by Gina LaManna
“Uh, scusi,” I said.
She hurriedly jumped back to her Blackberry and shoved earplugs into her ears. However, from my vantage point, I could see that her screen was locked and the end of her headphones dangled next to my ankle.
“What am I doing with my life?” I turned back to Anthony. “Do you ever have these feelings?”
“No.” His face was a mask of blandness.
“Right, well you don’t have any feelings. But honestly, Anthony, tell me the truth. Am I wasting my life working for the Family?”
“If you are, then so am I.”
“You’re no help.” I dramatically flopped around to face forward. “Fine, be an asswipe.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, a movement I could barely catch out of the corner of my eye. Mostly because I refused to turn and face him. If he wouldn’t open up to me, I wouldn’t open up to him. Not even if I wanted to.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“Get a drink, I guess. Nothing better than drowning my sorrows.” I signaled for the flight attendant, but of course she ignored me.
One of those days.
Anthony, however, flagged her over in a second and ordered two straight shots of tequila.
“Wow, I’m impressed. I didn’t know you drank.” I cast a quick glance in his direction.
“I thought you might want two.”
I grimaced. “Am I that obvious?”
Anthony shrugged.
“Do you know why I work for Carlos?” I asked.
“No, I don’t know.” Anthony spoke so softly I had to lean close to hear him. “I have an idea, but that’s all. A theory.”
I took a deep breath. Then I leaned over and picked up the woman’s dangling headphone cord and handed it to her. “I know, these are really tricky to work.”
The woman looked incredibly flustered and jammed the cord into her phone.
I felt a hand brush my knee, and Anthony leaned over, his wonderful scent giving me a sense of security. His breath brushed across my cheek as his words slipped out in a husky tone, aimed at the misdirected headphones woman.
“Are you sure you don’t need to use the bathroom for a few minutes?” The woman leapt up, forgetting too late that she’d been pretending to listen to music, and hustled to the back of the plane, glancing over her shoulder the entire way.
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re sweet.”
“Why do you work for Carlos?”
I blew out all the air I had in my lungs. “I’d never had any family at all. Let alone a big, powerful one.” I looked down. “There was nobody at my mom’s funeral, Anthony. She was the sweetest woman...she really earned her name.” I smiled wryly at the thought of my mother’s yellow hair falling in soft curls halfway down her back. The way she’d kiss my forehead late at night after closing down TANGO, one of the least classy strip clubs in Minneapolis.
I tried to smile at Anthony, but my mouth didn’t quirk up quite right. “The only people who showed up at her funeral had names like Autumn, Luscious, and Cinnamon. They’re dear friends, but still. My mom deserved more. Her family should’ve been there.”
Anthony reached a hand over and rested his palm on my knee.
I shuddered before continuing. “So Meg and I tracked down the parents that I thought had abandoned my mother. I figured she may have run away, but I also guessed she had a good reason.”
I smiled wryly. “And I was right.”
Anthony’s fingers clenched my knee, and I don’t think he knew he was doing it. I laid my palm lightly on the back of his hand so he relaxed.
“When I found Carlos, I was broke, alone, and utterly unsuccessful.”
I shrugged and sat back in the seat.
“And that’s it?” Anthony asked lightly.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. “Carlos offered me a crappy Kia, and I was desperate enough to sign over my soul.”
There was a long silence, but not one with hard, angular edges. This particular silence had a comforting, soft vibe.
“What about now?” Anthony asked.
I hesitated. “I like my Family. They’re loyal. I know their morals don’t always line up with the law, but...” I looked up at him, lightly resting my fingers on his chest. “I think a lot of their actions come from a good place.”
Anthony nodded slowly, and I nodded back.
We sat in silence some more.
“It’s really fine,” I said. “Carlos and Nora are great.”
There was more silence. Anthony’s thumb rubbed my knee a little bit.
