Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  The tromping of feet coming upstairs prompts me to shove the journal to the side. A few seconds later, my oldest sister Demi bursts into my room.

  “Welcome baaaack!” she singsongs, hurling herself at me and wrapping her arms around me. I chuckle, and in an instant, I almost forget what I’ve just read. Climbing off me, Demi brushes her dark hair from her face, her smile fading. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, forcing a smile. “Just jet-lagged.”

  “Well, Mom’s making lasagna and I think I hear the timer going off, so come on.” She grabs me by the arm, yanking me off my bed. It’s like we’re kids again, though I don’t mind. Life was a hell of a lot easier back then, that’s for damn sure.

  Heading downstairs, I promise myself not to let this little revelation ruin my time with my family. I’ll think about it more, later, when I have a moment to myself. When I’m lying in bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. I need time to digest this journal, figure out what it means.

  And I hope to God it doesn’t mean he was lying to me.

  Because I was finally starting to open up to the idea of maybe . . . just maybe . . . this thing we have going might actually be worth putting myself out there again.

  Chapter 38

  Cristiano

  “Hey, come in.” I hold the door open for Daphne, watching as she takes a deep breath. She hasn’t met my gaze once, and everything about this feels formal. She’s dressed in black leggings and a white blouse, her hair piled into a neat bun on the crown of her head. Her bee-stung pout is slicked in bright red, a sign that she’s not planning to kiss me, at least not anytime soon, and she keeps a careful distance from me.

  She’s nervous, that’s it.

  Cute.

  Placing my hand on the small of her back, I usher her into the living room.

  “Mom,” I yell over my shoulder. “Daphne’s here.”

  My mom appears a moment later, her white apron covered in blotches of red sauce. Wiping her hands down the front, she then quickly unties the knot behind her back and yanks it from around her neck.

  “Hi, I’m Cristiano’s mother, Valentina. So nice to meet you,” she says, extending her hand.

  “Wonderful to meet you as well,” Daphne says, meeting her in the middle and smiling warmly.

  My mom’s going to love her, I’m one hundred percent certain. I dropped the bomb on her this morning, over breakfast, since I didn’t really have a chance last night. I landed late, cabbed it home, and went straight to bed. It’s going to be a while before I adjust to my new schedule, and right now, I’m tired as hell, but I’m excited for Daphne to meet my mother. She needs to know I meant what I said. I’m serious about her.

  “Please sit. Stay a while,” Mom says, pointing to the sofa. “Cristiano doesn’t bring girls home to meet me. He doesn’t bring anyone home, really. Heck, he hardly brings himself home.”

  Mom laughs, and Daphne glances at me, meeting my gaze for the first time since she arrived. She smiles, though I sense a bit of hesitancy behind her expression. I’m going to chalk it up to nerves, because the girl standing here is every bit as beautiful on the outside as the Daphne I know, but there’s something off about her on the inside. I can tell.

  “Cristiano tells me you met in California? That you’re the young lady he drove across the country with?”

  “Yes,” Daphne says, sitting up stick straight. “He insisted on tagging along. I wasn’t sure at first, but it worked out. It was nice to have someone to share the load with.”

  Her shoulders relax, but only slightly, and she glances my way again, this time looking as if she’s studying me. I can’t wait to get her alone so I can tell her to relax, assure her that my mom will be just as crazy about her as I am.

  “I want to show you something,” my mom announces to our guest before rising and moving across the living room.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” I ask as I spot her digging through a pile of books behind the La-Z-Boy.

  “Just looking for a photo album,” she says, voice muffled from behind the chair. “Ah, yes. Here it is.”

  “No,” I say. “No baby pictures.”

  Mom pouts her bottom lip. “But I had the cutest baby boys, and I never get the chance to show them off.”

  “I’d love to see Cristiano as a baby,” Daphne says, smiling delicately, though I know she’s only appeasing my mother.

