by Piper Rayne
The piece of paper drops from my grip and floats to the ground. I scramble to pick it up.
“If you’d rather not, I can…” she rambles out quickly probably taken by my surprised response.
“No. I can do it.”
She smiles and I straighten the piece of paper in my hand.
“Great. I can do the one with the new finishings once I get your figures.”
Looking it over, she’s right, everything is right down the middle. She didn’t leave all the numbers and paperwork to her and leave me doing everything that required muscle.
“I did leave some permits for you to get because although I don’t want you using that dreamy smile on me to get what you want, I figure it might work on the clerks at the city and get them pushed through faster.”
I so badly want to call her out on her dreamy smile comment, but I let it slide.
“Done. If I get a male clerk, I might need your help though.”
Her cheeks flush and damn it if I don’t want to cage her between my arms and feel her body pressed against mine.
I fold the piece of paper and put it in my back pocket. “Oh, and you got my schedule right.” I wink and the rosy blush in her cheeks deepen.
“Look at this dump you two decided to lose a shit load of money on.” Cristian’s voice behind me makes me curse him for always being early for everything. I would have liked a few more minutes with Madison to myself.
I turn around to see my younger brother in his damn man leggings again with earbuds hanging from his neck. “You don’t look like you’re ready to work.”
He walks up the steps, his attention only on Madison. “I have to work in two hours. It’s my weekend off, do you guys work on weekends?” He smirks in my direction and then his arms wrap around Madison, lifting her feet from the splintered wood porch. “Maddie, you look great. You really should discuss your business decisions with me first though.” He chuckles into her neck, his lips in the exact place I want mine to be. “You and Mauro taking on the world together?”
Her feet fall back to the ground and she smiles up at my brother like he’s a long lost friend. If they were so close, how come I never knew her? “One beat down house at a time.” She laughs and he chuckles, his gaze still not leaving hers.
Finally he looks over at me. “I was on a run. Training for the marathon. Thought I’d drop by and give you guys hell.”
“Thanks. You can go back to training now.”
Madison playfully swats my stomach. “He’s joking, Cristian. You’re always welcome.”
“Thanks, Maddie. You always were nice.” Cristian doesn’t know about the word nice and how offensive Madison finds it after the board game cafe.
“Some might say I’m a people pleaser,” she says, her eyes lit with mischief glancing in my direction.
“Who? My dumbass brother?” Cristian slaps my stomach harder than I expected and I hit him right back. “Fucker.”
“I carry hoses, you carry a gun.”
Cristian looks up at me, shaking his head. “Let’s do a quick sprint and see who’s faster.”
“Let’s run up a flight of stairs with forty-five pounds strapped on our backs,” I deadpan.
“Jump a fence holding your weight on one arm.”
“Carry two hundred pounds of dead weight in your arms down a flight of stairs that’s crumbling without a face mask because you gave it to the victim.”
He crosses his arms. “Go into a dark building knowing some creep is there hiding, his only intent not to go back to jail and he’ll do anything to make sure he achieves his goal.”
“Run into a building that—”
Madison’s hand covers my mouth. “I think we get the point boys. I can say that you both have extremely hard jobs.”
Cristian laughs. “I like this. You’re the only person I’ve seen able to shut him up.”
I bite the inside of her palm lightly and she removes her hand, staring down at it and back to me.
“Did you just bite me?”
“Why didn’t you silence him?” I nod to Cristian who I can see is enjoying whatever this is between me and Madison way too much.
“Because me and you have work to do.” She opens a bag. “Do you want to come in and see the house, Cristian?”
“Cristian got sick the last time he went in.” I give him a shit-eating grin. “Some tough police officer he is.”
Cristian laughs, shaking his head. “You’re such an ass.”
Madison pulls out a hat and places it on her head, pulling her ponytail out of the back and then twisting her hair into a bun.
“Too bad you can’t help, Cristian. Demolition is good for releasing aggression. You’re welcome to stop by anytime, we can always use an extra set of hands.” She smiles and heads to the front door. “I’ll see you in there.”
She disappears through the door, a groan echoing from the hinges as it opens and closes.
“What the fuck?” I whisper-yell to Cristian.
“What?” His head draws back like he has no idea what the fuck I’m talking about.
“You’re flirting with her.”
“No, I was saying hi to an old friend.” A smirk emerges on his lips. “Oh, man.” He shakes his head in disbelief.
“What?” I shift in place.
“Jealousy looks good on you.”
“I’m not jealous.” I peek in the door to see that she’s at the back of the house in the kitchen, looking out a window. A laundry basket full of stuff sits on the dining room table.
“You are and you like her.”
I look in the house again and set my narrowed gaze on Cristian. There’s a good chance he’ll see through my bullshit. I might have been able to pull it over on Luca, but Cristian is a tougher sell.
“I just want this to go smoothly and if you date her and fuck it up by breaking her heart, it’ll screw up my chances of having something profitable outside of the department.”
