“Okay. Tell me.” Dottie didn’t look up from the puzzle. Manny told her what had happened the day before—all of it, starting with the beach and ending with her new door. Dottie let her talk and didn’t interrupt even once, though she did stop working the puzzle and focus completely on Manny around the time when Luca was cuffed to the bed.
When she was done, Manny said, “He’s really angry, and sad. And I think I fucked it up bad. But he’s wrong. He’s not in love with me. He can’t be. He wants things he can’t have from me.”
“Oh, Manny, babe. I told you to go slow. Instead, you jumped on the express train.”
“I don’t know what that means, Dottie. It just…happened. At the speed it wanted to happen. I guess. How could I have slowed it down?”
Her mother smiled and folded her hands. “You’re right. That was bad advice on my part. Bad to give to you, at least. He’s the one who needed that advice. Do you know why he’s mad, Manny?”
“Because he can’t touch me.”
“Well. From what you’re saying, it sounds like he’s frustrated about that, yes. And since it hasn’t been much more than a week, I think that’s a problem. But I think he’s mad right now because you raped him.”
Manny didn’t know if her mother could have said anything to shock her more. “Please! That’s stupid. He’s enormous, like a hundred times my size. And, you know. A guy. He’s wicked macho. It’s kind of ridiculous how macho he is, actually.”
“And he let you…” Dottie swallowed and took a breath. “And he let you handcuff him to his bed.” She laughed softly and muttered, “Wow.” After another breath, she went on. “No means no, right?”
“But that’s for women.”
“Why?”
“Because…because…”
“No means no, Manny. Whoever says it. No means no.”
“But I didn’t mean…but that’s…but…” She felt dizzy. Everything in her head was turning upside down and dumping out. “Dottie, I…”
“Manny, breathe. Look at me. Come on, babe. Breathe.” Manny locked eyes with her mother and listened to the deep rhythm of Dottie’s breath until she could find that for herself. “Do you need a pill?”
She shook her head. What with Luca, and Gigi, and Dmitri, and the total lack of sleep last night, if she took any more Xanax, she was going to end up in a coma. “Juice?”
Dottie grinned. “Coming right up. Fresh squeezed this morning, even. Your father bought a fancy new juicer and really went to town.”
She went into the kitchen and came back with two tumblers of orange juice.
Manny drank more than half of her glass right away. When she was calmer, she whispered, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Honestly, babe, there might not be anything you can do. But nothing ever got fixed without the truth. So talk to him, if you can. Apologize, because what you did was wrong, and be honest with him.” Dottie put her elbows on the table and leaned in toward Manny. “If you and Luca fix this, then we need to meet him, Manny. Soon. Maybe we can help him understand some things. Do you understand?”
The Fodor’s Guide to Manny Timko, edited by Adam and Dottie Timko, lifelong travelers. Manny understood. “Yes. Okay. If…if he isn’t done with me.”
Dottie smiled, her eyes sparkling wetly. “I love you, my sweet girl. It’s gonna be okay.”
oOo
When she got back to Quiet Cove that evening, she went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there. She went to her apartment, but he wasn’t there. She checked the lot by Quinn’s—no. And he wasn’t picking up her calls.
She found him at the gym. Near dark on a Sunday, on a holiday weekend, the place was almost empty. It still smelled like ass, but otherwise, she kind of liked it, with the lights on, and the windows dark, a couple of guys lifting weights, a guy behind a ratty desk near the door, and Luca, beating the shit out of a huge, black bag hanging from the ceiling.
The guy behind the desk gave her a narrow look but must have recognized her from the other night, because he didn’t stop her from coming in. She stopped about ten feet from Luca. He was facing away from her, and for a lingering moment, she simply watched his beautiful, broad back flex and roll as he punched the bag again and again and again.
He moved in an arc around the bag but never far enough that he saw her. Finally, she spoke up. “That looks fun.”
He stopped immediately and grabbed the bag, then turned to face her. His right cheek was red and swollen.
“Did the bag hit you back?”
“No. My brother did. What do you want?”
She went to him, stopping less than a foot away, so she had to crane her neck to look into his eyes. His breath was heavy from the punching, and his whole body was wet with sweat. She liked it.
“Did I…” What an awful thing she had to ask. How awful that she had to ask it at all. “Did I rape you?”
He didn’t answer. Or move. He just stood there, one gloved hand on the heavy bag, staring down at her.
Normally, Manny needed words to understand what people were thinking. But she understood Luca. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What do you want, Manny?”
She liked it when he called her ‘little bit,’ or just ‘bit.’ She wasn’t sure why, because it was kind of stupid, but she did. Like it was something that was just for them. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d called her that, though. Before his apartment, maybe.
“I want to learn how to love you. But I need time to learn.”
He shifted then, his posture softening a little, and his hand dropped from the bag. “How? How do you learn something like that?”
