First Crush

by Linda Seed

  First Crush

  The Russo Sisters, Book 2

  Linda Seed

  Contents

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  By Linda Seed

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Read more by Linda Seed

  Acknowledgments

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  Claim the story here.

  This is a work of fiction. Any characters, organizations, places, or events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  * * *

  FIRST CRUSH

  Copyright © 2019 by Linda Seed

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  The author is available for book signings, book club discussions, conferences, and other appearances.

  Linda Seed may be contacted via e-mail at linda@lindaseed.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LindaSeedAuthor. Learn more about Linda Seed’s novels at www.lindaseed.com.

  * * *

  Cover design by Teaberry Creative.

  Created with Vellum

  By Linda Seed

  The Main Street Merchants

  * * *

  Moonstone Beach

  Cambria Sky

  Nearly Wild

  Fire and Glass

  * * *

  The Delaneys of Cambria

  * * *

  A Long, Cool Rain

  The Promise of Lightning

  Loving the Storm

  Searching for Sunshine

  * * *

  The Russo Sisters

  * * *

  Saving Sofia

  First Crush

  1

  The babies were to blame.

  For a long time, Bianca had been okay with the fact that she’d put her career ahead of getting married and having children. Her work as a pediatrician was important, not only to her but to the patients she helped every day.

  Medical school, an internship, residency—none of that had been compatible with motherhood or, for that matter, with finding a man to father her hypothetical offspring.

  She’d been at peace with that, mostly. But the babies were starting to make her doubt her life decisions.

  Bianca performed well-baby exams almost every day—the red-faced, blinking newborns, the nine-month-olds with their toothless smiles and their rolls of thigh fat, the toddlers with their endless, good-natured curiosity, their chubby hands reaching out to grab her stethoscope or a handful of her hair.

  Every one of them made her long for motherhood with ferocious yearning.

  And that, she reflected, was how she’d ended up in a relationship with Peter—a man she had zero chemistry with but who had looked, at first, like perfect husband and father material.

  On their regularly scheduled Friday night date, Bianca tried to be patient as Peter inspected his menu at Neptune, a high-end restaurant on Main Street.

  “Do you suppose the seafood risotto has gluten?” He peered at the menu and didn’t wait for Bianca to respond. “They’ll say it doesn’t, but if they use a broth that has hydrolyzed wheat protein …”

  “Maybe try the salmon?” Bianca suggested.

  “Mmm. Probably farmed.”

  Bianca had made her entrée selection long ago. So long ago, in fact, the waiter had been sent away twice. Her stomach was growling, so she took a roll from the basket on the table. At least she didn’t have to share the bread, with Peter avoiding gluten.

  The waiter was walking past their table, and Peter flagged him down. “Are these salad greens organic?” They were. “And what about the butter you use on the scampi? Does it contain rBST?”

  They went through this every time they ate out, which was why Bianca had suggested they eat at home. But Peter had something important to talk to her about, and he’d insisted they do it at Neptune, one of the most well-regarded restaurants in Cambria.

  Of course, if he couldn’t manage to order a meal, it seemed doubtful they would ever get to the topic he’d wanted to discuss.

  “Peter?” Bianca couldn’t quite get the irritation out of her voice. “Maybe just have the chef’s salad?” That was what he would order, in the end. It was what he always ordered. But, for some reason, he seemed compelled to make a production of considering other options before settling on the thing they both knew he would eat.

  “Hmm. Maybe the bisque …” He squinted at his menu because he’d left his reading glasses at home.

  “I’m getting hungry,” she said.

  Finally, after ten more minutes of contemplation, they placed their orders: linguine with clams for her, chef’s salad—hold the bacon—for him.

  Bianca was the daughter of Italian parents, and she’d been raised to love food, especially fresh bread and pasta. Watching Peter reject entire classifications of food was both painful and baffling to her. He didn’t have a health condition that required it—if he had, she’d have understood. Instead, it seemed more like an affectation, or perhaps a hobby. Instead of assembling model boats, say, or golfing, Peter obsessed about the origin and ingredients of his food.

  Now that he’d ordered and his menu had been taken from him—confiscated, more like—he folded his hands on the table and smiled at Bianca.

  “You look pretty tonight,” he told her.

