Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2)

by Susan Fanetti

  Kevin stepped into her path as she was leaving the storage room that was serving as some kind of half-assed dressing room or something. He smiled, and she made herself smile back.

  “Congratulations, Kev. Your sticks were on fire tonight.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. Yeah. I felt good. Hey, Manny—you know we wouldn’t be here without you, right? I mean, we wouldn’t’ve even got off our asses to register for this Battle thing without you. We owe all this to you. However far we get, we’ll only get that far because you were behind us, kicking our asses.”

  She shrugged. She knew it was true, but it felt weird to hear him say it. “I guess.”

  “I know. I’m sorry about Gigi.”

  “Yeah. I gotta go, Kev. I’ll see you.”

  oOo

  By the time Manny got back to Quiet Cove, the leaden depression had gained another, heavier layer. Anxiety was easier to deal with, at least for her. Anxiety made a frontal assault, barreling into her like a bull. She saw it coming, and she wanted to confront it, to control it, to overcome it. But when depression took her over, usually after long stretches of continuously high anxiety, it stole up behind her and was on her before she knew it. And then it was hard to care about anything. It was hard to care even enough to do the things she could do to try to make it stop. It was especially hard to care about that.

  She parked her little Honda in front of her building and sat there. She didn’t want to go in. She didn’t want to exert the effort to climb the stairs into the building and then the stairs to the second floor. She didn’t want to be in her apartment. She didn’t want to be alone, not even with all of her things.

  For several minutes, she sat where she was, behind the wheel, and didn’t even think. Then one thought entered her head, and she started her car and pulled down the street.

  oOo

  Luca answered his door wearing nothing but a pair of open jeans. His eyes were barely slits, heavy with sleep. It was after two in the morning, and he rose every day before dawn. He’d probably been asleep for a few hours, at least.

  “Hey, little bit. You okay?”

  She stepped up to him and leaned her forehead on his bare chest. “No.”

  He stood stiffly for a second, then pushed his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry about today.”

  “I know. I don’t want to talk. I’m tired of words.” Her brain was so much chaos that there were no words left in the din.

  “Okay. What can I do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to be alone.” She sighed. “I’m so tired. Of everything.”

  “Come in, bit.” He stepped back, and she slumped into his sad, barren apartment. For a few seconds, they both just stood in his living room. Then he said, “I have to get ready for work in a couple of hours, but how about this—would you lay your head on my lap and try to sleep on the sofa? I’ve got a blanket that’s kind of like fake fur. You’ll like it.”

  A little thread of relief eased into her head, and she nodded. “That sounds good. But how will you sleep?”

  “Forget about it. I’ll shove a pillow behind my head and be fine. I can sleep anywhere.”

  Manny let him make up a kind of bed for her, under a grey fake-fur cover, with his thigh as her pillow. He set a pillow on the back of the sofa, against the bare, brown wall, and leaned back.

  And in that way, they slept together for the first time.

  13

  Luca hated clubs. Really hated them. They were crowded and loud and stuffed to the rafters with assholes, and he wouldn’t have been surprised at all if Hell itself turned out to be an underground club.

  He went out most nights—or he had before Manny—but he preferred a bar. A pub. A good juke with some real rock music, good beer on tap, a pool table or two, maybe darts.

  Quinn’s. Quinn’s was what he liked, not this claustrophobic black cellar with eight-foot ceiling clearance and people jumping around like morons. And Manny thought he was compensating for something? If anybody was fronting, it was all the shitheads here with the black makeup and ‘edgy’ hair coated in product and all the metal and ink everywhere—or the other shitheads in their tight black jeans and their fucking porkpies. What the fuck?

  He couldn’t believe that Manny liked it here, but she did. As he watched her navigate this weird world, he began to understand it a little, he thought. There was so much going on, everything was so loud and aggressive, that she could just melt in. This world was white noise to her. Though she was touched constantly as they moved through the crowd, none of the touches mattered. Like white noise, contact became almost imperceptible after a while.

  Fierce Ferret—a stupid name for a band that played stupid music, in Luca’s humble, and unstated, opinion—had made it to the semifinal round of the Battle of the Bands. They were going up tonight against an all-girl band that Luca had to admit he’d noticed. They were all cute, and all dressed to accentuate their positives. He had no idea if they were a better band than Ferret, but they were much better to look at.

  He was keeping that opinion to himself, too.

  Luca had never come to a gig with Manny. It wasn’t his scene at all, and she didn’t really want him there, anyway. But for the past couple of weeks, she’d been depressed. He was busy with work and training Anthony, and she was busy with work and the band, and they were only catching a couple of hours a day together, if that. She was drawing more and more inward, getting quieter and less interested in things. Less feisty and argumentative, too. He was worried. He’d talked to her mom about it, and she had given him some advice.

