“Your gut is always right,” she tells me forcefully. “Take me and Josh, for instance. He always said the right things and he bought me nice stuff and he came from a good family and all that. But something just always felt a little off with him. I don’t really know how to explain it. My instincts told me it wouldn’t end well but I stayed with him. Now, look at me,” she says ruefully as she turns to the classifieds section of the newspaper, “Here I am, pregnant and putting ads in the paper to get preorders for my placenta so I don’t end up sleeping under a bridge come rent time.”
She laughs. I cringe.
“I never did have a bad feeling about Ben,” I admit. “Yes, when his dad died, he shut down and he wouldn’t share his feelings with me. But I guess that’s normal. He was grieving and he didn’t know how to handle it. The breakup, though…it just came out of nowhere.”
“Well, have you ever considered that there may be more to the story?”
“What do you mean?”
“If it was so damn out-of-character for him, maybe something else was up. Something he didn’t want to tell you about. Maybe he was trying to protect you from something.”
I roll her words around in my brain. I’d never considered that possibility and although I’d like to believe that there was some bigger reason for the breakup, I’m sure that’s just wishful thinking on my part. Ben never mentioned anything that would clue me in to there being some big conspiracy at play.
She rises up from the couch. “Anyway, what do I know? I’m the last person who should be giving relationship advice, really.” Her hand moves in circles on her belly. “The baby’s taking a nap on my bladder. I need to go pee.” She hobbles over to the bathroom. “And heads up—mom called to summon us to the house this weekend. She says that if we don’t show up this time, she’s coming here. And I don’t possess the mental and emotional fortitude to entertain Agata Gallo in my humble abode. Sorry but I don’t think we’ll be able to weasel our way out of this one.”
The door closes behind her and I’m left alone with my thoughts.
My sister is the eternal optimist. Even after everything that’s happened to her she still believes in love. And though I do feel like her rose-colored glasses sometimes blur her vision, just for once, I’m tired of being afraid. I want to have stars in my eyes, too. I want to believe in ever-afters and happy endings. I want to believe that Ben is my Prince Charming.
Just for once, I want to try on those rose-colored glasses and see if they fit.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ben
I really feel like I made progress on getting through to Angie when we were together a few days ago. I want to keep that momentum going. And tonight, I have something up my sleeve that will definitely knock down a few more of those bricks in her fortress.
She kicks off her boots on the mat by the front door. “My god, it smells incredible in here.”
When she straightens, I smile at her and reach for the buttons at the front of her winter jacket. I unbutton her slowly. Her eyes shine with delight as she pulls the knitted hat off of her head.
“You think so?” I ask, sealing my lips over hers to hide my smirk as I push the tweed coat off of her shoulders.
“I’ve been starving all afternoon.” She laughs as she makes her way down the darkened hallway. “I was almost hungry enough to get a burrito from the cafeteria. Almost.” Her hand stalls on the zipper of her sweater when she steps into the kitchen. “Ben…” she gasps.
I revel in the expression on her face as her eyes fan over the spread on the kitchen table. I’ve prepared a dining space for two, lit up by clusters of artisanal candles in varying sizes. A small vase of red roses fragrances the room. But Angie seems most interested in what I have hidden under the stainless steel cloche dome sitting in the middle of the table. That’s where her gaze is focused.
“I know that you like your poultry maimed and mutilated and stitched together with surgical thread…” I whip the dome off of the meal with a flourish, “…but I hope that chicken breasts marinated in lemon and oregano, then grilled to perfection is up to your standards.”
She breaks out snickering. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.” She leans over the table and takes a whiff. A sensual noise pours out of her and my cock twitches even though the lusty little sound wasn’t meant for me.
“Stop moaning like that or I’ll get jealous of the chicken,” I whisper with my arms banded around her waist.
Her pretty eyes flash me a wink. “I’ll have the chicken for dinner. But you? I’m having you for dessert.”
