Love by the Mile

by Heather Young-Nichols

  “Probably,” I said.

  He pulled his hands back and shoved them into his pockets.

  “I really hate this, you know?”

  “I do, too, but it won’t be for long.” He promised.

  The overhead speaker blared the announcement of my flight.

  “So, I’ve got to go get sexually harassed by the TSA,” I said.

  Sal barked out a laugh loud enough to draw the attention of those around us and then reached out to pull me tightly to his chest.

  “I’ll call you when I get home, OK?”

  Sal tilted my face up to kiss me goodbye. It wasn’t a normal kiss either. It was the perfect blend of passion while being publically acceptable. It told me he’d miss me but would love nothing more than to have me back in his bed. A sudden wave of fear rushed through me at the idea of him being alone with his thoughts and self-loathing. I didn’t want him to second guess this.

  “As soon as you get home,” he whispered.

  A final quick kiss dropped to my forehead before he released me completely.

  It was a long, slow walk to the plane.

  I spent the plane ride reliving every moment of the past weekend. I’m quite sure that I looked ridiculous to those around me sitting in that seat with a goofy grin on my face, flushing pink when certain memories passed through my mind. Not out of embarrassment. That flush was caused by something else entirely.

  Before leaving Chicago, I sent Bianca an email with my flight information and asked her to pick me up. She said it wouldn’t be a problem.

  I wasn’t surprised to see Gio there leaning against the wall checking his phone next to her. It struck me again how much he and Sal actually looked alike with all their black hair and dark eyes. Not as in ‘holy crap they could be twins’ but you could definitely tell they were related. We were a couple of lucky girls.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” I said surprising both of them which made me giggle. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, you look like you had a good visit,” Bianca said, her voiced laced with innuendo.

  “It was pretty great.”

  Just like Sal had, Gio snatched my bag out of my hand as we headed out toward his truck. I guess gigolo school taught manners.

  “What the fuck did you do to my cousin?” Gio glanced in the rearview at the same time my gaze jumped to it.

  I was small enough to fit in the little-extended cab portion of his redneck truck.

  “What do you mean?” I knew leaving him alone with his thoughts was going to be bad but it’d only been a few hours. How much of a meltdown could he have in a couple of hours?

  I knew that answer. A really big one.

  Ugh, I should’ve stayed longer.

  “He’s been blowing up my fucking phone probably since you got on that plane.”

  I didn’t want to know but knew I had to ask. “Why?”

  “He hasn’t said anything about you specifically if that’s what you’re worried about.” Gio hit the brakes hard when a jackass pulled onto the highway slowly. I had to brace myself against the back of the seat in front of me. “But apparently he’s all go time for unloading the house and making the move here. I know he loves me and I’m irresistible but I’m guessing that has more to do with you than with me.”

  Snickering, Bianca looked over her shoulder at me, her eyebrows raised so high I thought they might hit her hairline. “Yeah, Bailey, what did you do to the poor guy?”

  “I may have shown him a few of my better talents.”

  Bianca laughed louder this time and I knew she’d get all the details later.

  Pinching my lips between my teeth, I shook my head to dismiss her and watched the landscape fly by. I didn’t care at all if Gio knew I had sex with Sal. Sal might care but I wasn’t going to say anything more in front of Gio.

  First thing I did when they dropped me off was check on my baby. The other apartments in the building had spots under the carport for parking but my dad gave me the actual garage because my car couldn’t be left to the elements and was probably more likely to be stolen. Not that there’s much crime to speak of in Harbor Point. She sat there exactly how I left her so all was right with that part of my world.

  Next, I got into my apartment and shoved everything from my bag into the washing machine. Except Sal’s shirt. That was going to keep for a few days because it still smelled like him.

  Because my dad tended to spoil me just a tad, I was the only tenant allowed to have an over/under machine in my apartment and that was only because I’d agreed to take the front ground floor unit. But really, there were only two floors, and I had no desire to schlep everything up a flight of stairs. No thank you.

  Then it was time to call Sal. I said I wouldn’t and wasn’t about to break that.

  “Hey,” he answered on the second ring sounding all relaxed. I could picture him reclined on the couch, watching a game with a beer in his hand. No shirt of course because everything’s better when his shirt is off.

  “Hey,” I said biting back the giggles at my own mental image.

  “Good flight?”

  “Yup. I may or may not have made people around me really uncomfortable but that’s their problem, not mine.”

  “How’d you do that?” I heard a muffled voice in the background that he responded to quietly.

  “Couldn’t keep my thoughts pure,” I said but again that voice in the background distracted him and me. “Uh, do you have someone over? You can call me back later.” Sal hadn’t mentioned friends to me even once. I mean, I assumed he had a few because guys always do but we hadn’t talked about any.

  “What? No. You’re not interrupting anything.” He sighed. “I’m at the office. Soledad agreed to come in for a few hours so I could get ahead on somethings.” His voice dropped a few octaves, “So you couldn’t keep your thoughts pure?”

