by Trixie More
“What’s that, Soph?” Derrick’s thigh relaxed against Allison’s, tension in her chest she hadn’t known was there, relaxed in response.
“A bot,” Sophia appeared to be delighted with herself, “in the dumpster.”
Across from her, Spencer Moss gave a quiet snort of derision. Allison looked at him sharply, but the man was focused on getting just the right amount of red pepper into the pool of oil on his appetizer plate. A bit of bread waited in his free hand, poised to swoop into the puddle of herbs and olive oil.
Beside her, Derrick looked confused and then his expression cleared. “You pulled it out?”
“Yep. Allison had a grabber tool, and we saved him.” Sophia grinned, and Allison couldn’t have stopped her own smiling response if she’d been struck dead on the spot. She looked at the man beside her. Derrick’s grin was as infectious as Sophia’s, between the two of them, they were insanely charismatic.
“What is it for?” Allison asked. She had forgotten the robot, but she remembered that Sophia had said robots were his hobby. That was before Allison had known they were siblings. She recalled the apparent affection that she’d seen in Sophia for Derrick that day, and now her silly heart was getting all mushy for Sophia, loving that this woman so obviously adored her brother.
“Supposed to deflect a steel beam or work as a team and cover a hole in the deck,” Derrick said with a shrug.
“Work as a team? How many robots have you made?” Allison asked. How much time would it take to build a group of robots that would work together?
“Oh no! He hasn’t shown you yet, has he?” Sophia looked at Allison with curiosity. Allison glanced around to find the whole table looking at her with surprise, all except Spencer. Derrick’s father just looked bored as he masticated his bread.
“Derry has a workshop in his dining room,” Rose said happily. “You’ll have to ask him to cook you dinner one night. There will be nowhere for you to eat.” It seemed that now, they all knew that she’d never seen Derrick’s apartment. She risked a glance at Rose, who was smiling broadly. Angelo’s fearsome scowl was interrupted by him yelping and banging the table with a palm. “Stop kickin’ me!” he hissed at his wife.
“Mind yourself, Ang,” was all the answer he received.
“You should save yourself the trip,” Spencer stated baldly, surprising her. “You’d have a better time reading Sophie’s legal briefs or looking at David’s high school dioramas.”
Allison was nonplussed, why would she want to do either of those things? Derrick himself said nothing, his blank face gave no indication he’d heard his father’s scathing remark.
“You don’t like robotics?” Allison asked Spencer.
“Robotics? I’m not sure you can call what Derrick does, robotics. In the operating room, we use real robotics—machines designed to actually do something useful, like save a life. And they work, too. I’ve been training on them, giving the engineers feedback.” Spencer reached over and grabbed a slice of bread, concentrating on selecting the perfect piece, oblivious to the unhappy glances around him. Allison frowned. What was wrong with this man? Derrick’s father continued. “But no matter how you add things up, you still need a human being to do the work. You can’t replace a surgeon’s sensibilities and split-second timing with a robot.”
Dr. Moss stuffed the bread into his mouth and glanced around. Allison narrowed her eyes at the doctor, feeling Derrick tap the side of her boot with his foot. She shifted her eyes to gauge the other people at the table. Did everyone see what she did? Derrick’s mother was rolling her eyes. David was concentrating on settling his napkin in his lap. Only Sophia was openly looking at her father with disappointment. Rose cleared her throat.
“Well, cookie, you’ll just need to decide for yourself. I’m going to pop into the kitchen and grab the dinner. Sophia, can you get us a bottle of red please?” And with that, the table returned to normal conversation. Angelo turned and looked at her.
“How is the catering business coming?”
Allison shrugged. She just had to own that he knew how she’d spent her morning. “I have a friend who is great at marketing, and I think that with her help, I’ll be able to regain some of the ground I’ve lost.” Allison shifted in her seat, aware that she needed to say more than that to this man; she was behind on her mortgage. Happily, she had a few hundred dollars from her sales yesterday, and she had a check for him in her pocket. She hoped that the cash would say what she couldn’t in front of all these people. “Oh, that reminds me, I have a mortgage payment I brought with me.” She stood, dug in her pocket, handing over the folded paper. To his credit, Angelo stuffed it in his shirt pocket without looking at it.