  The sound of crunching tires against our gravel driveway directs my attention to the front living room window, and I scratch at my temple when I see Joey’s van pull up in our driveway. I wasn’t expecting her.

  “Who’s here?” Mom peers up from her photo album, nose scrunched.

  “Joey,” I say, rising carefully. Turning to Daphne, I say, “Give me a minute, okay? I won’t be long.”

  Stepping to the front porch, I make my way down the steps as Joey lowers herself from her van and wheels up the sidewalk. We don’t have a ramp for Joey’s chair, so we’ll have to converse by the front stoop. It’s been years since she’s seen the inside of my childhood house, which was practically her second home growing up, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.

  “Hey, Jo,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets. “What’s up?”

  Squinting into the sun, she glances behind her, her gaze lingering on Daphne’s car for a second too long before returning to me.

  “I wanted to talk to you. You have a minute?” she asks.

  “I’ve got company right now,” I say. “But yeah, I have a minute. What’s up? Everything okay?”

  Pulling in a deep breath, Joey’s lower lip trembles and she glances down and to the side.

  “You were right about Trent,” she says, her voice low. “I shouldn’t have married him.”

  “Jesus, Joey. What happened?” I drag my hands through my hair, feeling my jaw tense. If he hurt her – physically or otherwise – he’s a dead man.

  “Nothing happened,” she says. “I just . . . I think I married him for the wrong reasons, you know? After the accident, I didn’t think I’d find someone. Someone to accept me exactly as I am. And then Trent came along. And yeah, he’s not perfect. There are a lot of things I don’t like about him.”

  She exhales, her shoulders falling.

  “I settled, Cris,” she says, looking up into my eyes. “I settled because I didn’t think I had any other options, and it’s been lonely these last few years. I don’t get out. I don’t go anywhere. People stop by, but they don’t treat me the same. They act like they’re visiting a sick friend. A shut-in. Or they treat me like a helpless baby. And Trent never did that. He treats me the way he treats everyone else.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Shaking her head, she smiles, and then her expression fades, bringing a tear to her eye. “When I was up there, saying my vows, I found myself wishing . . . Jesus, this is going to sound completely insane . . . I can’t believe I’m even saying this . . . but I found myself wishing that it was you standing there instead.”

  “Joey.” I bury my face in my palms for a moment. I can hardly look at her right now.

  “When you came into the dressing room on my wedding day,” she says. “a part of me hoped you’d be able to talk me out of marrying Trent. But then I saw the pain in your eyes. And I saw the way you looked at me. And when you said you always thought you’d be the one to take care of me, I knew you didn’t mean it in a romantic way. And I’d never want to be a burden on you. So I convinced you everything was fine. I convinced myself too.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at here.” I hook my hands on my hips.

  Joey offers a pained smile, her eyes catching on mine. “I don’t know what I’m getting at . . . I guess . . . I guess I’m coming to tell you that it’s over between Trent and me. And I miss you. And I want you in my life again. I want you to forgive yourself so we can be us again. I just want things to go back to normal. And mostly . . . I came to tell you that I think I’m in love with you. And I think I’ve a
lways been in love with you. But I don’t think I realized it until now.”

  Her expression turns apologetic, and she chuckles, embarrassed. There’s a pink flush to her cheeks, and her gaze falls to the ground.

  “God, you have no idea how hard it was to say all that,” she says, breathless.

  “Joey.” Taking a step toward her, I pull in a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Her smile fades, like I’m watching her heart break in real time.

  “You know I’m always going to love you,” I say. “But you and me? Together? Now? I don’t think that’s in the cards for us.”

  “You met someone,” Joey says, blinking away tears. She tucks a strand of chocolate brown hair behind her ears before crossing her hands in her motionless lap. “Ashley mentioned something . . . about the night of the wedding . . . you were trying to call some girl. I didn’t think anything of it at first. She didn’t give me any details. I guess I assumed it was one of those girls you call when you’ve had too much to drink. I laughed, actually, when Ashley told me because it seemed so typically Cristiano.”