  First, she’d explained that Manny could fall into a pretty deep depression after a long period of sustained stress. She hadn’t said the next part outright, but he’d heard it nonetheless: that was his fault. Being in a relationship with him was, for Manny, a long period of sustained stress. Awesome. He blamed the band drama, too, but he knew that learning how to be with him was causing her the most stress.

  The primary advice Dottie had then given him was to keep an eye on her without her thinking she was being monitored.

  Easier said than done.

  He didn’t like her getting too far from home right now, not on her own, and this gig was in New Haven, almost two hours away. He supposed, technically, she wasn’t on her own tonight, since her brother and his band were here, but Manny still wasn’t speaking much to Dmitri, and she seemed to be almost at all-out war with the little bassist, Gigi. Those two made a whole new, master level to the saying ‘if looks could kill.’

  Gigi had given him a few strange looks that Luca had interpreted as attempts to be sultry. He didn’t know if Manny had seen, or if she would have even recognized the attempt, but they pissed him off. He made a point not to look her way.

  The night started back in a dank, smelly room that Luca guessed was supposed to be a dressing room or something. They ate takeout from a Thai place down the street and the band smoked a couple of bowls and tossed back some shots and some beer. Manny stuck with her large soda from the restaurant, and Luca kept to bottled water. When she muttered that she needed to find a toilet, he went with her, despite her protest that she hadn’t lost the ability to pee on her own. He stood outside the door and waited.

  God, he hated this place. It was just skanky as hell.

  When she was done, they went back to the ‘dressing room,’ and Manny finished her soda. When Ferret went on stage, Manny and Luca went out into the crowd. She wanted to be in the middle of the reaction, whatever it was.

  She didn’t want to be too close to the stage, because she wouldn’t be able to see what she wanted to see, so they stayed back near the bar.

  The music sucked, as far as Luca was concerned. Carlo liked this shit, but it had never been Luca’s thing. He liked Zeppelin. Rush. The Who. Queen. Aerosmith before Steve Tyler lost his mind. But Manny was into it, and she was smiling. She looked happier than she had for a while. So he focused on her beautiful, smiling face, and the way her icy blue eyes sparkled with pride for
her brother, even though they weren’t speaking.

  About three songs into their set, Manny’s arm snaked around his waist. That was unusual, but not unheard of. She could and did touch him. He was glad of it, and he willed his own arms to be still. Even now, almost two months since they’d started up together, he had to stop himself from reaching out to her.

  By the end of that third song, she had her hand under his t-shirt, and that was unheard of, out in public. She never touched him like this even in private, in fact, unless they were having sex. And then she turned to face him and pushed her other hand under his shirt as well. Her fingers were moving all over his belly and chest. Holy Christ.

  The club was loud, so he bent down and spoke directly into her ear. “Manny? What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I feel weird.” She grinned. “You feel great.”

  She turned her head to his and brushed her cheek over his beard. Something was wrong.

  Again he spoke at her ear. “Did you take something, bit? Are you high?”

  “No! I can’t! Everything fucks with my meds!” But as she denied it, she pressed more closely to him, her hands going around to his back. His cock was painfully hard. Nearly two months together, and she’d never touched him with this kind of easy enthusiasm.

  He put his hands around her face, and she didn’t jump or hiss. Her eyes rolled back and her lids fluttered closed. She liked it. Oh, something was definitely wrong.

  “Open your eyes, Manny. Look at me. Right now.”

  She did, smiling up at him. There was nothing but a sliver of blue around huge black pupils. She was high as a kite. What had she taken? When? He’d been with her the whole fucking night.

  “What did you take, Manny? Did you take E?” He’d tried it once years ago, with a chick. The sex had been off the charts intense, but the comedown had sucked like nobody’s business. The weird, frenzied need had not been worth the down the next day.

  The down. He could still remember the depth of the depression he’d felt the next day, like he’d used up every good feeling in him the night before and was left with nothing but black. Fuck. Manny was already depressed. Fuck.

  “No—I told you. I can’t take anything. I just feel good. I feel like I want your hands on me. I really do.” Her brow creased for a moment. “But that’s weird. That’s weird, right?”

  “Yeah. You’re high. If you didn’t take anything on purpose, you got dosed. Come on. I’m taking you home right the fuck now.” He grabbed her hand—it felt weird beyond words to be able to hold her and not feel her skin turn to stone under his touch—and began to pull her to the door.

  She held back. “No, I can’t! I have to be here for Dimi. It’s the semifinals!”

  “He’ll understand, bit. You’re not safe. We need to get you someplace safe.” What would Manny be like on E? How would it fuck with her meds? Should he take her to the ER? No—that would freak her out more than anything. As long as she was conscious and coherent, the ER was the wrong place for her. Home. Fuck, why couldn’t this gig be closer?

  When she still held back, he picked her up and carried her out of the club. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder, sucking lightly on his neck. She was in his arms, relaxed and happy about it.