  “Your fault completely.” Once again, he muffled the phone to say something I couldn’t understand to Soledad. “Hey.” No answer. “Sal.” Again nothing. “Sal!” I yelled louder.

  “I’m here. Sorry.”

  I let out a good long sigh. I didn’t want to distract him or have him feel torn between me and work because he had to work. I understood that but I also didn’t love the way I felt that he was splitting his attention.

  “Why don’t I let you go do your work thing and we can talk later.”

  “No, it’s all right. I can do both.”

  He couldn’t. But bless his little heart for trying.

  “Not well.” I had to giggle at his groan. “A little-known fact about me is that I’m very selfish so I’m gonna need your full attention when we talk. So give Soledad your full attention now then me later. I’m sure you have the stamina for both. You’re young.”

  He chuckled long and hard.

  “But I have to say if she gets the kind of attention you give me, I’ll have to kill you.”

  “Ok, fine. But Bailey, you know it’s not like that, right?” he asked with concern.

  “Oh my god, Sal, goodbye.” I hung up before he had a chance to reply.

  Sal was the last person I’d worry about cheating on me. He already lived with so much guilt that he wouldn’t chance adding any more.

  Within seconds of ending the call with Sal, Bianca sent a text demanding, as my best friend, that I come to her house because I’d left her for days. First I sent a quick ‘ok’ then changed the laundry and headed out the door.

  “You can’t move to Chicago, he has to move here,” was how she greeted me when she opened the door.

  No idea where she got that idea. I wasn’t moving anywhere. We just expanded Romano’s and I was invested.

  “Christ, Bianca. At least let me in the door.”

  She stepped aside so I could get inside.

  “I have no plans to move to Chicago.”

  “Told you,” Gio called from parts unknown.

  “He doesn’t understand best friends or being a girl,” she yelled back loudly.

  “And I thank
god for that every day.” His voice was a lot closer now as he came around the corner from the kitchen at the same time.

  Bianca and I curled up on the couch with cups of coffee. Gio dropped into the chair closest to Bianca with a laptop on his knees.

  She asked me what we’d done in Chicago, and I told her about the museum, the aquarium, all the places he took me.

  “And… ” She wiggled her eyebrows ridiculously.

  “You’re an idiot, you know that right?” I said to my best friend.

  Gio snorted, the first indication that he was even listening to us.

  Bianca and I had a silent conversation. We’d known each other long enough, she got the point I was trying to get across. She smiled but then schooled her face back to normal. Not that Gio could see her face from his vantage point.

  “I do wonder if certain things run in the family,” I said completely seriously.

  Gio’s attention jumped to me immediately. He only had a view of the back of Bianca’s head so he couldn’t see her trying not to laugh.

  I was better at this than she was.

  “Really? Like what?” she asked me back with a smile then wet her lips trying to keep things under control. At least she kept her voice completely normal.

  “Well, there is the… size issue,” I said in a way that he wouldn’t know if I meant big or small. Then went in for the kill. “I mean Sal is massive. I swear it almost didn’t fit.”

  Bianca’s smile widened as she remained completely still.

  “No.” She shook her head. “We don’t have that problem. At all.”

  “And apparently he goes so much longer than what can be seen as normal because eventually I’m like just finish already. I mean chafing can be an issue.”

  Bianca was going to lose it. I could see it coming. We needed to wrap this up.

  “Oh, definitely not an issue.” Her voice squeaked just the slightest causing Gio to slam the top down on the computer.

  “I hate you both.”

  We couldn’t help but fall into a giggling fit when he got up to head for the basement.

  “But, Gio,” I called after him. “I need to know what it would be like to have someone more normal.”

  He flipped me the bird over his shoulder before shutting the door. We laughed even harder. Poor guy did not know what he was getting into when he hooked up with Bianca. We were a team.

  “Ok, so out with the real story.” She nudged my leg with her foot.

  Because she’s my best friend and I always told her everything, I told her everything. How I had tried to show him that things could feel different. It didn’t have to be about work. It could be about pleasing someone because you wanted to, not because you had to. To be so overcome with desire that you just couldn’t stand to not be with that person. And that I think, in the end, I achieved those goals.

  Without looking over, I heard Gio open the door so I slipped seamlessly back into the fake conversation.

  “But when he flipped me around, I didn’t even know my body could bend that way.” Since he was now on to us, he just snorted and climbed the stairs instead. I waited until I heard another door shut before I continued.

  “I told him I love him.”

  A fine mist of water sprayed over me. All I could think was how thankful I was that she hadn’t gone for that second cup of coffee but grabbed a bottle of H2O instead. Instead of being wet, I could also have been burned. She ran to the kitchen and was back quickly with a towel.

  “You’re such a spaz.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. You told him you loved him?” Her eyes glanced up. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. Leaning far back, I saw Gio at the bottom of the stairs. Being almost drowned by my best friend had made me less observant to my surroundings. “I didn’t see him there. Sorry.”

  “That’s fine.” I sighed. “Yes, I told him I love him. Everybody up to speed now?”

