Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Okay. I’m… okay.”
“It was actually…”
“Nope. No. I’m cutting you off there,” I said with the first genuine smile I’d felt all day. “I really don’t need to put penises to faces of men I’ve known. That came out wrong,” I said when she laughed. “But, ah, no, that’s not the problem,” I told her.
I’d felt his hardness pressing against me.
Long and thick and making me ache to feel him fill me.
“Then that does seem pretty odd,” she agreed. “I do know that he feels guilty for what happened to you.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I tried to explain to him that there is nothing to feel guilty about. He won’t accept that, it seems. I mean, maybe the cameras system is the end of it, though. What?” I asked when her gaze slipped down for a second too long.
“It’s just… have you noticed anything about all the new customers the past two days?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“About how they all kind of… look alike?” she asked.
I usually did notice the small details like that. But I’d been so overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in and out all day that I was just trying to focus on their orders and remembering to small talk them a little bit that their looks just… weren’t sticking in my mind.
“What do you mean?”
“I think they’re all related to Nino, darling. And they’re likely also who have been dropping off all those wonderful meals at your door.”
As soon as she said it, it all clicked.
I mean, his cousin had been there. And she did have that same dark hair and somewhat olive skin. Different, but similar.
The more I thought about it, the more it was all clicking into place. Even the ones who didn’t have dark hair or olive skin, they all… knew each other.
I guess, at the time, I’d brushed it off at being a tight community or something.
But, no.
It was a family.
An enormous, loud, crazy family.
Like Nino had told me about.
“Oh.”
The sound exhaled out of me, long and weighty.
“My sweet girl,” my mom said, interrupting my swirling thoughts. “I’m afraid that you and Nino are falling into an ugly trap.”
“What?” I asked, actually jolting a bit at her words, at the possibility that I’d somehow screwed things up before they’d even really begun.
“Relationships might be about give-and-take, but they aren’t about a scorecard. I can see you trying to drop things into columns. He paid for the security system, he helped you work yesterday, he brought you gifts and orgasms…”
“Mom,” I grumbled, feeling my cheeks warm.
“Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes with a smile. “The thing is, it isn’t about how much he’s given you, or you’ve given him—“
“I haven’t given him anything,” I said, shaking my head.
“Oh, honey, that’s not how he’s looking at it. He, and his grateful family, think you’ve given him his life.”
“I don’t want someone who wants to be around only because I maybe shoved them out of the way of a bullet. Out of pure instinct, I might add.”
My mom reached out, stroking a hand down my cheek.
“My sweet girl, no man who has ever seen this beautiful face, or has felt the light of your sunny disposition beaming on them, has ever only wanted you for your human shield potential.”
The snorting laugh that escaped me felt like a balm over fresh, stinging wounds.
I’d never felt so unsure around a man before. I think that was why I was obsessively thinking about Nino. He threw me off balance. He made me rethink things I’d always been so certain of. About men and women. About personal and sexual dynamics between them.
“You’re going to see him again, my darling girl,” my mom said, voice soft.
“You can’t know that.”
“I know you,” she said, getting up. “And that is enough for me to know he will be back.”
“If that were true, then every man I have ever known would have shown up again.”
She turned back at that.
“And I bet you they would have. If you had stayed put for any length of time. I still get friend requests from past flames,” she told me. “And long, rambling love messages,” she added. “And I am not nearly as wonderful as you.”
“That is the silliest thing I have ever heard,” I told her. “You are the most amazing person I have ever met.”
And I wasn’t just saying that because she was my mom.
She was interesting and cultured, kind and adventurous, wise but understanding. And, well, the food alone was enough to have you falling half in love with her.
“If you just give me a few minutes, I will take a little break to drive you home,” she told me.
“I can hang out here. Get some things done,” I said, shaking off her offer, even if I did want more than anything to go home. But I wanted to go home to wallow. Which I could not allow.