Solitude (Cunningham Security Book 4)

by A. K. Evans

  He looked at me, shoved the money in his pocket, bent to pick up the pumpkins, and began walking. I grabbed the small ones and caught up to him.

  “Lorenzo, I can pay for pumpkins,” I said.

  “I know you can, but I wanted to buy them for you.”

  I blinked my eyes. “Just like that? You couldn’t ask me first?”

  We continued walking toward his truck, but he looked over at me. “I need permission to be able to buy my woman a pumpkin?”

  His woman.

  He called me his woman for the first time.

  I finally understood his reaction from earlier that morning. I couldn’t get out any words, so I simply shook my head at him. A minute later, we made it to the truck, where he loaded the pumpkins while insisting I get in.

  A couple of hours later, Lorenzo and I had gotten some food and were nearly finished with carving the first two pumpkins. Well, he was nearly finished carving. I had my hand stuck in the third pumpkin and was pulling out the seeds. Lorenzo refused to take any part in pumpkin-guts removal.

  “You weren’t lying. You really are great with a drill!”

  Lorenzo cocked an eyebrow at me and smirked. “Was there ever really a doubt in your mind about that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I just didn’t know if you were the creative type. Handyman I could see, but I didn’t know what to expect when it came to creativity.”

  “I’m very handy and while I might not be an artist, I can certainly be creative when I need to be,” he assured me.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are we still talking about power tools and pumpkin carving?”

  He burst out laughing.

  I watched.

  I loved seeing him like that.

  Happy, carefree.

  When his bright, shining eyes came to mine, I asked, “Will you kiss me?”

  He stepped closer and leaned into me. Once his lips hit mine, it didn’t take long for him to become consumed. As much as I enjoyed it, I knew I’d enjoy what I was about to do just a tad bit more.

  Clamping my fist around a pile of seeds and pumpkin goo, I pulled it out of the pumpkin’s cavity and opened my fist at the last second to press all of it on Lorenzo’s neck.

  His mouth moved a fraction of an inch away from mine and he warned, “Please tell me you did not just put pumpkin shit all over me.”

  I smiled against his mouth. “If I did, I’d be lying. And I’m not a liar.”

  “Jolie, that is so damn disgusting,” he cringed.

  Now I was doubled over in a fit of laughter.

  It was my crucial mistake because Lorenzo seemed to no longer have an aversion to pumpkin goo, as evidenced by the fact that I suddenly had it in my hair. He gripped my hair at the back of my head, lifted me so I was upright, and walked me backward until my back was against the wall.

  Pressing his body into mine, his voice was low when he asked, “How does it feel?”

  I stared at the intensity in his eyes, swallowed hard, and rasped, “I’m scared.”

  Lorenzo’s entire body went rock solid as nothing but shock registered on his face. He immediately took his hand from my hair and stepped back from me. “What?” he croaked. “Jolie…I—”

  “No, I mean—” I got out before he cut me off.

  The look on his face changed, but he looked completely devastated. “Are you afraid of me?”

  I took a step toward him, reaching my hand out to him, and he took one backward. “Lorenzo, I didn’t mean that I was afraid you were going to hurt me. I shouldn’t have said that the way that I did.”

  “What did you mean?” he whispered.

  I looked up at him, his eyes begging me to explain why I said what I did.

  “I’m scared at how much I feel for you. It terrifies me that I already feel like this just two weeks in,” I explained.

  He dropped his head to one side. “How do you feel?”

  I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth before I answered, “I feel like it’s happening really fast. The physical attraction has been there since day one for me. Emotionally, though, I didn’t expect to feel this much this quickly.”

  “How do you feel?” he repeated his question.

  I swallowed hard. “Like I really, really like you.”

  The muscle in his cheek twitched, but he said nothing.

  “A lot,” I added on a whisper.

  “Are you alright with taking a break from pumpkins for now?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  I nodded.

  “Good. Time to get cleaned up,” he said as he picked me up over his shoulder and moved to the stairs. He walked us straight to the bathroom where we got in the shower.

  While Lorenzo didn’t ever respond directly to my admission of my feelings for him, he made it very clear to me in the shower that he appreciated hearing what I had said. I was only slightly disappointed he never verbally returned the sentiments.

  I pulled out my phone, found the number I needed, tapped on the screen, and held it to my ear.

  After two rings, I heard, “Enzo.”

  “Nice win last night, Rocco.”

  “Thanks,” he responded. “I’m glad you got to watch it.”

  It was late Monday morning, and after the weekend I’d had with Jolie, I decided to call my brother.

  “As long as I’m not on a case where it’s physically impossible to watch, you know I always do.”

  There was a moment of silence before he responded, “I know you do. So, how’s it going? Am I going to see you anytime soon?”

  “I think that depends on you,” I began. “You’re the one with the crazy schedule right now. Things aren’t too out of hand for me at the office, so I’ve had some downtime.”

  “November is full,” he started. “There are only four times throughout the month where we’ve got two days off between games. Other than that, it’s either one day off or none.”