“I don’t know. But…” She stopped, because she was afraid if she said it out loud, she’d lose her nerve. Picking up his gloved hands, she stepped right up to his body and brought his hands around to her back. Then she slid her own hands up his arms, his wonderful, strong arms. She was too short to do what she was trying to do without his help, and so far he wasn’t moving, though his eyes were dark and, like, fierce. His brow was furrowed.
“I’m trying to let you hold me, Luca. I need your help, though.”
“But…spiders.”
They were there already, but she was fighting them off. She had to do this often in her life. She’d had to do it meeting his family. She had to do it when she went to the doctor or the dentist. All of the touches that happened during a normal life that people hardly thought about, Manny remembered all of them, because they all came with the creepy crawlies. But she managed not to have screaming psychotic breaks in the middle of the grocery, because she knew how to guard herself.
Luca was worth some spiders, but he needed to get with the plan, because she could only fight them off for so long.
“I’m trying, too. You have to let me try.”
He bent forward, his arms tightening around her, and he lifted her straight up off the floor, tucking his face into the crook of her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his neck and head and held on, breathing. There was a big digital clock on the wall, its red numerals about six inches high. When he picked her up, it read 8:31:17.
It didn’t feel good. Her skin crawled and crawled, and the thought that she was trapped, restrained, controlled wormed into her mind, a whisper at first, but it would soon be a scream.
But it did feel good, too. A little. He was so still, holding her so tight, his face against her throat, and she could sense how much it meant to him. That felt good.
She toughed it out until she was on the brink of losing it. Then she whispered, “Turbulence,” and he set her down immediately. It helped a lot to know that he’d do that, let her go when she asked.
She hadn’t done the same for him.
The clock behind him read 8:31:28. Eleven seconds. Not much of a start, but a start nonetheless.
He looked happy, she thought. His expression was worlds more friendly than the one he’d first turned on her. “Thank you, bit.”
She grinned, inordinately
pleased to hear that three-letter word. Maybe she had fixed it. With an apology and the truth. Dottie had it going on. “Can you teach me to do that?”
He cocked his head. “What? The bag?”
“Yeah. It looks wicked cool.”
He looked her up and down. She was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and her black Chucks. “It’s not strictly kosher, but we can play around a little. Nobody’s around who’d care. I’d need to tape your hands up. Can you be okay with that?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Okay, hold on.” He stripped his own gloves off and dropped them on his gym bag, then went to the desk. When he came back, he had a pack of new gloves.
“This is the smallest they got. They’ll do for now. Have a seat.” She sat next to his gym bag, and he squatted in front of her, digging a roll of white tape out of the bag. Then he picked up her hand. His hands were still taped, wrapped as if he’d sprained his wrists.
“If this is something you like doing, I can show you how to tape without help. What you’re doing is protecting your knuckles and bracing your wrists.” He talked as he wrapped, giving her instructions about taping and then about hitting the bag, and Manny focused on his words, willing herself to stay calm. After a while, she found a good balance and found herself enjoying the sight of his hands on hers.
When her hands were taped, he slipped the gloves on and fastened them around her wrists. “Okay, little bit. You want to get some aggression out?”
She was excited, and when she nodded and grinned, he laughed, tossing his head back. A good sound.
They went to the bag, and he stood on the other side of it, holding it in his hands. “Okay, remember—you’re not trying to push the bag around. Let your hand snap back. Don’t lean in. Keep your own feet, and keep them moving, but don’t bounce around like some hyper bunny or something. Just be quick. Okay, show me what you got.”
Punching that bag was about the most badass fun Manny had ever had. Luca was bossy, constantly telling her to get her hands up or move faster or stop pushing, but when she told him to shut the fuck up and let her play, he laughed and nodded.
She’d worked up a sweat when Luca said, “Okay, okay. That’s enough. You’re not gonna be able to move your arms in the morning if you keep going.”
He nodded toward the bench, and Manny sat down and let him take off the gloves and untape her hands. This time, she barely got spiders at all. It was like she was too worn out for spiders.
Again, while he worked on her hands, he talked. “If you liked that, I’ll get you signed up in here. You need to sign a waiver, but I’ll take care of the rest. We’ll get you some gear that fits, and you can come with me when I train the Beav.” He stopped, holding her half-taped hand in both of his. “I don’t want you here without me, though. You got it? This is not a place for you without me. Some of the guys who train here are not guys I want around you. We clear?”
“Yeah. Sufficiently scared, sir.”
“Good.” He finished her hands, then untaped his, and she took the old tape and threw it away. He pulled a t-shirt on and packed up his bag. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Come on, we’ll get some burgers.” She stood, and he asked, “Can I hug you again?”
Though she wanted to say yes, and she intended to say yes, she was afraid, and she hesitated. He smiled. “It’s okay, bit. Just lay one on me.”
He bent down, and she kissed him. He kissed her back, and she knew they were okay. Not fixed, maybe. But on the mend.
