. They weren’t even a couple and it felt like a breakup. Or maybe a loss of hope. She had hope for her children, but when it came to her own life, she wasn’t sure anymore. She had to raise three kids. Her life had to wait.

  Gina swiped at her eyes. And now she was crying. Fabulous.

  Vic wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. “I can’t give you what you need. I want to. I really do, but I can’t find the compromise.”

  Settling her head against his chest, she inhaled. Vic always had a clean, salty-air scent and it tore something inside of her loose. She ran her hands over his back, just for a second, to savor it. He stroked her hair and she glanced up at him, the silence in the room causing her lungs to strain. She should break the contact. Step back.

  And then he kissed her.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. Not doing this.

  But his kiss was an unexpected gentle touch of his lips, so different from the night on the beach. Last time had been fast and searing. This kiss had her falling, falling, falling. Just enjoy it. Only for a few seconds. Then she’d push him away.

  His goatee pricked her chin, but she didn’t want to stop. Ever. Not when her body craved his warmth. They connected on too many levels for it to end.

  “We should stop, right?” Vic asked, kissing her again.

  For a man who didn’t like to talk, why the hell was he talking?

  “Probably,” she replied without removing her hands from his butt. How her hands got there, she had no idea.

  Then he backed her into the counter and it was all over.

  Chapter Four

  Man Law: Never get suckered into a chick flick.

  “How the hell does this happen?”

  Vic maneuvered Gina against the counter and sucked wind because, selfish prick that he was, he’d nailed her. Right there in the kitchen.

  She laughed, and the sound bounced off the walls and made him smile. But her flushed cheeks and messy hair? That was the kicker. Yep, thoroughly thrashed. He wanted this constantly. He couldn’t help himself.

  “We have no willpower,” Gina said. “We are truly pathetic.”

  She laughed again and Vic leaned in to run his fingers through her massive curls. He kissed her and stepped back to get rid of the condom before sliding his jeans up. Sh
e wriggled her skirt down and adjusted it. The skirt was convenient. Blame it on the goddamned skirt. If she’d had jeans on, maybe they would have slowed down enough to think it through. Maybe that was the problem the last time too. She’d had a dress on the night of Mike’s wedding. Gina needed to invest in some friggin’ pants.

  Yeah, like that would work. He spent way too much time thinking about getting her naked to convince himself they would have stopped.

  “Okay.” She pulled her long hair into a knot behind her head. “Another simultaneous brain fart. Let’s just move on.”

  “Yep. We can do this.”

  She squeezed his forearms. “We’re consenting adults. We’re entitled to these little mess-ups. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stick with our plan of moving on with our lives.”

  Our plan? Try her plan.

  He tucked his shirt in. “I never agreed to that.”

  Gina narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you did. Just a few minutes ago.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. You wanted me to agree, but I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. But hey, who knows? Maybe some great guy, fucker that he is, will come along. Knock yourself out. It’ll bug me, but I’ll understand. Me? I can handle spending the next ten years not bringing women around you.”

  He hadn’t had a serious relationship in years anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem. He’d date. Just not in front of Gina.

  Being the most emotionally bankrupt person on earth came in handy sometimes. He’d never bothered to tell anyone he loved them. Not even his aunt, who’d taken in her fucked-up eleven-year-old nephew because his mother wanted drugs more than him. She put up with every ounce of bullshit he could hand her and he never told the woman he loved her. He wasn’t proud of that dismal fact, but it said a lot about his ability to keep his emotions in check.

  Asshole.

  “We’re no further along than we were before,” Gina said, her voice clipped.

  “Pretty much. Yeah.”

  She threw her hands over her face. “It’ll never end.”