Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2)

by Susan Fanetti

  Apparently, she should have mentioned Luca to her shrink. But she’d only had one session with her since they were serious, and she just hadn’t wanted to deconstruct what she and Luca had. She talked to Dottie. It had felt like enough. But maybe not.

  Of the actual event that had caused all the drama, Manny remembered only snatches. Being at the club. Sitting in back with Luca and the band, eating crappy Thai takeout. Going out into the crowd while Ferret was on. Lights and sound and color. Texture.

  Waking up feeling like her head had already exploded and not knowing why.

  Blood. She had an image of sitting in blood, but it was out of context.

  Also out of context: random, deeply intense sensations. Luca’s weight on her. His hand between her legs. On her tit. His mouth on her. His breath heavy at her ear.

  She could remember wanting all of that. She could remember the desire. She could remember that it had felt amazing. But something got crossed in the memory, and what came out in the reliving were big, hairy spiders. As soon as she’d start to remember how good it had felt to have his hands on her, revulsion would come over her, and she’d shake uncontrollably, a wave a nausea rolling over her and then fading.

  It wasn’t that she thought he’d hurt her or had even taken advantage of her. She knew the story, and she believed that he had not. And she had no memory of any touch more intimate than his hand between her legs. So it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She did. It was just her fucking faulty brain.

  She’d told no one. But she couldn’t even try to let him hold her now. It was hard to touch him now.

  Dottie fussed over her after she got settled on the sofa—making sure she had a pillow and a blanket, and her fuzzy stuffed cat. She went into the kitchen to get her a glass of juice and then came back and stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

  “You have no food in this house.”

  Manny shrugged. “I usually go to the grocery on Sundays. I was…tied up on Sunday.” Everybody gaped at her. She tried on a smile to go with the joke she’d attempted. But there wasn’t a lot of humor in the fact that she’d spent Sunday tied to a hospital bed. So she shrugged again.

  Dottie cleared her throat and shook her head like she was shaking off a thought. “Okay. Well, your father and I are going to run to the grocery and stock you up. And I’m going to stay here with you for a few days. Okay?”

  “I’m going to stay with her.” Luca’s brow was creased. He looked a little mad.

  Her father responded. “You have work. I have work. I expect it would hurt you like it would hurt me to miss more work. Dottie has the time. It’s better this way, son.”

  Luca turned to Manny. “Little bit? What do you want?”

  Manny was good with her mom staying. She was feeling a lot of guilt and confusion with Luca right now. He was being really good and patient, but she felt bad that she was pulling away. There were no bad feelings with Dottie. Dottie understood things better.

  “You should work.”

  She tried to read his face. She thought he looked hurt. It seemed like he looked hurt a lot now. “Manny?”

  “You can come by at night, after you’re done at the gym. Like usual.”

  He stared at her for another couple of seconds. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay!” Dottie’s voice seemed excessively loud. “Any special requests at the grocery?”

  “Dreamsicles?”

  Dottie laughed. “You got it. Any requests for actual food?”

  “Nope. I trust you. Juice.”

  Her parents left, and Luca sat down in the striped papasan. He wasn’t a fan of those chairs, and it always took him a minute to get situated. Normally, he sat on the sofa with her. But she needed some distance, more even than usual, and he knew it.

  It was the first time they’d been alone together since the night she barely remembered. He leaned forward. “I’m losing you, bit. You’re sneaking away from me, I can feel it. I’m sorry I let you get hurt. I should’ve taken better care of you.”

  “It’s not that, Luca. I don’t blame you at all. I just…some circuits got knocked around, I guess. I need some time, maybe. That’s all.”

  He stared at her, and Manny thought his green eyes seemed sad and unconvinced. But he said, “Okay. I love you, little bit. I really love you.”

  She wanted to say the words back. But they wouldn’t come.

  oOo

  One of the benefits of working the way Manny did, even though none of her jobs came with actual benefits, was that taking time off from work didn’t add up to that much time away from any one job. She worked two days a week at two different hotels, and she had private clients on Fridays. So two weeks off only meant four days away from either hotel and two missed Fridays. It was a huge hit to her budget, but her parents were helping out with that. So she’d be okay. The more pressing issue was keeping the work, and she had. Her private clients were especially sympathetic. A couple even sent flowers.

  If she’d had a different kind of job, she might have been able to get back to work after a week, but massage was quite physically demanding, especially for someone as little as Manny, and the stitches were staying in for at least ten days. When her parents insisted, and told her they’d cover her lost wages, she agreed to take the second week. She felt weird that they were paying out the nose for her again, but it seemed like it was her destiny to cost her parents buckets of money. Forever.

  On Friday of the first week, six days after it happened, when Manny was up and around, but while the stitches were still in, there was a knock at her door. Nobody knocked—Dottie was still staying there, and Luca and her father came and went at will. Her brother had only been once since she’d been hurt, but he came in at will, too. So Manny gave Dottie a look and then waved her off when she started for the door.