  “Did he say it back?” Gio asked but I knew Bianca wanted the answer as well.

  “No. And I’m OK with that. I don’t want him to say something because he thinks he’s supposed to. That was your life before.”

  “That explains a lot.” He dropped back into the chair he’d been sitting in before.

  “What?” Bianca and I demanded at the same time.

  “All the texts. The sudden urgency behind selling the house and moving here. Getting everything set at the office so we can run things from here and just go back once or twice a month if need be. All of it.”

  “How does what I said explain all that? He was planning on doing that anyway.”

  “Yeah, eventually. But if he loves you, he’ll want it done now. And one thing about my cousin is that when he wants something done it better fucking get done immediately.” Gio took a drink before continuing. “I think he’s like that because we couldn’t control certain aspects of our lives so we controlled other things fiercely. Me, I got tattoos and into fights. He demanded results and got me out of fights or helped if he thought I was getting my ass kicked. It’s why we were as close as we were even when we didn’t want to be.”

  “He didn’t say he loves me, Gio. I think he just wants out of there.”

  “Trust me. He loves you. God only knows why.”

  I threw my bottle at him and gave my best dirty look.

  “Is that your by?” I asked him. When he looked confused I added, “The one time you deserve a nut shot that I’m going to let pass?”

  “Hell no.” He laughed loudly. “I’m saving that for something bigger.”

  “Oh, crap.” I jumped up after looking at the clock by the TV. “I’ve got a Skype date so I gotta bounce.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We did Skype that night. I put his shirt on first and Sal noticed right away. Said he liked that I was wearing something of his when he wasn’t around.

  We even made most of our dates over the next week, surprisingly. Actually, every once in a while, he’d text just to say he was thinking of me and sometimes I’d text him something dirty.

  It was a fun back and forth we had.

  One time he told me that Soledad checks his phone during the day so she’d seen a particularly specific message I’d sent.

  My response was that I hoped it turned her on, just to have him admit he’d been joking.

  Over the next few weeks, my life consisted of working, hanging out with Bianca and talking to Sal via phone or Skype. I’d prefer to have him somewhere I could actually touch him however, this was the best we could do.

  Bianca, Gio, and I did go to Bill’s one night where we kicked some ass at pool and Isaac tried to convince me to re-do the almost hookup we’d had. There was no desire to take him up on it and I made sure to let him know that I was completely taken.

  Thankfully work kept me busy and tired so I could miss Sal a little less.

  On Saturday night two weeks later, my phone rang as I locked the door to the restaurant. I’d walked, even in the cold. It took longer to warm the car up than it did to make the drive. My glove covered fingers didn’t want to cooperate with me to answer my phone so I had to pull one off before I could do it. Stupid touch screens.

  “Hello.” I didn’t look at the ID before answering because I’d already let it ring too long.

  “Why do you sound cold?” Sal’s voice warmed me even though he was hundreds of miles away.

  “Because I’m cold.”

  “Again, why?”

  “I’m walking home. I just got out of work.” As I finished that sentence, I arrived at my building. “Hey, why are you calling so late? Is everything OK?”

  “Yeah. Wait. You’re walking home alone at… eleven thirty?”

  “Yes, Dad, I’ve got my Taser set to stun so I’m good. So what’s up?”

  “I wanted to find out what days you’re off this week.”

  I shrugged out of my coat and welcomed the heat of my apartment.

  “Lock the door behind you,” he said suddenly.

  Shaking my head, I held t
he phone close to the knob and deadbolt so he’d hear the clicking.

  “Um, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.”

  “Three days off in a row? How’d you swing that?”

  “I don’t really work full time. Not usually anyway. And it’s still the offseason so they don’t always need as much help, especially during the week. What’s up?” I stressed, hitting the speaker button, I dropped it on the bed so I could change.

  I grabbed Sal’s shirt out of my top drawer because it had become my go-to jammies but since he wasn’t around I wore pants with it. Unfortunately I did have to wash it a week after I got back from Chicago, otherwise, it would stink, so sadly it didn’t smell like him anymore.

  “Why does your voice sound different?” he asked, still not answering my question.

  “Speakerphone. I’m changing.” It was suddenly very quiet. “Are you there?”

  “Yup.” His voice strained to get the word out. “I thought I’d come for a visit. Just wanted to make sure the days lined up with yours.”

  “Oh thank god.” I fell onto my pillows while he laughed at me. “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “I’ll have Gio pick me up.” Before I could protest he cut me off. “I need to go over some Trinity things with him and this way it won’t cut into our time.”

  Sounded reasonable but I still hated it. And now I had a countdown to Sal’s arrival. I surprised myself just how much I wanted him with me, just how much I loved him.

  For the next two days, if I wasn’t working, I was cleaning my apartment. I’d forgotten to ask Sal where he planned to stay but refused to entertain the idea that he’d stay anywhere but with me.

  Tuesday morning came and I almost couldn’t stand myself. I showered, made sure to shave my legs even though I had the day before, I didn’t want some weird stubble showing up because my plan included us getting naked.