The One I Love to Hate

by Amanda Weaver

  Lina gasped and attempted to clap her hands over her mouth, until she remembered she was still holding two glasses. She settled for squealing with delight instead. “You guys made up!”

  “Yes, we did. Actually, we’re in the middle of that,” Jess said, indicating the front door. “So we’re gonna go—”

  “No, you can’t! It’s almost midnight! Come on!”

  “Lina—”

  Just then, Hassan staggered into the hallway. “Lina, come on. I got us more drinks.”

  “You guys don’t look like you need more drinks,” Alex observed, earning him a scowl from Lina.

  She thrust one glass at Jess and, once her hand was free, grasped her wrist and began tugging her into the crowd. Jess cast an apologetic look back over her shoulder. “One toast.”

  After all that had happened between her and Lina, he wasn’t going to begrudge them their moment, even if it left him simmering in a state of frustrated lust. It would wait. They had all night. They had...well, they had forever, didn’t they?

  * * *

  The bar was packed now, the Drake Media employees and the Daily Post employees tangled into a glittering, dancing, laughing, sea of people. Jess let herself be towed through the crowd by Lina, looking back now and then to make sure Alex was still there. He always was. All she had to do was reach out and she could touch him.

  A group of Daily Post employees had commandeered a cluster of cream sofas in a corner, overlooking a breathtaking north-facing view of Manhattan. Everyone was there, Dana and her husband, cutting loose and enjoying their child-free night, Caleb and Marc, Sally, in a truly spectacular Christmas sweater, Isaiah and his partner...and Griffin, with Natalie perched on his lap. Okay. Even Mariel had joined them—alone. Jess met her eyes briefly and a flash of understanding passed between them.

  Forget what Alex said. She had to make sure Mariel wasn’t doing something she’d regret later.

  “Is everything okay?” she murmured under her breath.

  Mariel blew out a breath. “No. Everything is...” She trailed off, looking confused, dumbstruck, and a little bit...enchanted. “I really thought I hated him, you know?”

  Jess nodded sympathetically. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Alex stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back against his chest. The Daily Post employees registered that development with a frisson of interest. She’d be grilled properly at work, but for now everyone kept their mouth shut.

  Hassan poured champagne—Moët, the good stuff—into everyone’s glasses. When he reached Lina’s side, he slid his arm around her waist. She tipped her head onto his shoulder. Guess that was her answer about the Hassan thing. Jess was glad. Lina deserved a great guy in her life.

  The DJ faded out the last track. “Nearly there, friends,” he announced. “So get with your favorite person and start the new year the way you want it to end.”

  The crowd around them began to chant the countdown.

  “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

  “It’s almost time!” Lina shrieked.

  “Seven! Six! Five!”

  “I know how I want next year to end,” Alex murmured in her ear. She twisted in his arms until she was facing him, that face she’d spent so many years hating for all the wrong reasons—the face that was now so precious to her that it made her heart ache. She could scarcely wrap her mind around what might lie in store for her and Alex, and after such an inauspicious start. Wasn’t that always how it started, though? One person improbably encounters another, something sparks, and a glowing future grows from that tiny flicker of heat, impossible to predict.

  “Four! Three! Two!”

  “And the year after that,” she said. “And the year after that. I want them all to begin and end with you.”

  “One!”

  The crowd exploded in screams. Golden confetti and balloons exploded from the ceiling, raining down on their heads. People laughed, kissed, hugged. Everyone began to sing “Auld Lang Syne” out of tune. But it all faded away. There was only Alex. Only them. Now, and maybe forever.

  He bent his head toward hers. “Happy New Year, Jess. I love you.”

  As his lips touched hers, she was sure, in the history of New Year’s Eves, no new year—no new love—had ever had a better beginning. Even if the beginning of this love had taken them years to get to, and even if it had started with hate.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Love and Other Disasters, the next book in the Romano Sisters series from Amanda Weaver and Carina Press, available September 2019.

  Chapter One

  There was only one thing about Brooklyn that Livie Romano didn’t love: there were never any stars out at night. Most of the time, when you looked up, you saw...nothing. Just a flat rust-colored glow as the streetlights reflected off the clouds. The light pollution was so powerful that it managed to blot out the entirety of the universe overhead, which was saying something.

  The first time she’d seen stars...actual stars, not the random sighting of Venus that managed to puncture New York’s omnipresent glow...she’d been six. Vacations had been nearly nonexistent when they were kids. There was always too much work at the family bar and too little money. But one year their uncle Vincent had rented a cabin upstate on Lake George and invited them up for the weekend. Her parents—that was back when her mother was still alive—had piled the kids into the family car and off they went.

  The first night, her sisters and cousins had shrieked and laughed as they chased fireflies in the woods, but a different kind of light had caught Livie’s attention. Alone, she wandered to the end of the dock, lay down on the worn wood, still warm from the day’s sun, and she’d stared up at the sky, at the overwhelming sight of thousands of stars. Even the Milky Way was visible—a magical, cloudy sweep across the sky, looking just like it did in books.

  It was like peeking into a world that had been hidden in plain sight all her life—a world that stretched into infinity.