  She glances down at her still hands pressed flat against her lap. Joey gets that way when she’s upset. Her body tenses and she doesn’t move. Even now, all the parts of her that are still capable of moving become as motionless as a statue.

  “Yeah,” I say softly, as if it could possibly cushion the blow. “I met someone.”

  “Okay, well.” Joey looks up at me, forcing a bittersweet, close-lipped smile that sends an ache to my chest. I hate seeing her in pain. “Can I meet her sometime?”

  Nodding, I say, “Of course.”

  “I should go.” Joey chuffs through her nose, her cheeks pink. She’s embarrassed I suppose. When she wheels her chair back to her van, she turns back to me with misting, smiling eyes. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? Come see me more often, will you?”

  Standing on the bottom step of my mother’s front porch, I watch her load into her van. And then I watch her drive away, drying tears on the sleeve of her jacket.

  Fuck.

  Heading inside, I’m slightly dazed and still trying to wrap my head around what just happened, but I force myself to snap out of it for Daphne’s sake.

  “Where’d Mom go?” I ask when I find her alone in the living room.

  Daphne rises slowly, placing her bag over her shoulder and keeping her gaze fixed on the window by the front door.

  “She’s in the kitchen,” she says. “A timer went off. She said she had to stir the sauce.”

  Yep. Sounds like Mom. I point to her bag, my brows lifted. “You leaving?”

  “Yeah.” Her gaze flicks from the living room window and rests unsteadily in mine. My entire conversation with Joey probably played out before her in real time. Doesn’t help that these windows are as paper thin as these walls. You can hear everything through them.

  Racking my brain, I try to play back my conversation with Joey, wondering if there was anything I said that may have given Daphne pause, but I can’t think of a single thing. Joey admitted her feelings for me, but everything was one-sided.

  Daphne moves toward the door.

  “Daphne, wait.” I follow her, placing my hand on the small of her back. “Where are you going? I thought you were staying for dinner?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for the handle. “I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I just . . . can’t.”

  I follow her through the front door, half thinking this is a joke, half refusing to believe this is happening.

  Letting the screen door slam against the house, I chase after her.

  “Stop. What are you doing?” My shoes scuff the chipped and cracked sidewalk, every sound, every sensation from this moment magnified as if to offer proof that this is actually happening.

  “Please, don’t do this. Just let me go.” Her voice is low as she glances over my shoulder. I follow the direction of her gaze and find my mother’s next door neighbor, Fran Andrews, sitting on her front porch observing our exchange with watchful, unblinking eyes.

  By the time I turn back to her, she’s inside her car. Clearing my throat, I shove my hands in my pockets and walk casually to the driver’s side window. I don’t want to make a scene here, but I want to know what the fuck is going on.

  Lowering myself, I say, “Daphne. Don’t go.”

  She won’t look at me. She only stares ahead. “Can we not make this a thing?”

  “You made this a thing when you stormed out of my house for no apparent reason.” I exhale hard. “Did my mom say something to you? Did she say something that upset you?”

  “No. It’s nothing,” she says, her gaze meeting mine for a fraction of a second though long enough to confirm we both know she’s lying. “It’s nothing I want to talk about. Please just let me leave.”

  “Did something happen back home? Is everything okay with your sister?”

  “Nothing happened back home.” She starts the engine and shifts into reverse, the car jutting backward in response as a soft clunk sounds from the engine. “I have to go.”

  “I’ll call you,” I say, stepping away and watching her go. Scratching my head, I make my way back toward the front porch, watching until her red taillights disappear over the hill.

  What.

  The fuck.

  Was that?

  Waiting until her taillights vanish over the hill, I slip my hands behind my head, give Fran Andrews a wave, and dip back inside.

  “Where’d she go?” Mom stands in the middle of the living room, a wooden spoon coated in thick red sauce in her left hand.

  Shrugging, I release a held breath and plop into one of the easy chairs. Resting my elbows on my knees, I stare ahead at the blank TV screen.