  “I saw that. I actually took a look at the schedule and was thinking about coming to your home game against the Pens that Friday at the beginning of November.”

  “That would be awesome. You want a box? I can get you one or, at the very least, really good seats.”

  I laughed. “I’m good either way. Just looking forward to seeing a live game. It’s always so much better than watching it on television.”

  “I’ll take care of it. How many seats do you want?”

  He was going to know as soon as I said it.

  “Just two.”

  “Two?”

  I wasn’t going to play the game with him, so I just let it out.

  “I’ve got someone I want you to meet,” I blurted.

  Rocco didn’t respond for a long time. Eventually, he asked, “Would you mind repeating that again?”

  “I met a girl, a little over five months ago, and I want you to meet her,” I said.

  “You’ve been dating a girl for five months and you’re just now telling me about her for the first time?” he questioned me.

  “We’ve only been officially together for just over two weeks. I met her for the first time several months ago,” I clarified.

  “So you’ve been hooking up for five months and just recently decided to make it official?” he wondered.

  I laughed. I wished. “No. I’ve been fighting a war with myself to not hook up with her since late April. She was interested and I was not willing to go there with her.”

  “Is she hot?”

  “Seriously, Rocco?” I scolded him.

  He laughed. “What? I’m trying to figure out why you’d turn down a willing participant. If there was no attraction, I could understand it.”

  Attraction didn’t seem like the right word to describe the pull I felt toward Jolie. It was something else entirely.

  “Your silence tells me what I need to know. She’s hot.”

  “Stop,” I grunted.

  He was my brother, but that didn’t mean I wanted him thinking about or referring to Jolie being hot
. He hadn’t even met her, and I was already feeling this way. Maybe introducing them after I had the opportunity to let a few more weeks with her completely consume me wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “You like her,” he remarked.

  It wasn’t a question.

  “What?”

  “She was willing, and you were attracted, so there are only one of a few explanations. The fact that you’re getting irritated I’m commenting on her looks tells me what I need to know. You liked her and didn’t want to have just a one-night stand with her.”

  The asshole knew me too well. Even still, I wasn’t going to give in. “When did you give up hockey and become a P.I.?”

  Rocco began laughing. When he got himself under control, he stated, “I don’t need to be a P.I. to know when my brother is finally giving himself something he deserves.”

  It seemed my brother’s ability to render me speechless was in full force this morning.

  “I’m happy for you, Enzo. All these years have gone by and you’ve never asked me to meet a girl. This one’s got to be special,” he surmised.

  I could have denied it and told him it wasn’t the truth, but that’s not who I was and he’d see right through it anyway.

  “She is,” I admitted. “In fact, she’s my complete opposite, Rocky, but I can’t get over what I feel for her. She’s really special to me and I think you’ll like her.”

  His voice was an octave lower when he replied, “Then I’ll make sure I get you two a box. That way, if she comes to the game and is completely bored, she’ll at least be bored in comfort.”

  “She won’t be bored,” I returned.

  “You sure about that?”

  I had to laugh. I couldn’t wait for him to meet Jolie. “Positive. Especially considering she loses her shit when you guys are down.”

  “She’s a hockey fan?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, I already like her.”

  I smiled into the phone and agreed, “Me too. She’s perfect.”

  My mind drifted to thoughts of my girl. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about her. Even though I may have made it seem to her like I was annoyed on Saturday at the pumpkin patch after we’d been there for hours, deep down I really didn’t mind. She was so happy, brightening up my world with her infectious laughter and that dimple. I didn’t know what I’d do if something ever happened to take that away from me.

  Something such as myself.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up, Roc.”

  “What? How?”

  I shook my head back and forth. “I don’t know, but this weekend she told me she was scared. Initially, it completely stunned me because I didn’t think I’d done anything to make her fearful of me. She explained that she’s scared by how much she feels for me. I get it because it’s how I feel about her, but what if that changes? What if I hurt her?”

  Rocco was silent a minute and I knew he was preparing to launch into a full-scale tirade like he’d done on so many previous occasions. “You’re not him, Enzo. Never have been, never will be.”

  “I could have killed him that day,” I reminded Rocco. He didn’t know the day it went down, but years later, I told him the truth of what happened when I walked into the house and left him in the garage.

  “Yeah, you could have, but you stayed in control and didn’t go that far. Even if you had, that wouldn’t mean you were like him and you know it.”

  I waited because I knew he wasn’t finished.

  “You’re a protector and always have been. I can remember that fear I felt living in that house with him like it happened yesterday, but even in that fear, I never once doubted that I’d be safe. I knew you’d never let anything happen to me.”

  “Stop,” I demanded.

  I couldn’t handle this.

  “No, I’m not going to stop, Enzo. You need to hear it. And I’ll say it as many times as I need to say it for you to realize that it’s true. You spent our childhood looking out for me; now I can return the favor. If you feel something for this girl, don’t let him get in the way of that. You’d never lay a hand on her, and if you dig deep, you know that’s the truth.”