  These days, as she pursued her PhD in astrophysics, she was no longer dependent on a clear night sky. She stargazed through computers, the telescope orbiting thousands of miles above tiny earthbound complications like clouds and light pollution. But there was still something special about just looking up and seeing the stars, silently burning away for millennia.

  Pausing on the street corner, Livie glanced up. Nothing but a low-hanging wall of clouds tonight. You’d hardly even know the universe was up there. But it was, waiting for her with its mysteries to be unraveled, if only she could figure out how.

  She dropped her eyes from the blank sky to a more comforting glow—the golden light of the front window of Romano’s Bar, and the electric Michelob sign that was older than she was. Just like the Milky Way, Romano’s lights seemed to burn on for eons.

  The poorly oiled hinges on the front door shrieked to announce her as she entered. Her older sister, Gemma, glanced up from a stack of credit card receipts.

  “Livie, you’re ten minutes late. Were you mugged? Kidnapped? Did you fall into an open manhole? You’re never late.”

  Flustered, she hurried across the bar and ducked under the pass-through. “Sorry, slow train.” She hated being late, and anything less than ten minutes early counted as late.

  “Ugh, don’t get me started on the MTA,” her younger sister, Jessica, growled from behind her laptop.

  “What are you doing here, Jess? I thought I was covering Dad tonight.”

  “You are. I’m filing the quarterly taxes.”

  Thank God Jess handled that odious task. Gemma was hopeless at math and Livie hated accounting. She could use numbers to explain the bending of time and space, but forget about finance.

  “How was the first day of classes?” Gemma asked. “You’re teaching this semester, right?”

  “Campus opened this week, but classes don
’t officially start until next week. My section of Astronomy 200 starts next Tuesday.”

  Hard to say who was less enthusiastic about starting classes, Livie or her incoming undergrads. Standing up in front of a room full of undergrads was her worst nightmare come to life. But it was required as part of her grad student stipend, so she was just going to have to suck it up and do her best to avoid eye contact.

  “So why were you at school all day if there were no classes?”

  Livie turned to face her sisters with a triumphant smile. “Because I have big news.”

  Jess and Gemma both looked up expectantly. Livie had been bursting to share this with someone—anyone—since she’d left campus an hour ago. And the fact was, she didn’t have many people besides her sisters to share good news with.

  “We got the Skylight grant. Well, Finch got the grant. Which, since I’m working on her research for my dissertation, is like me getting the grant.”

  Jess grinned. “That’s awesome, Livie!”

  “The what grant? You’re getting money?”

  “I told you about it, Gem.”

  “Livie, I love you, but you know I don’t understand half of what you tell me.” Gem waved her hand, miming information flying over her head. Livie wished she wouldn’t do that—that flippant dismissal of her lack of education. Gemma might not have gone to college like her younger sisters, but she was one of the smartest people Livie knew.

  “Professor Finch—”

  “Your thesis advisor,” Gemma said. “See? I remember some things!”

  “Anyway, Janet applied for this big grant from Skylight last year. You know...the telecommunications company?”

  “I remember you helped her with the grant application,” Jess said. “It took you forever.”

  “Thanks for proofreading it, by the way.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Well, she found out over the summer that she got it. Which means her research is fully funded. Which means I can work on it with her for my dissertation. Working on this with her is the whole reason I chose Adams. And now we’ve got the money to do it.”

  “This is so exciting,” Jess said.

  “It is, but it means I’ve got a lot of work to do. Janet wants to start purchasing as soon as possible, which means I’ve got to start pulling together ordering info.” She sighed. “I love research, but this administrative stuff is so boring.”

  “Agreed,” Gemma said. “Why do you think I make Jess do the bookkeeping?”

  Jess made a face at her.

  “I also need to find a programmer, and I have no idea where to start with that one.”

  Gemma held her hands up. “Don’t look at me. You know I can’t even reboot the cable box.”

  “But, Livie,” Jess said. “I thought you had a programmer listed as part of the grant proposal.”

  “We just included a line item for it. Janet had someone in mind when we drew up the budget. The guy is good. One of the best. But he’s so expensive. It’s going to eat up a huge chunk of the money before we even get started. If I can find someone to do it for less, then the grant money will go so much further.”

  “Isn’t there someone at Adams who can do it?” Gemma asked. “They must have a computer department. Then it’d be free.”

  Livie didn’t say so, but she doubted anyone in Adams’s Computer Science department could program their own smart phones. There were a few academic bright stars at Adams, like Janet, but it was not a powerhouse university.

  “This is beyond some college programmer. This is like, NASA-level coding. People who can program at that level aren’t just wandering around looking for a part-time gig.”

  “You need help with your computer, Livie?” Frank, one of Romano’s die-hard regulars, had been listening in on their conversation, as usual. Outside of football season, Mondays were quiet at the bar. Romano’s was mostly empty, just the handful of regulars, like Frank. “Dennis, you remember that DeSantis kid? Gloria DeSantis’s nephew? He was some kinda computer whiz, wasn’t he?”