“Thank you, girl.” He gave her a thin smile and a nod. Allison looked at him sadly. She wished it was more. From the look on Angelo’s face, he already knew it wasn’t going to be everything she owed him. A warm, rough hand settled on her bare shoulder. Derrick had laid his arm on the back of her chair, and he gave her a little tug, inviting her to lean into his shoulder. Allison wasn’t sure she should. What would happen to their relationship if that mortgage didn’t get paid? If she lost the business? Derrick wouldn’t like it if she didn’t pay his grandfather what she owed him. Suddenly, Allison felt foolish. What was she doing here? Marley had been right. Not about Derrick being mild, the man was anything but that, and anyone who fell for his bullshit was blind. But Marley was right about the relationship mixing with business. Dumb and dumb, she could smack herself for getting into this. And then she felt Derrick press on her shoulder, bumping her into his chest. He was looking at her and smiling just a bit. He gently knocked against her again, and she let herself smile in return. To hold back on this, to reject him in front of his family because of what she’d done, that wasn’t fair either.
A change of subject was needed.
“So, Angelo, how long have the Mastrelo’s had this place?” Angelo took the bait and regaled them with the story of how the place was started, while Rose served the food and Sophia plied them with wine. By the time the fruit platter and coffee were brought out, Derrick insisting the cannoli were from her, Allison had let her troubles go for the night. She turned the conversation to Sophia next.
“Your father mentioned you have legal briefs, are you an attorney?”
Before Sophia could speak, her father answered for her, earning a frown from Rose.
“Sophia is wasting her youth,” Spencer stated. Angelo set his coffee cup down with a thump, folding his arms over his chest. “She’ll be interning with a Bronx DA this summer if you can believe it. Scored in the ninety-fifth percentile on her LSAT and decided to intern in the Bronx of all places.” Beneath the table, Derrick’s thigh had gone to steel again, yielding a responding constriction inside Allison’s ribcage. The man loved his sister, and she found herself not knowing what to do with the feelings that brought up in her. Allison let her hand fall to her leg, let her fingertips settle onto the iron thigh beside her. Across the table, David was studying his coffee, eyebrows drawn in. Spencer continued without pause. “In fact, both of my younger children defected to the Bronx. Derrick lives there.” That statement brought her attention back to the good doctor’s face. “Suits him, he’s made for an area like that. Where the inhabitants don’t expect much from each other.”
Well now, that was really uncalled for. Allison curled her fingers around Derrick’s thigh, and his large hand covered hers gently.
Across from her the windbag of a man continued. Would he ever just stop?
“It’s certainly no place for my lovely daughter. She’ll never find a decent man working there.” Now Sophia shot her father a nasty look, but Allison suspected she was the only one to see it. For her part, Allison had enough of Spencer Moss.
“Doctor Moss,” she began and again, Derrick tapped his foot into hers. Tough luck, he invited her to this party. “I’m not sure I understand you.” Allison thought she understood the man correctly, but she was going to make him put his mouth w
here his ego was.
Dr. Moss, for his part, looked surprised. Allison raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes. “I was raised in Sheepshead Bay, so I’m not all that familiar with the Bronx.”
Dr. Moss gaped at her. “Are you for real? The Bronx is …”
Allison held his gaze, and to his credit, he seemed to understand the precipice he was leaning over. So, not so dumb as all that.
“Let’s just say it’s extremely blue collar and not fit for a young woman as lovely as Sophia,” he said.
For pity’s sake. Allison couldn’t hold back. She loved to give a set down, and she had the vocabulary to do it. She sat up straighter in her chair, lifted her chin, ignored the rapid banging of Derrick’s boot against hers, and let it fly.