  “It’s my door. I got it.”

  She didn’t know whether she’d have said Sabina Pagano was the last person she expected on the other side of the door, but she certainly wouldn’t have been on the very short list of most likely candidates to make a visit. But there she was, looking stupidly gorgeous and put together, everything perfect from her hair to her shoes, holding a big basket of fruit, bread, and chocolate.

  “Um, hi.” Manny didn’t know what else to say.

  “Manny, hello. I hope I don’t intrude, if I visit?”

  She saw Luca every day, but he had not told her that his family knew what had happened. Manny tried to understand whether Sabina’s sudden presence here, bearing gifts, meant that she knew. Running her words back through her head didn’t help. Manny turned back to her mother, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, parting the curtain with her hands. Dottie shrugged. No help there, either.

  “Um, no. Come in.” She stepped back and let Luca’s sister-in-law into her apartment. Dottie came all the way into the living room. “This is my mom. Dottie Timko, this is Sabina Pagano. She’s Luca’s sister-in-law.”

  They shook hands awkwardly and then Dottie took the basket. “Oh, this is lovely. And look, Manny. Oranges!” She carried it off to the kitchen, and Manny, feeling weird and defensive, gestured toward the sofa. Sabina sat, and then Manny did, trying not to favor her leg too obviously. That was difficult—getting down to the sofa was one of the hardest things, painwise. Getting up was the other.

  “How are you feeling?”

  That sounded like she knew. But still, Manny wasn’t sure. “I’m fine. You?”

  Sabina smiled. “I’m well, thank you. I had lunch with Luca yesterday. I was very sorry to hear that you were hurt.”

  Now she had her answer. And she was going to kill Luca. That asshole. Blabbing all over, without even talking to her about it first.

  “I’m fine, thanks. It’s no big deal.”

  “I’m very glad to know that. I won’t keep you long, though. I wanted to invite you to Trey’s birthday. He’s going to be five, and we’re having a party for him next weekend. At the beach—family only. It would be
wonderful if you would join us.”

  The thought of spending another day in the middle of the Pagano madness didn’t exactly excite Manny. But she knew that Luca had been avoiding his family for a long time now, not going to church or anything, and that that was new for him. He missed them. Even she could tell that. She also knew, though he hadn’t said so, that he was staying away from them because of her. Because she was weird and unsettling and probably made his family all kinds of uncomfortable.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be up to a party next week. Thanks for asking, though.”

  Dottie came in then. “Can I get you a drink, Sabina?”

  She turned a megawatt smile on Manny’s mother. “No, thank you. I need to pick Trey up from preschool soon.” She moved her hand toward Manny’s knee and then stopped and brought it back to her own lap. “Please consider it. We all miss Luca very much and would like to know you. You are very important to him.”

  “I’ll think about it. If I’m feeling up to it.”

  “Thank you, Manny. It means much.” Sabina stood then. “It was good to see you again.” She turned to Dottie. “Manny told about your beautiful garden, Dottie. I would love to see it someday. I’m glad to meet you.” She extended her hand, and Dottie took it.

  “Yes. And you. Thank you for the basket.”

  “Of course.”

  Dottie showed her to the door, and she was gone. Then Dottie turned around. “Is something going on with Luca’s family?”

  Manny shrugged. “Not that he’s said. My day at the beach with them didn’t go so well, but he hasn’t talked about it. I guess he’s not seeing them much, though, and that’s unusual. Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed. “It’s probably me. They probably hate me.”

  “Well, Sabina doesn’t seem to hate you. If you want to be with Luca, babe, I think you should go. If his family is important to him, don’t make him choose.”

  “I can’t believe he told her what happened.”

  “Maybe he needed somebody to talk to. You tell me everything, right? Maybe Sabina is somebody he can talk to like that.”

  “Oh.”

  Dottie grinned. “That basket she brought is fabulous. There’s a big box of chocolate-covered berries in there. Wanna be bad?”

  Manny laughed and nodded, and Dottie clapped and went for the chocolate.

  oOo

  A few hours later, while Dottie was making a stew for dinner but before either Luca or Adam had shown up, Dmitri came in. It was a busy day for visitors. Dmitri had been scarce since the semifinals, which they’d won. He’d visited once in the hospital and once since she’d been home. He hadn’t stayed long either time; his excuse was that the band was rehearsing intensely for the final Battle gig, in two weeks, at an old movie theater in Manhattan.

  Manny took that at face value. They hadn’t been talking much since he’d been porking Gigi the Cunt on a regular basis, but he was her brother, and he’d always been there for her. The Battle was important. Plus, they were doing their own managing while she was laid up. So she believed he was busy.

  But this evening, he looked odd, somehow. Pale and stressed out. He sat down next to her on the couch, then bounced up after a couple of minutes and went into the kitchen with Dottie. Then he came back out and flipped through her albums—which by now he should have had memorized—and then sat with her again. Through all of that, he’d barely said ten words.