A rumble resounds in my chest and I nip at her ear with my teeth.
I wanted tonight to be special. I’m not superstitious or anything and I definitely don’t know anything about astronomy but tonight is a lunar eclipse. I don’t get what all the hype is about but apparently, it’s a really special one. So, I wanted to be with Angie right now. Being the huge science geek that she is, I’m sure that she’ll appreciate it and I’ve pulled out all the stops to make it memorable for her.
She burrows contentedly against my chest and I hug her closer. “Thank you, Ben. This is really amazing.”
I bury my nose in her hair and kiss her scalp. I love seeing her this happy and I love knowing that I’m the reason for it.
Sitting at the table, we dig into the meal. I listen intently as she tells me all about her day. She says she’s been working with Dr. Elliot on some research project. I’ve got to admit that I’m a bit uncomfortable with her spending so much one on one time with the man. I keep my insecurities to myself, though. I don’t know him personally but this is a small town and word gets around. And the word about Elliot isn’t good. The guy’s a player. But I’m not about to start throwing out accusations. I have to believe that Angie is mine and it’s only a matter of time before she sees that. So, instead of entertaining my insecurities, I spend our meal listening to her, asking her questions and enjoying how excited she is about her work.
Once dinner is over and we’ve loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, Angie heads off in the direction of the living room. I rush up behind her and rope an arm around her waist to halt her steps. “Wait,” I whisper against her ear, “I have a surprise for you.”
“You do?” She’s facing away from me, but I hear the smile in her voice.
My fingers sweep up her arms to bracket her shoulders. I turn her toward the backdoor. “D’you see anything unusual out there?” I ask teasingly as we hover by the door.
She squints, her gaze traveling across the yard. “Is that…?” Barely containing a squeal, her fingers clasp the handle and slide the door open. A gust of cold air blasts into the room.
I chuckle in the face of her excitement. “Hold on. Let me go get your jacket.” I race down the hall and jump into my boots. I grab Angie’s winter gear and help her put it on. Then, we step out onto the back porch. She leaves me behind, plodding across the backyard in the knee-high snow.
This is exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
“Oh my god, this is amazing,” she calls out as she reaches the picnic table in the middle of the yard. “I can’t believe you did this.”
At the foot of the table is the most powerful telescope I could rent on such short notice. Apparently, these things are a hot commodity during celestial happenings like tonight’s eclipse and let me tell you, the rental was not cheap. Good thing the smile on her face is worth it.
“Isn’t it incredible?” she sighs as she adjusts the lens to her line of vision and angles the telescope skyward. “A blue moon, a blood moon and a supermoon all at once. A lunar trifecta…”
I climb onto the snow-covered bench and perch on the edge of the table. “Yeah, it’s incredible.” Even with the naked eye, the reddish-orange moon is a sight to behold. Still not as beautiful as Angie, though…
My heart is nearly splitting with happiness as I watch her, with her fluffy knitted tuque pulled down over her hair and her thick scarf knotted around her neck, her breath bi
llowing out in front of her as she ohhs and ahhs into the air. “It’s been 150 years since the last time one of these was visible from the Earth, y’know. And it probably won’t happen again for at least another century.”
“I guess some things really are once-in-a-lifetime…”
The way she freezes, I can tell that my words hit her hard. She looks away from the telescope and brings her gaze to me. I’m not backing down, I’m not apologizing or retracting my words. Me and Angie, the connection we have is once-in-a-lifetime and it’s time that she admit that to herself.
I slide off the table and take slow, careful steps toward her. I know that she spooks easily when confronted with the truth. But her feelings for me are more obvious and glaring than this damn eclipse. I’ve just got to find the right words. The perfect words to show her how sorry I am. The perfect words to assure her that I’ll never hurt her again. But while I’m still sorting out exactly what it is I want to say, her words come first. They’re soft but they strike me with the force of an avalanche.
“I want to give us another try.”