“In case you didn’t notice, Doctor, four of the people at this table are blue-collar, and they certainly all have better manners than you’ve exhibited tonight. I find your blatant sexism and not-so-subtle digs at Derrick to be less than charming, to say the least. I would think with all your education, you could come up with a less obvious way to insult your children.” She plunked her napkin on the table and rose, Derrick unfolding himself quickly to rise with her. “Really, Doctor Moss, you embarrass yourself.” Allison marched around the table to where Rose sat with her mouth hanging open. Allison thought it was probably a first for the woman. She leaned over, tentatively reaching for Rose. When the woman didn’t stop her, Allison gave her a gentle squeeze, feeling the fragile bones in the older woman’s shoulder and noticing the soft fuzz on her cheek. Rose was no spring chicken. She whispered in the woman’s ear, “I’m sorry, Rose, I couldn’t let it go.” Louder she said, “Thank you for a lovely evening. I enjoyed every minute.” She straightened and turned to Angelo, who for the first time that evening, didn’t have a frown on his face.
“Angelo, thank you so much for letting me join your family for dinner, the meal was wonderful.” Allison made her way around the table, saying goodbye to everyone. When she got around to Spencer, he remained seated, eyeing her distastefully.
“Don’t bother getting up, Dr. Moss. I just want to say good night and thank you for an educational evening.” Then she turned and headed out the door, risking a glance at Derrick’s face. If he was mad at her, so be it. But his face wore that bland and careful mask. Allison was starting to hate it.
Bossy pants was undoubtedly the woman leaving the restaurant ahead of him, and sadly, she wasn’t even close to working that first-class ass for him. She was stalking toward the door, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she now had something stuck up that lovely arss. Derrick had to hurry to catch up with her before she turned her little boots back to her shop. He caught her by the elbow just as she started to list to the right.
“Hey,” he said.
She tugged her elbow free and took a step toward her shop before he caught her again. He managed to hold her in place even though she was trying to shrug him off of her without actually letting anyone watching from inside the bar see her do it. The result was crazy little shivers and grunts.
“Hey, settle down,” he said.
“Just let me go.” Allison kept her face belligerently turned from him. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. Was he wrong? He thought she liked him. She’d just sharpened her claws all over his father and that right there, he thought was a sign of affection for sure. Why wouldn’t she look at him? A nasty idea crept into his mind. Maybe she pitied him. Perhaps she’d stood up for him because she felt sorry for him. Could be, she no longer thought of him the same way. Now that was a fun thought.
“Hey, not in front of my family, OK?”
That stopped her. She turned back to Derrick and touched his face. Her eyes were full of regret. No, this was not the way it was supposed to go. He turned and marched around the corner, to the alley, with Allison in tow. He opened the passenger side and helped her in, watching her round bottom as she climbed up on the running board. If this had been before the meal, he would have cupped her splendid caboose, but he wasn’t so sure now. Frustrated, he went around to the driver side and got in, starting the truck to let it warm up.
“You didn’t need to do that, in there,” he said in case there was some other topic they might discuss.
Bossy gal laid her head on the side window, closing her eyes. “Yeah, I did.”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles,” he said.
“Yeah? And I don’t need to hear your father run his mout,” she snapped. Her anger letting the h drop like the good Brooklyn girl she was. A good Brooklyn girl who had his face between her legs just a few hours before. A good Brooklyn girl who was going to have more than that between her thighs, if he had his way. Provided she wasn’t pitying him.
“What do you do for a living, Derrick? Do you work at Mastrelo’s?” Allison cracked an eye open and looked at him. This was a twist. She didn’t know he was an ironworker? He thought about it. Maybe she didn’t.
“Does it matter?”
“Hell yes, it matters,” she burst out.
Derrick bit his cheek—again. Otherwise, he was going to grin at her and smiling at an irritated boss lady was about as smart as laughing at a police officer.
“How so?”
“Because I felt like a fool in there, basically meeting your parents without even knowing the smallest thing about you. I wasn’t even sure of your last name!” She let her flying hands flutter to the seat. “They must hate me.”