  Dennis Mulchahey, another old-timer, rolled his eyes and set his beer down. “A troublemaker, that’s what that kid was. But yeah, he was all into computers and stuff.”

  “No offense, Frank, but a kid who’s good at video games isn’t what I need.” Although that’s what she loved about their regulars. They felt like family, and, like family, were always ready to pitch in when there was a problem.

  Frank ignored her, because...well, he was like family. “He went to some fancy college, didn’t he?”

  “He went to Jess’s college,” Dennis confirmed. “When he was just sixteen. Full ride, too. Those DeWitt guys were desperate to get him in there.”

  “He went to DeWitt at sixteen?” Jess interjected. “He’s gotta have something going on if he graduated from DeWitt, Livie.”

  DeWitt was Ivy League, one of the best universities in the Northeast. A computer programmer who went to DeWitt sounded promising.

  “Don’t think he graduated, though,” Dennis said. “He got into some trouble.”

  “Trouble?” Gemma asked. “What kind of trouble?”

  Dennis and Frank looked at each other as they searched their memories. “He got mixed up with the law, I remember that,” Frank finally said.

  “What, like a drug bust or something?” Gemma, ever protective of her younger sisters, had taken over the interrogation.

  If he was some drug dealer, then Livie wasn’t interested, computer genius or not. This research was too important to risk that way.

  “Nah, not NYPD,” Dennis replied. Dennis and Frank, like many of Romano’s patrons, were both retired cops. “This was FBI, I think. The kid was mixed up in some serious stuff. Left college and disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Livie’s tiny spark of hope snuffed out. It sounded like the guy was a dead end.

  Frank turned to Livie. “You want me to get his number from Gloria for you?”

  She didn’t have the smallest hope that Gloria DeSantis’s nephew was the person for this project, but if what Dennis said was right...if he worked in computers, especially at that level...then he might be able to help her find the right person. And a tiny lead was better than no lead at all.

  “Sure. Thanks, Frank.”

  Chapter Two

  The address was in DUMBO, almost to the water. At the end of the cobblestone street, Livie could see the Manhattan Bridge, arching away into the city. This guy must be doing pretty well for himself, because real estate in this neighborhood was not cheap.

  It might be a warning sign, though, one to add to all the others. Gloria DeSantis had been able to provide her nephew’s name, but she didn’t have his number because, in her words, “there was bad blood,” whatever that meant. When Livie tried to find him online, she hit another dead end. There were mentions of him from his teenage years—stuff about his early acceptance to DeWitt, listings in the student directory, but nothing recent. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram. What kind of twentysomething had zero social media presence? Well, she didn’t, but Jess had informed her in no uncertain terms that it made her a freak.

  In the end, her uncle Robert, an NYPD detective, dug up a phone number for the guy, which was not, strictly speaking, aboveboard, but she’d been getting desperate. Despite the mysterious Mr. DeSantis’s incognito existence, he’d replied instantly to a texted inquiry from a complete stranger about a freelance project. There was definitely something sketchy about this whole situation.

  When Livie pressed the button by his name, someone buzzed her in without even asking who she was. Okay. She took the elevator to the fourteenth floor, which turned out to be the top one. It opened onto a small vestibule, and there was only one door. Meaning he had the whole floor.

  She knocked and had just glanced down to double check the info in his text, when the door opened in front of her. Livie’s eye
s flew up and she froze.

  Oh.

  Whatever she’d been expecting, it was certainly not this. He was incredibly, unbelievably good-looking. Tall, with messy dark brown hair and riveting dark eyes that made her feel pinned in place. He had one hand braced on the door frame, making his bicep flex and his tight gray T-shirt stretch across his broad shoulders.

  This couldn’t be right. There was no way this was Gloria DeSantis’s computer geek nephew. He had to be his hot, soccer-player roommate or something, right?

  “Um... Nicholas DeSantis?”

  A tiny line formed between his heavy, dark brows. “It’s Nick. You Olivia?”

  “It’s Livie.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched—almost a smile—and she melted inside. There was no other way to describe it. Her insides had gone all warm and golden and glowing. An absolutely ridiculous physical response to have to another human being.

  “Okay,” he said, backing away from the door. “We cleared that up. Come on in.”

  So he was Gloria DeSantis’s computer geek nephew. And he was also spectacularly hot. Livie rarely noticed such things, and she’d never, ever been so rattled by a guy’s appearance before. They hadn’t gotten past exchanging names and she was almost too flustered to speak.

  He turned and walked away, leaving Livie to come in and close the door behind herself. “How’d you get my name again?” he asked over his shoulder. There was a restless energy in his body, evident even as he casually walked across a room, like he was a steel spring, tightly wound and ready to explode.

  Livie hurried after him. “Gloria DeSantis, your aunt.”

  The sudden appearance of the Manhattan Bridge looming just on the other side of a wall of glass stopped her in her tracks. His apartment was huge, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bridge, the East River, and the Manhattan skyline. The furniture was all that low, sleek, leather stuff you only see in magazines. There were no family photos on the walls, no opened mail scattered across the coffee table, no shoes kicked off in a pile by the door. It barely looked like anyone lived there.