I blink. “You mean that?”
She smiles. “Yes.”
That’s all the confirmation I need. I go at her like a linebacker. My arms come around her and I scoop her up, with a loud howl. Angie shrieks with laughter, her little fists pounding on my chest to put her down.
I set her on her feet but I keep my arms tight around her. She tilts her head back and looks up at me, trying to restrain her grin. "I want to give us another try. I’m still terrified. And uncertain. But I’m ready to jump in and take a shot at making this work...I just want to trust you. Like I used to."
With tender strokes of my fingers, I brush her hair from her face. “We can take it slow. I’ll give you as much time as you need. Just tell me that you’ll open yourself up to the possibility. Tell me you’re open to the idea of you and me together.”
She swallows hard, blinking back happy tears, Her voice is nothing but a whisper. “I can’t fight this anymore, Ben. Okay?! I’m open to the idea of you and me together.”
My lips crash down on hers and I kiss her until we can hardly breathe. “So are you saying…?”
“I want to be with you, Ben. I want to be your girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Angie
I pull the eartips of the stethoscope out of my ears and drape the rubber tubing around my neck. “Okay, this is not good dad.” I level my father with a stern look as I unwrap the blood pressure cuff from around his meaty upper arm. “You need to lay off the pasta and the cheese.”
The stubborn old man swipes an arm through the air, his expression dismissive. “Do it again,” he orders me. “That reading must be wrong. Your machine is broken. Or you’re not doing it right.”
He’s unbelievable. Any challenge to his eating habits and he’s ready to go on the defensive. “Denial won’t lower your blood pressure. Only exercise, healthy diet and decreased stress levels will.”
I know—to him my words are blasphemous. He’s spent his life indulging in Alfredo sauce, pizza and spaghetti. He’s built his family a very cushy life by serving those dishes to all of Copper Heights. I know that I’m making a big ask, but his health depends on it. His stocky five foot seven frame can’t handle much more weight and his heart is bound to short-circuit unless he changes his lifestyle.
He casts a glare at my mother across the expansive gold-veined marble table covered in dirty plates and utensils. “This is ridiculous!” he hollers as he gesticulates wildly in my direction. “She wants me to stop eating pasta! I’m Italian and she wants me to stop eating pasta! She might as well perform a damn lobotomy on me!”
Nonna Lucia’s features harden and she grumbles something in Italian under her breath. She looks even more upset by the news than my father does. My grandmother taught her son everything he knows about cooking so it’s no surprise that she’s taking this as a personal attack.
Sophia and I share a look.
Mom refuses to make eye contact with me, just like she has all night. Under the spotlight of the gaudy, oversized crystal chandelier, she folds her arms across her chest and lifts her chin into the air like a petulant child. “I don’t know why you’re over there playing doctor with that girl.” Her voice is full of vitriol as her dainty fingers circle the stem of her wine glass. “I’ll make you an appointment with a real doctor next week. One who didn’t get booted from their internship.”
Fine, then—No blood pressure reading for you, Mom.
Expertly brushing off my mother’s low blow, I round the lavish table, smiling widely at my grandmother as I approach. Her lips go flat and she holds up a wrinkly hand like a stop sign. “You no tell me to no eat spaghetti!” she threatens and I halt with my medical equipment, mid-journey.
Okay, then. Moving along.
So, this family dinner isn’t going all that great. But my sister and I both expected that. Gianni and Agata Gallo can’t seem to decide which of their daughters they’re more disappointed in. The one who turned up pregnant after getting ditched on her wedding day or the one who lost her prestigious medical internship for screwing her superior. The competition between Sophia and me for top spot on our parents’ shit list is very damn tight.
Y’see—my family is New Money to the bone, meaning that our wealth isn’t several generations deep. Dad came to this country as a little boy and he worked damn hard. He invested wisely—first, by opening a little Italian eatery and then, investing the profits into real estate and other businesses—to afford the luxuries and social status that his family does today. And Mr. and Mrs. Gallo have never been afraid to flaunt what they’ve got. Take this mansion, for instance. It’s damn tacky. It looks like it was decorated by Tony Montana’s interior decorator.