“It’s just an odd story, you know? I’m a weirdo. It’s sometimes hard to see perfect families and not be upset. Especially when they’re so young and happy, and they have life so...figured out. I feel like a lost sheep.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘figured out,’” Anthony said.
“Well, yeah, but there’s a sliding scale of what’s normal. My Family kinda slid right off that scale and into the Grand Canyon. I’m not even sure I qualify for the scale. And I especially don’t qualify as ‘having my shit together.’”
Anthony’s lips broke into a very appealing grin, distracting me from my thoughts for a moment.
“You turned out all right,” he said.
“That’s debatable.” I smiled and leaned my head on his shoulder. “My poor mom. I was a tough kid to raise. I still have guilt.”
“I never would have guessed,” he deadpanned.
I slapped his arm. “Cute.”
“What about you?” I asked. “What roped you into the Luzzi Family?”
The loudspeaker crackled and the Blackberry woman hesitantly approached her seat.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “Pop a squat.”
“Bummer, no time for my story,” Anthony whispered in my ear.
“This is why you’re an asswipe,” I whispered back.
We descended in a smooth silence, my heart a little bit lighter than when I’d first gotten on the plane. And as we hit the tarmac with a slight bump, I put my hand on Anthony’s arm reflexively.
To my surprise, he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “We’re not as different as you think, that’s all I’m going to say.”
I took a long look at him, but by the time I’d processed his words, we were being ushered to disembark.
“What do you mean—” I started to ask.
“Not now. Time to catch your Family.” Anthony nodded, as work mode flicked on in full force.
THE SECOND OUR PHONES regained service on the runway, Anthony began texting away. I stole a glance over his shoulder, surprised to see the message was written in Italian. In fact, it looked like his phone settings were also all in Italian. I wondered if that was for security reasons. Most Americans didn’t speak Italian, and even most people in the Family had only a basic understanding, at best.
Or was it something different? Had Anthony’s first language been Italian? I assumed he’d been born there...but that theory had never been confirmed. And of course now was not the time to ask.
Instead, I waited patiently, until Anthony put his hand on my leg as a sign to calm my jitters. I didn’t tell him, but his touch gave me goosebumps. Maybe he guessed, because he raised an eyebrow as an involuntary shiver shook my shoulders.
“They’re about an hour ahead of us,” Anthony said. “They deplaned and immediately got in a limo. They’re sitting in traffic on the Strip now, but my men haven’t been able to pin down where they’re going. It doesn’t look like they’ve made reservations at any of the major hotels, they’re not making any calls from their phones...right now the best we can do is tail them and see where they end up.”
“Did you check the Golden Nugget? That’s Joey’s favorite. Cheap things, like ninety-nine cent shrimp cocktails, three dollar beers, and girls dancing topless for free.” It was totally Joey.
“We’ve done a thorough check of the vicinity.” Anthony stood, awkwardly craning his neck under the overhead luggage rack, shooing me o
ut into the aisle after Blackberry woman.
“Alfonso, wait up,” I called ahead.
We trundled slowly through the plane, moving slower than an asthmatic grandpa on a walker. At one point, we paused for a small Asian man to try and retrieve an incredibly large bag from the overhead bin. How he’d gotten it up there in the first place, I had no idea, since he looked like he might not be able to see over the dashboard of a clown car.
There was a sudden halt in the de-boarding process. I bumped into Ms. Blackberry, muttered an apology, and craned my neck to see the holdup. It was Alfonso’s row this time. The row with the perfect family that had very nearly caused me to have a meltdown two hours before.
I tried to take a step backwards, but there wasn’t any wiggle room between the passengers who continued to crowd forward. Anthony was right behind me, however, and I wasn’t completely unhappy with the forced togetherness caused by the blockage.
My back pressed against his chest, his muscles long and lean, taut with the weight of the bag he was carrying for a mother with her hands full. The backs of my arms brushed against his chiseled abs, so defined I could wash clothes on them. If I was a different girl, I might have swooned.