  And Peter looked … like Peter. Five foot ten, medium brown hair, average frame, eyes a medium blue. He had the bland good looks of a TV anchorman. Not bad genes to pass on to a baby—as long as he didn’t pass along his eccentricities as well.

  “What was it you wanted to talk about?” Bianca prompted him. The restaurant was half-full, and classical music was playing softly in the background. The candle in the center of their table glowed a gentle orange.

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve been dating awhile now.”

  “Six months,” Bianca provided.

  “Right. And with me living in San Luis Obispo and you living in Cambria …” He picked up his napkin, refolded it, and put it back down. “It’s inconvenient, that’s all, you coming to me or me coming
to you.…”

  “It’s not that inconvenient,” she said. “You’re only twenty minutes away from my office.”

  “Well, okay, I suppose …”

  Was he worried about gas mileage? Fuel emissions? Wasted productivity from his time in the car?

  “I thought … Maybe it’s time we move in together.”

  Bianca didn’t respond at first. She’d known this was coming. He’d been making noises about how San Luis Obispo was superior to Cambria in terms of efficiency and convenience. He’d passed it off as idle conversation at the time, but she’d known where he was heading.

  Now that it was out there, she didn’t know how to respond. Wasn’t she dating him because he’d seemed like a good prospect for marriage and a future? Wasn’t this what she’d had in mind when she’d first agreed to go out with him?

  And yet, the idea of living with him full-time seemed utterly exhausting.

  “Well, that’s certainly … an offer,” she said.

  “It makes sense financially,” he went on. “Combining our expenses, consolidating our belongings. Saving commuting time will reduce our carbon footprint, too.”

  All of the times Bianca had imagined a man inviting her to live with him, she’d envisioned proclamations of love, of passion, of burning need. Instead, she was hearing about consolidated belongings and carbon emissions.

  “I suppose you’re right about the carbon footprint,” she said. “And you were thinking … your place?” Bianca and her three sisters lived in a renovated 1920s log cabin their parents had left them. Carmela and Aldo were gone now, but the house made Bianca feel connected to them, as though, in some little way, they were still with her.

  “Ah.” Peter folded his hands on the table, clearly prepared for this question. “You know I love your house. And your sisters are great. But …”

  “But?”

  “But I thought we might want something more … up to date. And more private. Someplace that’s just for the two of us. My condo has solar, which cuts down on the energy expense, and it has water-efficient plumbing fixtures and drought-tolerant landscaping. Plus, the commute to your office from my place is eight minutes shorter.”

  “Eight minutes?”

  “I checked it on Google Maps.”

  Bianca sat there with a glass of wine in her hand, trying but failing to imagine a less romantic way in which Peter might have presented his case.

  “I suppose the heating costs will be reduced if we’re sharing a bed,” she said dryly. “All of that body warmth.”

  “Exactly.” He seemed pleased with her observation. “I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, I imagine you’re right.”

  “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course. I’ve made some notes on the pros and cons. I’ll e-mail them to you.” He held up his glass of wine for a toast. “To us, Bianca.”

  She clinked her glass against his without comment.

  “You make me so happy,” he said.

  She supposed he had an analysis of that, too—some kind of happiness vs. unhappiness bar graph. Or maybe it was a pie chart. But despite the lack of romance, he had a lot to offer. He was stable, honest, consistent, and decent. She’d done her own pro-con analysis of her relationship with him, and the pros were ahead.

  It was hard to argue with the data.

  “Peter wants us to live together,” Bianca told her sisters the next morning at breakfast.

  They were gathered around their big kitchen island, busy with the usual morning activities related to food and beverages. Sofia was pouring a mug of coffee from the pot; Martina was steeping some kind of herbal tea she’d blended herself; Benny was pouring a bowl of Cap’n Crunch; and Bianca was sitting with a plate of whole wheat toast in front of her.

  Bianca’s sisters stopped what they were doing and turned, as one, to look at her.

  “Here?” Benny broke the silence. Bianca noted the horror in her sister’s voice.

  “No. At his place.”

  “What did you say?” Martina asked.

  “I said I’d think about it.” Bianca picked up her toast, considered it, then put it back down. Her sisters looked at each other, then back at Bianca.

  “But—” Sofia said.