  My throat was tight, thick with the weight of emotion Rocco’s words left in me. I needed a minute to regain my composure.

  “Does she know?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I managed to get out.

  “She’s not afraid?”

  “She said the same thing you did, insists that I couldn’t ever be that person. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ll still worry for her sake.”

  Rocco let out a grunt. “That’s a good thing. The fact that you worry about her like that should tell you all you need to know. And years after we got out of there and Mom finally had the means to seek help for all of us, you know what the therapist told us. Kids who go through what we went through typically respond one of two ways. They either mimic that behavior or they put an end to it. We’re the latter, Enzo. I think it’s good that you’re mindful of the fact that, especially as a big dude, you’ve got the power to put a serious hurting on anyone. For a woman, it could be detrimental. That said, given the fact that you are who you are, any woman who’s with you couldn’t find herself safer in anyone else’s arms.”

  “Alright,” I replied, needing this to stop.

  He recognized it and decided to let it go.

  “Look, I’ll just say this. If you need to talk, you know I’m here for you. But you know I’m not the only one that sees the kind of person you are. I’m sure if you talk to any of the guys at work, they’ll tell you the same thing I am.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What?”

  I sighed. “They don’t know about her.”

  There was a long pause before he asked, “You haven’t said anything to them?”

  “She’s Dom’s sister.”

  Rocco had met most of the guys I worked with before. He’d hung with Dom on several occasions.

  “Oh, bro,” he started. “That’s tough. How do you think he’s going to respond?”

  “Not a clue,” I answered honestly.

  Rocco pointed out the obvious. “He’s a crazy motherfucker that runs into burning buildings, so it could go one of two ways. Either he’ll be pissed at you for hooking up with his sister or he’ll know the kind of guy you are and give you a handshake while welcoming you to the family.”

  It was no secret what Dom did when Ekko’s life was on the line. And what Rocco said was the truth. Dom was crazy. He could go either way, but I was relatively certain he wouldn’t be welcoming me to the family anytime soon.

  “Yeah, I’ll deal with that when the time comes and she’s ready to tell her family.”

  “She wants to hide your relationship?”

  Even though he couldn’t see me, I shook my head and answered, “No. She just wants to make sure we’re solid first.”

  He stayed quiet a moment. “Good luck. Let me know how it goes when you get to that point.”

  “Will do. Thanks for the talk, Rocco.”

  “It’s nothing, Enzo. You know it.”

  Rocco and I disconnected. I sat back in my chair and thought about his words for a few minutes. As difficult as I found it to hear Rocco say the things he always said to me when he thought I needed to hear them, I never let one of those conversations go without a second thought. Sometimes, I’d think about it right after we spoke. Other times, his words would hit me hard when I was alone somewhere and had the headspace to really consider them. I had a feeling, though, that this particular conversation was going to be one I’d replay several times.

  I needed to start believing in what others saw in me.

  Because now, there was a woman I cared about a lot. And I didn’t want the faith she had in me to be misplaced.

  “How are you feeling now, Rosa?”

  “Unbelievable,” my client answered. “But I should have made this appointment for later in the evening. I just want to go home and nap now.”

 
I let out a laugh. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it’s not the first I’ve heard that. If it works for you, just schedule your next appointment for one of my later shifts. Then you’ll be able to go home and go right to bed.”

  Rosa sighed, “I think I might do that.”

  “Perfect,” I returned. “I’ll step out so you can get dressed. Take your time and be careful getting up off the table. I’ll meet you outside your room when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  I left Rosa to do her thing while I made my way to the front reception area. After I filled up a small cup of water for her, I looked to Joanne and Niki sitting behind the desk.

  “Hey, ladies. My client, Rosa, should be heading out any minute. She’s looking to schedule her next appointment for the evening hours. Can you make sure she gets that?”

  Joanne gave me a nod as Niki replied, “Absolutely.”

  I walked out of the reception area and down the hall toward the room Rosa was in. As I leaned against the wall waiting for her, I gave myself a minute to think about what I had in store for tonight.

  Nearly two weeks had passed since my trip to the pumpkin patch with Lorenzo. It was now Friday, one week after Halloween, and Lorenzo told me he had planned a surprise for me. I tried to get it out of him, but he refused to tell me anything. No matter what tactics I tried to engage just to get a tiny hint, he never gave in. All I knew was that he wanted me to come home from work and get ready to go out on a date. The only instructions I had were to dress casually in jeans and sneakers.

  I had one more client after Rosa and then I’d be off until Monday.

  At that moment, my thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and Rosa walked out.

  “Got everything?” I asked as I held the cup of water out to her.

  “Yeah, I think so,” she replied.

  I jerked my head toward the front and shared, “I told Joanne and Niki that you’re interested in possibly setting up an evening appointment with me for next time. Just let them know what works for you and I’m sure they’ll find something that fits well with your schedule.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Have a good one.”

  Rosa took off while I walked back into the room to change the linens and get everything prepared for my last client. Once I had everything ready, I walked out to check and see who was on the schedule and if they’d added any of the massage enhancements we offered.