Not to mention, my butt kept rubbing against the crotch of his suit—even when I tried to stand still I’d get bumped or jostled, causing me to accidentally sway a bit. My face started to flush and feel warm, and there seemed to be a little fire crackling away in my belly. A part of me wanted to turn around and kiss him, just go to town on him and disregard anyone watching.
Another part of me wanted to run far, far away and disappear until I cooled down and behaved myself like the adult I should be in a professional situation such as this.
We took another step forward, and I was distracted from my naughty thoughts by the moving traffic...until he dropped one hand from the suitcase’s handle and squeezed my butt.
I gave the smallest of yelps and turned around to glare at him, but he was staring straight forward as if he had no idea even who I was.
Fine, I thought. He wants to play this game?
I very casually leaned forward as if I was about to pick lint off Ms. Blackberry’s shoulder. In doing so, I arched my back, tossed my hair over my shoulder and pressed my derriere firmly against his crotch. I reached towards the floor as if I’d dropped something, and though I couldn’t hear anything audible, it was as if I could sense him groaning.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said as I stood up, casting him an innocent look through my lashes. “Sorry if I...bumped you.”
Anthony cleared his throat. He looked over my head. Maybe the family with the two babies up there wasn’t so perfect. It was sure taking them a heck of a long time to get off this plane.
I was getting antsy: we had places to be, criminals to catch, and a bridesmaid to rescue. Although, I really wasn’t complaining too hard. What was the difference if Joey and Vivian were allowed to have an extra five minutes of fun, as long as I got my five minutes of fun as well?
I was jerked from my daydream by Anthony’s hand snaking around my waist. He’d dropped the luggage to his side with his un-free arm, which conveniently blocked any visible action from the passengers behind him in line. Aha, privacy.
With his hand situated at the dangerous place between my navel and my lady bits, the small fire crackling away inside my belly burst into an inferno.
He pulled me close, my ass rubbing against him and he leaned forward, whispering in my ear. “Is this a game to you?”
His hot breath seemed to blow away all my thoughts so that no words could come out.
“What’s wrong with a little fun every now and then?” I whispered back.
He nipped my ear, his teeth teasing the sensitive cartilage, his tongue soft and warm. “Don’t sign up for anything you can’t handle, Doll.”
Ms. Blackberry turned around just then as if she were going to ask about the weather. Upon seeing our intimate conversation, she turned forward once more, but the moment was over.
Anthony slipped his hand away with a light snap of the back of my pants and heaved the luggage to his shoulder once more.
Thankfully we started moving again. A necessary development, at least if I wanted to prevent myself from bursting into flames faster than a phoenix.
We had one last stop in our exit strategy, thanks to Ms. Blackberry struggling to roll her fat suitcase between the aisles. As she got stuck for the third time, I was once again pressed backwards into Anthony, this time as I’d been turned sideways in the aisle. My nose banged into his collarbone and my knees crumpled a bit as I leaned into him.
He righted me with his spare hand and helped me forward. But as I gained my footing, Ms. Blackberry yanked her bag and toppled into me, creating a domino effect, which stopped with Anthony’s solid mass.
“Ow...” I grumbled, turning to Anthony as the lady got herself sorted out and on her feet. “Your gun got me right in the ass.”
“Doll. They don’t allow guns on planes.”
I wasn’t looking at Anthony as he spoke, but my shoulders stiffened and I was sure he could sense my blushing cheeks.
The Blackberry woman fanned herself as she hurried down the aisle, now carrying the bag sideways in one hand. “Oh, lordy.”
I rolled my eyes, though nobody could see it.
Of course they didn’t allow guns on planes.
“EVERYONE’S FLIGHT WAS okay?” I asked, as the five of us regrouped. Before anyone could nod, I clapped my hands. “Excellent. Anthony, where to?”
“We have a car.”
Our troupe awkwardly walk-jogged through the airport to the “arrivals” sign, where a short, burly man with a sleeve of tattoos handed Anthony a ring of keys to a shiny black Escalade. They exchanged a few short sentences with each other in an Italian dialect I really didn’t understand, and then we piled into the car.