  “I’ll take this one,” Benny offered, interrupting. Her dark hair was arranged in two stubby buns on the top of her head, her bangs short and straight. She pointed at Bianca with one finger, its nail polished in black. “You can’t possibly be considering it.”

  “I am.”

  “But—” Sofia tried again.

  “What the hell for?” Benny demanded. “What do you see in that guy? Is he some kind of magical prodigy in bed? Because otherwise …”

  “Oh, believe me. He’s not.” Bianca was probably betraying Peter by admitting that, but if she’d said otherwise, her sisters would have known she was lying. She didn’t have the kind of acting skills it would have taken to pretend that Peter made her body sing in ways she’d only dreamed of.

  “Then why?” Sofia finally managed to get out a full sentence, albeit one of only two words.

  “Because I’m getting old!” Bianca threw her hands into the air in frustration. The idea of breakfast didn’t seem appetizing anymore, so she got up and took her plate to the sink.

  “You’re only thirty-six,” Martina pointed out.

  “Exactly. I’m thirty-six. Do you know that if I got pregnant right now, today, it would be considered higher risk because of advanced maternal age? Advanced! I need to have babies now, or it’s never going to happen.”

  Benny wrinkled her nose. “You want Peter’s babies? Ew.”

  “Peter is …” Bianca grasped for a flattering adjective. “He’s responsible. He’s intelligent. He’s a doctor.”

  “You’re a doctor,” Sofia pointed out. “So, the pressure’s off. You don’t need to marry one.”

  “Marry? Yikes.” Benny shuddered. “You’re not thinking of marrying him, are you? Because—”

  “We haven’t discussed it.” Bianca put her plate into the sink. “We’ve only discussed me moving into his condo. To save natural resources.” She couldn’t help smirking.

  Martina looked thoughtful. “I suppose you’d save gas on the commute, but … Oh, God. Please tell me he didn’t propose it to you that way.”

  “He did.” Bianca slumped against the kitchen counter. She hadn’t wanted to complain about Peter to her sisters, but she couldn’t help it. “He actually did! He talked about his drought-tolerant landscaping.”

  “That’s it,” Sofia said. “I’m dumping Patrick, and I’m going to throw myself at Peter. No woman in her right mind can resist drought-tolerant landscaping.”

  “Very funny.” At the mention of Patrick, Bianca felt a fresh surge of despair. What Sofia had with her fiancé was everything Bianca wanted. It was romantic. It was passionate. It was real. Bianca had always imagined she would have that with someone, someday—but she’d waited too long, and now what did she have? Aging ovaries and a man who was inordinately concerned with his bowel habits. Of course, he was a gastroenterologist, but still …

  “It’s not funny at all,” Martina said. “You can’t say yes. You know you can’t. It would be a huge mistake.”

  “I want children, Martina.” Bianca felt herself on the verge of tears. “I’m out of time to wait for the perfect guy.”

  “Does Peter even want kids?” Sofia asked.

  “Yes! He does!” The question was, did she want Peter?

  2

  “C’mon, let’s move it,” TJ said to his son as the boy poked at his cereal with his spoon. “We’ve got to be out the door in five, or you’re going to be late for school.”

  “Do I have to go? I’m tired.”

  It was a complaint TJ had been hearing more and more often from Owen, and it was starting to concern him. Moaning about school was pretty typical for a twelve-year-old in middle school, he figured, but Owen had always liked school—until recently.

  “Did you sleep okay
last night?” he asked.

  “I guess.”

  TJ seemed to remember that being tired a lot was an adolescent thing—something to do with rapid growth, or hormones, or something like that. Probably nothing to worry about. “Well, finish breakfast so we can get going.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  That, TJ reflected, was not an adolescent boy thing. He seemed to recall eating so much at that age, he’d devoured the family’s grocery supply as soon as it was brought into the house.

  “You feeling okay?” he asked his son.

  “Yeah. Just tired.”

  The kid’s color seemed off, too. TJ would have to call and make him an appointment for a physical. After he got him off to school.

  The thing about the doctor’s appointment was that Owen didn’t actually have a doctor.

  TJ and his son had moved to Cambria just a month earlier, right after TJ’s divorce from Owen’s mother had been finalized. With everything that had been going on—finding work, moving, getting Owen settled in at his new school—neither of them had gotten established with a local doctor yet.