My mother—she’s a trophy wife and she’s damn good at it. After all, her country club membership wasn’t passed down from waspy ancestors. She had to fight and claw her way up the social ladder to earn it. She never lets us forget that.
So when her kids do dumb shit, like the transgressions described above, it does nothing to help her social cause. To Agata Gallo, image is worth its weight in gold.
Again, Sophia and I didn’t expect this family dinner to be easy. That’s why we avoided the tall, wrought-iron gates of the Gallo mansion for as long as we have.
But at this point, I’ve decided—I’m an adult and I’m done cowering for my parents’ approval. I want control of my life and I’m ready to fight for it. That means owning up to my mistakes and standing by my decisions regardless of who takes objection. I stand by who I am—even when it’s scary—and my parents are gonna have to get with the damn program.
Good old Cousin Franco throws his hand up, volunteering to get his blood pressure read. “I’ll go next,” he says in his usual easygoing way. My footsteps echo as I move across the room and drop into a plush velvet dining chair next to him. “So how are you liking being back in Copper Heights?” he asks with a good-natured smile as I wrap the blood pressure cuff around his arm. He’s obviously trying to diffuse the tension in the room.
Unfortunately, we’ve just landed in another hornet’s nest.
My mother’s expression goes even tighter and a bitter laugh spouts past her lips at the question. I do my best to ignore her. “It’s been great,” I say brightly to Franco. “I’m really starting to find my stride at work and it’s been nice catching up with old friends.”
Dad lights up a big, fat cigar because, with the current state of his health, smoking’s a great idea! “Old friends, huh?” my father mutters sarcastically. “That’s what you young folks are calling it these days?”
I roll my eyes up at the golden angel mural on the high, dome-shaped ceiling. Here we go…
“I hear you’ve been sniffing around with that Riggs boy again.” His narrowed eyes tell me that he’s not pleased about the reunion.
“I haven’t been ‘sniffing around’,” I say as I press the stethoscope’s bell to the artery on the
inside of Cousin Franco’s arm. I feel the flutter of nerves in my stomach. But I’m not going to pander to my father just to get his approval. “Ben and I…we’re together.”
Dad’s face goes red with displeasure. “So, you didn’t learn your lesson the first time he walked all over you?”
I pull in a strengthening breath. “That was a long time ago, Dad.”
“People don’t change.” He takes a long drag from his cigar and blows a thick puff of smoke across the table. “Look at me—I was a pasta and cheese lover twenty years ago and I’ll be a pasta and cheese lover twenty years from now.”
If the pasta and cheese don’t kill you first, you mean? “Dad, are we really gonna do this right now?”
My mother throws in her two cents. “You hope you’ve got your escape route planned out again. You had to leave town the last time he chewed you up and spat you out and now you’ve ruined your reputation in the medical community. Where are you gonna run off to when that boy throws you away this time?”
Cousin Franco’s bicep twitches in my hand when he flinches and Sophia throws me a sympathetic glance from across the table.
Dad’s elevated voice rings out. “I know this very nice boy. A business investor. Ryan Barre. Very nice man. I should introduce—”
“I don’t need you getting involved in my sex life!” My temper flares.
“Watch your tone, Angela!” The dirty silverware jumps when his meaty fist connects with the table.
“No—unless you want the salacious details of my sex life, you need to just butt out!”
My father’s chair hits the floor when he jumps to his feet. “You will not talk to me like that in my house!”
I press my eyes shut to rein in my anger and an uncomfortable silence blankets the room. My parents don’t have to agree with my decisions. We can still be civil toward each other even if we don’t see eye to eye on certain things. But the respect has to go both ways.
The Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set: The Complete Blue Collar Bachelors Series Page 74