“Which casino are we going to first?” Alfonso piped up for the first time since the flight.
“You’re too young for casinos,” I said. “Plus, you step even one toe in a place like that, you’re in trouble. Meg’s a cop, remember? She’ll arrest you.”
Meg nodded. “Or I’ll shoot you. I haven’t shot anybody for a while, and that trigger finger gets itchy sometimes. You know how it is.”
Meg kicked the back of Anthony’s seat as if hoping he’d cement her statement with his own agreement.
Instead, he gritted his teeth. “We still don’t know where they’re going. They’re driving somewhere, away from the Strip. The only good thing about that is we can skirt the traffic. If they headed to the Bellagio, we would’ve been sitting in that mess for over an hour.”
“Where could they be going?” I mused aloud.
“Yeah, it’s kind of like one of those jokes, you know?” Meg guffawed. “A priest, a bride, an ex-groom, and a kidnapped maid of honor walk into a bar...” And then it hit me.
“They’re going to a wedding chapel!” I turned to Anthony. “The Love Shack.”
Chapter 12
“LEFT. RIGHT. YOUR OTHER one. Just...drive over the curb. We’re here. Park anywhere.” Reading maps, even on my phone, was still not one of my fortes. The parking lot I’d directed Anthony to was dirty and empty, save for a single car that was parked in the far, dusty corner. That poor vehicle looked like it’d been driven to Mars and back, by way of a mudslide.
A short, white picket fence blocked absolutely nobody from entering the front yard of the chapel, and the white front steps had almost no paint left on them. A crooked sign hung from the front door, the letters in bold, pink, sparkly letters that screamed, MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES HERE. NO APOINTMENTS NECESSARY.
I wasn’t Miss Attention-to-Detail, but I still felt an insane desire to go draw in the appropriate number of P’s on the entrance sign.
“How’d you know this would be the gem of a chapel that Vivian picked?” Meg asked.
I hesitated to answer, only because I was debating whether or not Meg had used the word gem sarcastically. D
eciding she’d meant it earnestly, I scrunched my nose. “She told me a long time ago, back when she was supposed to be getting married to Joey. She said that she’d known she and Joey were destined to be married here the second she set eyes on it. Mostly because of the pink letters. They matched her Jeep. So then she matched her wedding invitations. Everything was pink.”
“Vivian. Always classy as shit.” Meg shook her head, a jealous twinge crossing her eyes. “I wish I had half her style.”
“Do you, though? Really?” Clay asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wouldn’t go putting Vivian on a pedestal.”
Meg opened her mouth, probably to defend Vivian, but Anthony interrupted. “Inside before they arrive. According to my guys, they’ll be here soon. I’ll move the car around back so they can’t see it from the road.”
Once I’d deduced where Vivian was headed, we’d been able to fly through the backstreets to get here. Vivian, Joey, and company were stuck in traffic, the driver most likely taking the slowest possible route in an effort to squeeze a few extra pennies out of their pockets.
If Anthony’s buddies were right, we had about eight minutes until they arrived.
We’d be waiting—a nice, little surprise greeting party. It’d really make the reception more interesting. The idea was to let them enter thinking they’d be exchanging rings, while in reality they’d be leaving clasped in a different set of rings.
In layman’s terms, handcuffs.
We entered the church, and there was a tiny old man tinkering about, watering plants. He gave us a large, cheery grin the moment we entered.
“Hi, ya’ll. Welcome to the Chapel of Love, a-k-a the Love Shack, where we wed winners! Marriages guaranteed to last the night.” He winked, sharing a joke with himself.
When nobody laughed, he cleared his throat. “Vivian, I assume?”
I flinched as he held a hand in my direction. “Nope.”
The tiny old man looked towards Meg.
“Vivian?” he squeaked hesitantly.
“Not me,” Meg said boisterously. “But I can be if you wanna convince that one to marry me.”