“Well, my last name is Moss. And I only work at Mastrelo’s when my grandfather needs me to. Mostly I stop there to visit with Sophia, or to try out a new invention on them. Or when I want to visit you.” There, that surprised her. She really didn’t know him, he guessed. He felt like he knew everything about her. Except how her feet had been damaged, but there was time enough to learn about that. He reached over and picked up one of her hands, lacing his fingers with hers. “You may not know the small things about me, Allison, but I think you know the big things.” He laughed at her then because her eyes flicked to his jeans. He gave her hand a shake, feeling lighter. “You are a bad, bad, girl, Allison.”
She let her head flop onto the headrest. “Are you an inventor?”
“Nope,” he said, watching as the inner fire jumped in Allison’s eyes.
“Well, I’m not going to sit here playing twenty questions. Spit it out, and you better not be a fuckin’ doctor,” she said.
No better words had every crossed a woman’s lips. “I’m not a doctor. I’m an ironworker.”
“An ironworker?”
“Yep,” he said.
“An ironworker. Really.” She was smiling at him, a dopey, happy smile, like she just ate a canary. “I knew you were in construction!”
“How’d you guess?” He shook his head. Anyone could tell he was an ironworker.
“You know what I call you?”
“To who?”
“To myself,” she said.
Thank God he didn’t have to confess to thinking of her as bossy bottom. “What?”
“Construction god.” She blushed as she said it.
“Who are you?” he asked, laughing. Construction god. She was an odd one.
“I’m the woman who just told your dad off,” she said. “Tell me you love me.”
The words were tossed out there carelessly, he knew she was just trying to be fresh, to show how tough she was, but they still stopped everything. The silence in the truck was instantaneous. He realized in some ways, it was a real question. She would deny it, especially if he tried to answer it now. So, he put the truck in gear and started driving.
She cleared her throat. “You need to head west.” She gave him her address, and he wordlessly worked the truck to the far lane so he could turn. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
Terrific. Now Allison was apologizing. Derrick made the turn and eased the truck into a parking space. She looked around. “I don’t live here.”
“I know.” He put the truck in park and reached over and unhooked her sea
t belt. He pressed in on his and the latch released. He put the seat back just a bit. In the light from the street lamp, her pretty eyes went wide. “Get over here.” It must have been his lucky day because she did. She slid over a bit and braced her palms on the center console. Allison leaned over to him just far enough that he could see the gentle sway of her breasts, falling against the front of her sweater, the neck gaping just a bit, enough to expose the deep shadow there between the tits he’d yet to set eyes on. He brushed his hand across the tip of one as he pulled her toward him and kissed her. The soft globe felt wonderful, weighty and firm, a small point forming under his palm. He ran his palm back and forth against it, then slid his hands over her ribs, traveling lower until he could hold her hips while together they slid their tongues into each other's mouths, chasing and falling away. Her hair fell around them, the smell of her shampoo fresh and clean inside the truck. “Maybe I do,” he said. Then he re-buckled his belt, put the truck in gear, quite satisfied at the dazed look on her face as she settled back in her seat.
The worn marble stairs glittered dully beneath her feet at Allison as she climbed them, one by one, up to her apartment. Maybe I do. How could he have said that to her? Goose bumps rose on her skin, probably because she’d left her leather jacket at work. Surely, she wasn’t getting all tingly at the thought Derrick might have actually meant those words. She would be a fool to believe that. There was love, and then there was that other thing, the thing where people said they love you but what they meant was something much smaller. That had been what Derrick meant. As far as Allie knew, the kind of love she wanted, didn’t exist.
And yet, she’d let herself get mixed up with her landlord’s grandson. Hell, she’d left Marley at work. She’d gone off to dinner and let him take her home without once checking on the shop. This was not good. She didn’t have the time to get all caught up in a big romance with construction man. Maybe I do, he’d said. Allie decided it was a joke or a mistake. People didn’t love her. People were afraid of her, helped her, used her, bought stuff from her, sold things to her, hung out with her, laughed with her, worked with her, but they didn’t really love her. And she didn’t really want them to anyway.