He crosses his arms. “Jealousy, lying, are you sure you’re my brother Mauro?”
“Fine.” I roll my eyes back in my sockets. “Do I want to sleep with her? Yes. Am I going to? No. We’re business partners.”
“Interesting.” He smiles and rocks back on his new, too colorful running shoes.
“Stop it.”
He holds his hands up in the air. “Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”
“I can’t do anything about my attraction to her and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do.” A small part of me thought, (hoped?) that maybe he’d tell me to go for it. “I stopped by the deli last night. Mama’s already got the two of you living in this house with a kid on the way.”
“Mama just wants a grandchild.” I pull off my hat and run my hand through my hair.
“Keep doing that and you’ll be the first bald Bianco.”
I shake my head, placing my ball cap on backward. “I’m screwed.”
He grips my shoulder. “Can I ask you a question? Are you into her just for her looks?”
I shouldn’t be surprised by his question. Have I dated mostly tens? Sure. The fact Maddie has transformed into a ten plus is not lost on me, but it’s more than that. “No. As sick as it sounds, I think it’s because she sees me differently. Not at first, she didn’t. But this morning she told me she’d like me to do the budget for the demolition and construction of the remodel.”
My brother smiles, familiar with how people underestimated my intelligence and didn’t think I was smart enough for anything other than throwing a football through high school and college. “I told you, Madison Kelly is good people.”
I rock back on my own heels. “Yeah, she is.” This time it isn’t just my dick reacting, but my heart beats a little faster thinking about her being a permanent part of my life.
“You’re right. You’re screwed.” He jogs down the steps. “Let me know about this weekend.” Heading down the walkway, I hear the soft words of Mauro and Maddie kissing in a tree fall from his lips.
Smiling, I open the door of the house and the first thing I see is Madison’s ass as she bends over to pick something up off the floor. For the first time in my life, I’m jealous of Cristian’s tenacious willpower.
Chapter Fourteen
Madison
A week later, the house is bare bones. We have effectively stripped it down to the studs. This is my favorite part of the process—when I can see the inside structure of a home that’s carried the weight of not only the roof and all the supporting beams, but the people’s lives who lived here. It’s now a clean slate, ready for a fresh start.
The stench that lingered from the refrigerator that was never cleaned out has dissipated a bit and I’m hoping that with the help of a few candles I’ve lit, it will disappear completely.
I’m sitting in the middle of the living room, taking in the space when the screen door opens and a big body steps in.
“Are we having a seance?” Mauro sits down across from me, placing a bag of food between us.
“Well, we do have to try to get the dead to move on.”
He chuckles, placing all his weight on his arms as he extends them behind him, leaning back.
“My profession means that I can’t help but warn you about candles and wood.”
“I didn’t realize you were such a rule follower,” I tease.
He straightens up, opening the bag, taking out the Chinese food containers. “I’m not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
I rise up and go to my laundry basket of essentials we might need for meals. Yeah, call me uber-organized, but this isn’t my first time being so hungry I could chew my arm off in a house with no kitchen. Pulling out two plates and two plastic forks and napkins, I sit back down across from him.
In the last week, Mauro has transformed from the guy I didn’t really know and yet placed on a pedestal, to a guy I’m getting to know a lot about and am really starting to like for the right reasons.
He’s funny, and I like his dry sense of humor and the way he never cracks a smile when he tells a joke. He treats the workers well and somehow gets them to do a little extra work each day. Once he makes a decision, that’s it. He’s committed. And he always makes the best of a situation. When a wall got knocked out that wasn’t supposed to, he said that it would allow more light in instead of asking me where I was when it was happening since he was at work.
“Always prepared.” He chuckles to himself and opens up the containers and I’m surprised to see that it’s Thai food, not Chinese.
I shrug. “It’s a curse.”
The curse of not having a present mother.
“You should be proud of it. I bet you’ve never been late on a bill.” He lets me get my dish before his.
I use the fork and pull the noodles from the container.
“No.”
“It’s an endearing quality. Don’t be ashamed of it.” His words warm me. Most people would probably find it geeky.
He’s fixing his plate and my gaze wanders across his body. His strong shoulders and taut waist. The way his jeans are worn just the perfect amount and hug his firm thighs. The fact that his hair is never fully done, but more styled with his fingers because no matter how neat it looks when he gets here, by day’s end he’s got that just-fucked hair going on. The light stubble along his cheeks and his manly jaw.
“Is there something on my face?” He sits back, wiping his face with a napkin.
Oops. My eyes cast down, heat rising up my neck. “No.”
He lets it go instead of calling me out on my gawking. Just as I did earlier today when I bent over to grab something and found his eyes glued to my ass when I turned around. Let’s just say, the exhilaration I felt in that moment was pretty close to when I earned Summa Cum Laude in college.
“So, tell me why you don’t have a boyfriend.”
My head snaps up to meet his inquisitive eyes.