  “Dimi, you’re being a spaz. What’s up? Trouble with the band?” Ooh—maybe he and Gigi were having trouble. That’d be cool.

  “No, no. The band’s good. We sound tight—but not too tight, you know? Raw, but in the right way. Seth’s got a cousin who lent us some better recording stuff for a couple of weeks, and we played back a couple of practices. It’s good. We’re solid.”

  “Good. So why are you bouncing around like a puppy on speed?” She smiled, trying to tease him, but he gave her a weird, slippery look and bounced up again.

  “I need to talk to you, sis. I didn’t want to say anything, at least not until after the Battle, but Luca keeps coming at me, asking questions. He’s an asshole—you know that, right?”

  “No, I don’t. What’s he coming at you about?”

  “About the night of the semifinals. He’s trying to figure out what happened.”

  “So? Why does that make him an asshole? I want to know, too.”

  “Fuck. Manny, you have to listen, okay? Stay calm and try to understand. I need you to do that, okay?”

  Manny was deeply confused. There was no way in hell that her brother had done this to her. No way in hell. He knew her too well to do something stupid like this, something that could have killed her, and that had gotten her really hurt. But her flashcards were telling her that he was guilty. Everything about the way he was acting and the words he was saying was coming up guilty. She began to shake.

  Dottie was in the kitchen doorway. “Dimi, enough. Say what you have to say.” She crossed the room and sat in the place on the sofa that he’d had so much trouble staying put in.

  “Did you do it?” Manny could barely make sound.

  “NO! God, no! Jesus, sis, how could you think that?” He looked down. “Gigi did it.”

  Manny wasn’t a bit surprised about that. But the rest of it would not make sense. “What?”

  “She didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Manny. She was just trying to chill you out. She was doing E, and you left your soda when you went to the bathroom, and she did it before I knew what she was up to. But she didn’t mean harm.”

  “You didn’t stop me from drinking the soda. You could have stopped me.”

  “I’m sorry. It would have started a whole big thing right before we were supposed to go on. I figured, Luca was there. And it was just E. I thought maybe Geej was right, and you’d just have a good time.”

  “You knew this whole time. Oh, Dimi.” That was Dottie, her voice strangely deep and low.

  “Mom, please! Dad and Luca were talking about the hurt they want to put on the person who did it—and that’s Gigi. And me! I was too scared to say anything. And this will tear the band up. Kev and Seth didn’t see. They don’t know. We’ve got the final Battle coming up. Everything we’ve worked for!” He went to his knees on the floor before Manny. “Please, sis. I’m really sorry. But please don’t say anything. Just call Luca off. We have to keep the band together, right? We’ve been working for that for years now. You and me. Right?”

  “Dimi, you let me drink from that soda. I thought you took care of me.”

  He jumped to his feet. “God! Take care of you! Yeah, I take care of you. Everybody takes fucking care of you! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be your brother? You take everybody’s attention, and you always have! You should see the list of crap I couldn’t have, shit I couldn’t do, because after your therapy, and your special schools, and your fancy ‘care center.’ There wasn’t any fucking time or money left for me. Maybe I should’ve stabbed Mom, too.”

  In the same deep, low voice, Dottie said, “Dimi, stop. Now. None of that is fair.”

  “YOU’RE RIGHT! IT WASN’T FAIR AT ALL!”

  Manny was barely hearing any of it. The yelling, the words, the many layers of betrayal she was sensing—all of it was setting fire to her cubbies.

  As if from a great distance, she heard the sound of more words being spoken. Then she heard the door slam, and then Dottie was on her knees in front of her, where her brother had been not long ago. “Look at me, babe. Don’t go. You’ll pull your stitches. Look at me and breathe.”

  She did. She tried. She focused on her mother and tried. As she felt a toehold on calm, she heard Luca’s voice. “Dmitri just about made me drop my bike, tearing out of here. What’s up?” He paused, taking in the scene. “Manny? Dottie, what’s going on?”

  Manny was calming. Her head was still a muddle, but the danger of her raging out had almost passed. She turned and looked up at Luca. Then she looked at her mother.

  “I can’t make that choice for you
, babe.”

  Fuck the band. Fuck her brother. Fuck that nasty little cunt. Manny turned back to Luca. “Gigi dosed me. Dimi saw her do it. He knew.”

  For a few seconds, Luca stood there, his legs spread in a defensive, wary stance. He stared at Manny. Then he turned to Dottie, and from the corner of her eye, Manny saw her mother nod.

  “He’s my son, Luca.”

  Luca nodded, but then he spun on his heel and stormed out of the apartment.

  15

  Luca raced down the highway on his big, black Ducati. He was lane splitting, so the Friday traffic wouldn’t hold him up the way it would Dmitri, in his beater minivan. He tried to envision what he’d do if he overtook him. That was probably a bad call—he wouldn’t be able to force him off the road, not around all these vehicles, and on his bike. He needed to come in from behind or be lying in wait at the destination.