  It was the best damn feeling. He hoped the cost wouldn’t be too high.

  oOo

  She fully engaged on the drive back, and she seemed to be reacting like everybody else he’d ever seen on Ecstasy: relaxed, happy, and horny as hell. Sitting in the passenger seat, she turned the stereo on and sang along to Van Halen, which she usually hated. Listening to her, he grinned, thinking of the rant she’d once done about his musical taste—how he was a cliché, and she was surprised that he didn’t have a mullet and tool around town in muscle shirts, driving a Firebird with a T-top.

  He might or might not have once had a small party in the back. Briefly. In high school. He might or might not have been driving an IROC-Z at the time. Manny did not need to know these things.

  But someday, he was going to remind her that she knew every single word to ‘Right Now’—and did a mean Alex on the air drums, too.

  When she tired of singing, she watched the light from the streetlights play over her skin. She massaged the leather of the seat. And she tried to get on his lap over and over again.

  When she couldn’t get him to fuck her while he drove, she masturbated, sitting right next to him, her hands moving like crazy, making a lot more noise than she usually did when she came. It was amazing. He gripped the wheel and focused on the road and died a little inside. This was the Manny that was locked away from him, this free, happy girl who wanted his touch so badly she was going to cause them to wreck on the highway.

  When he finally pulled up at her place—he’d thought about going to his place, where there was less crap for her to get into, but decided she needed to be somewhere comfortable when she came down from this—she lolled in the seat until he came around and opened her door. Then she’d climbed onto him, wrapping her arms and legs around him and kissing him—deeply, her tongue tangling with his as she ground her hips on his desperate cock.

  Fuck!

  She had not done this on purpose. This had not been something she’d tried to do. This had been done to her. He couldn’t take advantage of it. No matter how much she wanted it now, no matter how much she was now happily giving him every damn thing he’d wanted from her for weeks, he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  But he wasn’t that great a guy. He was a dog, really. And she was grinding on him, begging him with little whispers against his lips, please, please, please.

  He caved and turned, putting her against the side of his truck, leaning into her—God, just that felt fucking fantastic, being able to press his weight against her—and he pushed a hand up under her top and got hold of a breast. He moaned with relief and arousal. A thick tension gave way in his chest. Fuck, to touch her like this.

  She tore her mouth free of his with a cry, and at first he thought he’d pushed her too far, but then she moaned and whispered, “Oh my God. Oh my God that feels good. No one’s ever touched me, no one’s ever touched me, no one’s ever…”

  When she kissed him again, her lips tasted like salt. She was crying. He’d never seen her cry.

  But he couldn’t do this. She’d been dosed. None of this was her choice. He lifted her away from the truck and carried her to her apartment, wrapped around him as tightly as she could get.

  “Come on, bit. I need to put you to bed.”

  “Yeah. I want to go to bed. Fuck me in my bed.”

  Motherfucking hell.

  “I think we’ll be better off if you just sleep.” They were at her door. The door he’d installed. “Hey—gimme your keys.”

  “I don’t have my keys. There’s one under the mat.”

  “Damn, bit. That’s fucking dangerous.” He tried to set her down, but she wouldn’t let him go. He loved that she wouldn’t let him go. So he bent over with her in his arms and flipped over the cheap little rug she had in front of her door. There was her key, right where anybody would look for it. Shit.

  Anybody but him, apparently. Maybe he should have checked under the mat before he’d broken her door down in the first place.

  As he got them into her apartment, she worked her hand into his jeans and grabbed hold of his cock. “God, you’re so hard. I love your cock so much. I want it in me. I need it.”

  “Manny, you’re killing me.” He took hold of her wrist and pulled her hand out. “Come on. Bedtime.”

  She smiled sweetly at him and tucked her head under his chin, sucking on his throat. He closed his eyes and just stood there. She was in his arms. She wanted to be there. It was what he’d wanted more than almost anything since the first night they’d been together. And he was about to put her down and walk the fuck away.

  He crossed the room and went through the ridiculous, hippie bead curtain thing that was her bedroom door. He’d never been in her bedroom b
efore. He’d never even looked past the curtain. He’d seen enough through the beds on his way to her bathroom to know that her bedroom was even more chaotic than the rest of her place, and he hadn’t been in that much of a hurry to see any more.

  There was a small lamp on a bedside table, with a beaded shade and a ceramic elephant for the base. It was on, making a bluish glow in the room. Her bed was an old, wrought iron thing that had once been painted light pink. The walls and surfaces were covered with crap, like they were in the rest of the apartment. There was a furry, neon green rug on the floor. Her comforter was wildly floral. In this room, on the ceiling, she’d pinned scarves or something; they bowed like full sails and covered the ceiling completely.

  There were two disco balls hanging from the ceiling, too. He didn’t see them until he flipped the wall switch and turned on the plain, glass globe overhead light, and the room lit up with sparkles.