He’s kidding. Right?
“You tell me first,” I say.
“Don’t even try it. Come on.”
Every fiber inside of me says this is a horrible idea, but I sit up from my plate. “I’ve never had a serious relationship. I’ve dated a few guys, but the relationships never lasted longer than a month or two.”
His forehead wrinkles. “Why do you think that is?”
I tip my head back down. “I tend to date guys similar to me. Guys who want career success before a romantic relationship. We’d both understand when the other said they have to study or that they had to go to this networking event or whatever it was. The relationship was never the priority. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, that would be a problem. What about now? You still put your career first?”
His question is innocent enough. He asks casually, but the way he’s intently waiting for me to answer has me wondering if there’s more to it.
“Um…I think I use it as a crutch now. Maybe it’s an excuse not to get involved with someone.”
I’m not sure I’ve been this honest with anyone else before. There’s just something about Mauro that doesn’t have me wanting to give him a glazed over answer you’d give just to move on to the next topic of conversation.
“I’m with you on that one. I think I use the fact my job is dangerous as a reason sometimes not to get serious.”
I look up from my plate, chewing the last of my chicken. He forks large amounts of noodles and chicken into his mouth. I’m not sure I’ve seen Mauro go longer than an hour without food.
“You’ve never had a serious relationship?” I ask.
His eyes dip back to his plate. “No, I did, sort of, I guess. We were together for a year, but I found out it was all based on lies.”
“I’m sorry.” I frown. “Did you love her?”
He doesn’t look up from his plate as he pushes the food around.
“I think I thought I did, but I’m not so sure now. Maybe when you find out someone didn’t love you, maybe that strips everything you felt for them? I don’t know. Let’s just say it was the ultimate betrayal.”
My heart squeezes for him. Whether he loved her or not doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Whatever happened obviously affected him.
“See, so maybe I’m better off continuing to put my work first.” I try to lighten the vibe, but his solemn eyes say he’s having none of it.
“I learned a lot from it.”
“Like?”
He stands up, heading to the cooler he brought earlier today to make sure the crew had water. Bringing two over, he wipes the water off with his t-shirt, opens the cap, and hands it to me.
“Thank you.”
He sits down, closer than he was moments ago. Not that I’m complaining.
“This is going to sound a lot like some ‘I am woman hear me roar’ statement, but I deserved better. She had me using my two days off as her chauffeur and errand runner. I thought I was doing it because we loved each other and I was helping her out. I realize now that she didn’t care if I needed to sleep. She never even called me when I was on shift.” He shakes his head. “You’re going to think I’m taking estrogen tablets at this rate.”
I knock my shoulder to his. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you’re saying women are overly emotional.”
He smirks at me. “You know that’s not what I’m suggesting.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Who knows if you are.”
He holds up his hand with two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t a Boy Scout, were you?”
He chuckles. “For two weeks. Until all three of us got kicked out for wrestling. The leader told my mom that we’d have to be split into three different troops. That was the end of scouts for the Bianco brothers.”
I lower his hand. “Then sorry, you can’t use the honor salute.”
“Were you a Girl Scout?” he asks, his smile already suggesting he knows the answer.
“Yes, and before you make fun of me, I did go all the way to Ambassador. It looked good on my college application.”<
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“Ever think that’s where those people pleaser skills were bred?”
“Hey.” I shoot him a warning glare.
He chuckles, resting his weight on his hand. “I’m kidding. I know I’ve apologized, but I need to again. I should’ve never made fun of you because if you weren’t nice, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be sitting in this house. You wouldn’t have given me this chance.”
I straighten my back. “Do you think I gave you a bone? Like I agreed to be your partner as a handout?”
He straightens as well, pouring a big gulp of water down his throat while staring at me through squinted eyes. “Well, I’m the newbie and you’re pretty established.”
I shake my head. “Mauro, that’s not true and I don’t want you to think that. I agreed to this because this house means something to me and so that I’d have a partner who was just as invested as me. I’m sick of doing it alone. I thought it’d be fun, but it’s been good having someone to bounce ideas off of. The fact you’re good with your hands was just a bonus.” I attempt to wink, but as usual, both eyes fall closed.
“Try that again?” he asks, pointing to my eyes.
“No. I can’t do it.” I pull my legs up and bury my head down into my knees, my long chestnut hair falling in a veil around my face.
He sweeps it back and my stomach flutters when his fingertips brush my cheek. “It’s me. Come on.”
“It’s me? That’s your explanation? That it’s okay to embarrass myself. You’re Mauro Bianco.”
I shake my head and he tucks my hair behind my ear.
“You say that like I’m Bradley Cooper.”
“To me you are,” I mumble, half praying he didn’t hear me, half hoping he did.
His finger lands under my chin, slowly raising my face until our eyes lock. “I’m just a firefighter from Chicago. I’m the oldest of three brothers from an immigrant father and mother who came to this country for the American dream. There’s nothing special about that.”