~ 11 ~
“What year? Mid-sixties?” Luca stood next to Manny’s father in his garage, holding a beer and looking over a cherry old two-door Ford, dark green with a white hardtop.
“Good, yeah. 1965 Galaxie 500.”
Noting the scoop, Luca gestured toward the front of the car. “What’s it running?”
Adam smiled and popped the hood, displaying a big, gleaming engine. “Thunderbird High Performance, 425, four speed. Not original, but to factory specs.”
“Wicked. You do all the work yourself?”
“Yeah. Bringing it back from a rusty shell. Been working on it about twenty years, when I’ve got the time and money. Still have the interior to do.” He closed the hood. “Pagano—I know that name.”
Luca kept the beat of the conversation; he’d been waiting for that hammer to drop. “Yeah, most do. I’m not related to every Pagano in Rhode Island. But it’s my uncles who run Pagano Brothers Shipping. You’re thinking of them, not me. I work construction with my pop.” For the most part, that was true. Whatever he was doing with Anthony for the Uncles was an inadvertent and unavoidable one-time trip into that world.
Only two days after the surreal hell that had been the night of the Fourth and then the day after that, Luca was at Manny’s parents’ house for dinner. He’d never met a girl’s parents before, not like this, not as ‘her guy,’ and he didn’t know what the fuck he was supposed to do. Because he was used to the way people generally reacted upon meeting him, he knew that people assumed he was an asshole. Maybe it was his build, or maybe it was his fighter’s nose, or maybe it was the whole package, but men tended to get defensive, and women got fluttery—out of fear or interest, depending on their proclivities. But everybody expected him to be an asshole.
He wasn’t the kind of guy a girl brought home to Daddy.
Yet here he was. And Adam Timko was definitely puffed up. He looked like he’d have given him a run if he were thirty years younger. He looked he’d try his damnedest to fuck him up now, even though Luca could drop him with one swing. Maybe two.
Both of her parents had been standing on the front porch when Luca parked. Her mom, Dottie, had smiled and greeted him warmly, making the kind of chatter Luca thought of as motherly, asking about the traffic, thanking him for coming, offering him a drink, apologizing that dinner was going to be a little late, saying she hoped he liked zucchini, because she was bringing in a bumper crop this summer. Luca liked her. She was little, like Manny—they looked a lot alike, actually—but she was sweet and friendly and unguarded. None of that described Manny in her default setting.
Adam had simply nodded and shaken his hand, letting his wife take the burden of the small talk. And then suddenly, deftly, Luca and Manny had been separated, and Luca had found himself out here with her father.
There were a lot of things that could be used as weapons hanging neatly on pegboards around the garage. Luca took some comfort in the big Ford taking up a lot of the space—he didn’t think Adam would want to risk fucking up the car he’d been working so hard on.
Now Adam drained his beer and leaned back against his workbench. He was a big guy, leaning a little toward fat, but still obviously a guy who’d worked hard and with his body for most of his life. He was an electrician, and Luca was a carpenter, so there was some hope that they’d have ground between them on which they could build at least something civil.
Of course, Manny was between them, too, and her father knew way too goddamn much about what was going on with them. Way too much. Maybe everything, which was fucking disconcerting.
While he was standing yet in front of the Ford, Adam said, “I don’t want to play around, Luca, so I’m just gonna ask. What are you doing with my girl?”
“Sir?” Luca had a chant going in the back of his head: Remember to call him sir, remember to call him sir.
“If you’re stupid, get out. If you’re playing stupid, fucking stop it or get out. You know what I’m asking.”
Definitely puffed up. “Not that easy a question to answer, sir. I’m…being with her. We’re figuring it out.”
“Why?”
“Because I like her. She likes me.”
“What do you know about her?”
He wondered if all fathers were this direct and challenging, or if Manny’s circumstances required more hostility than usual. Either way, Luca was determined to be cool. “You mean about the RAD? She told me some stuff. She’s upfront about all that. I looked
some other stuff up. I read a lot online. So I think I understand.”
Adam’s laugh was steeped in derision. “You don’t understand shit, boy. I’m her father and I don’t understand it all. We can’t understand a mind like hers.”
“Okay, then. I want to. I’m trying. I don’t have another answer for you, sir. I like her. More than that. Don’t you want her to have that?”
“Watch your mouth, boy. Of course I want her to have that. But I don’t want her heart broken. Her heart is new and fragile. She’s only starting to use it. And you could destroy years of hard work—her hard work and ours.” He sighed and bent down, opening a small fridge under his work bench and pulling out two fresh bottles of beer. He tossed one to Luca. “I love that girl. I love her like air. I’m proud of how she’s grown. But when I look at her I see a little girl. She is a little girl. It doesn’t matter how long she’s been on this earth. I was there when she was really born, and it was only about twelve-thirteen years ago. I look at you and see a grown man who lives a rough life. Scarred hands, bent nose, bruised face—you’re not a peaceful guy, are you?”
Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2) Page 15