  Mom frowns, taking a seat on the sofa beside me, her free hand cupped beneath the dripping spoon. “Did you say something to upset her? I thought things were going well. I really liked her. I could tell you really liked her too.”

  I shake my head. “I thought she seemed a little different when she walked in. Just thought she was nervous. Maybe something had been bothering her. I don’t know.” Leaning back in the seat, I blow a hard breath between my lips and add, “I’ll call her later. She just needs some time to cool off. I’m sure once we talk . . .”

  I don’t finish my thought. Truth is, I’m not sure of anything. Maybe she’s back with her ex? The football player? Maybe she came here to break things off for good? Maybe she knew from the second she stepped foot in here, that she’d be leaving soon enough?

  But that doesn’t make sense.

  If that were the case, she could’ve blown me off altogether. A lot easier to no-show than to drive a couple of hours to meet someone’s mom.

  “Cristiano,” my mother says sweetly, reaching over to place her hand over mine. “Everything will work out the way its supposed to, that much I can promise. But in the meantime, if you really care about this young woman, and I can tell that you do, I suggest you fight like hell to get her back before she’s gone forever.” Rising slowly, she extends her hand. “Now come help me in the kitchen. The table needs setting.”

  Snorting through my nose, I take my mother’s hand and follow her into the next room. Tonight I’ll call Daphne, and if she doesn’t answer, I’ll call her tomorrow.

  And the next day.

  The day after that, too.

  I’ll keep calling until I get through . . . until I can get her to talk to me.

  It’d be easy to hop on a plane again. Fly somewhere exotic. Leave this bullshit behind. But if I do what I’ve always done, I’ll end up where I’ve always ended up: alone and convincing myself that I’m living the kind of Bachelor-in-paradise lifestyle most guys only dream of.

  But it’s not what I want anymore. Because she’s what I want.

  And now I’m going to fight like hell.

  Chapter 39

  Daphne

  I pull into my parents’ driveway four hours later. I don’t remember leaving Cristiano’s.
I don’t remember the drive here. The radio is silent. The engine calms to nothingness as I pull the keys from the ignition.

  I’m in a daze.

  I’m numb.

  I feel everything and nothing all at once.

  I didn’t hear his entire conversation with Joey, but I heard enough to know she still loves him. She wants to be with him. And I heard him tell her he’ll always love her.

  If that journal means anything, and if those words he wrote were true, he still loves her. And up until December 31st, he was still writing those entries to her.

  It all makes sense. He traveled the world, wishing she was by his side, only he knew she couldn’t be because she was with someone else.

  But now she doesn’t want to be with that someone else – she wants him.

  Once again, I’m someone’s consolation prize.

  And I can’t.

  I can’t do it.

  Four Days Later . . .

  “It’s for the best, really,” Delilah says into my ear. My phone is cradled on my shoulder as I hang clothes in the closet of my rental apartment in Seaview’s Campus Town section. “Given your history with Weston and how much that nearly destroyed you, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to get involved with someone who’s still hung up on a past love. Nobody wants to be second place. Nobody wants to live in the shadow of the one who came before her. You did the right thing. I know it’s hard, but it’s for the best.”

  “He’s been calling me all week. And texting.” I hang up the last of my clothes and collapse on the lumpy bed in the center of my room. “Do I owe him an explanation?”

  Delilah scoffs, and I hear baby Noah rustling awake in the background. “You don’t owe him an explanation, sweets. You knew him for what, two, three weeks? It’s not like he was your boyfriend. You didn’t even break up. You just went your own way.”

  Earlier, I told Delilah all about the journal. About Paris. About Joey and the accident. She knows it all, and she’s one of the most objective people I know, so having her in my corner should be reassuring, but there’s still a part of me that feels somewhat unsettled about my decision. But it’s probably the very same part of me that got my hopes up, that spent the last part of her Paris trip in a state of denial and optimism.