Without Warning (Capparelli & Co. Book 1)

by Dee Lagasse

  “So, um, is this outfit okay for breakfast with the Merrimacks?” I ask, pointing over my outfit.

  “Hol, I’d think you were beautiful in a potato sack,” he laughs. “But yes, you look fine. Ready for blueberry pancakes? Mom’s already texted me three times to make sure you were still coming.”

  I don’t answer him right away though because I’m slightly stuck on the fact he just called me “beautiful.” I can’t even remember the last time someone told me I was beautiful. I couldn’t tell you the last time Noah complimented my looks, and despite the space between us, Chase still made comments about me being his “pretty best friend” on just about every picture of me posted on social media. But this just felt, I don’t know…different.

  “I grabbed everything I would need for tonight, just in case we end up over there for a while and I don’t have time to come back here before five,” I tell him, feeling the need to explain the bag and my guitar, though he didn’t even ask.

  “Alright. Do you want to drive over there together? Since I’m going tonight, we can head to Cap & Co after? I mean, if you really wanted you could even crash at my house again tonight...”

  He watches me cautiously, like he’s trying to see if he crossed a line suggesting I spend the night at his house again. I know that by my own doing he doesn’t understand, that even with work and family, how lonely the last year or so has been. I’m going to soak up any time that he’s willing to give me.

  If anything, the last day has shown me that I was going to be just fine without Noah and that I had missed Chase…so fucking much.

  Chapter Nine

  Chase

  The strong, unmistakable combination of bacon and my mom’s famous blueberry pancakes hits me the moment we step into my childhood home. Hollis hadn’t said a single word or even so much as looked over at me on the ten-minute drive over to my mother’s house. At first, I thought it might be the aftermath of yesterday finally hitting her. It wasn’t until she let out a reluctant sigh and gave me a sad, fake reassuring smile when I came around and opened her door in the driveway did I realize what it really was.

  She was nervous. A year ago, she would have gone barreling right in without me, not giving it a second thought. But today, she stops in the small square tiled entryway that allows you to go straight up the stairs to the second floor or to the right into the living room. Resisting the urge to wrap her in my arms and reassure her this will always be her home as much as it will be mine, I offer my arm instead.

  Obvious relief washes over her as she allows me to lead us right into the living room. Instead of walking us straight into the kitchen, I let her take it all in. As her eyes dart from wall to wall, it’s as if she’s savoring the moment. Slowly capturing the newly filled walls that house photographs of my family she’s probably only seen on Facebook.

  The longer we stay put, the more relaxed she becomes as the tension slowly leaves her body. Purposely I stop, pausing longer than necessary at the distressed blue credenza that sits under the flat screen TV on the wall. A studio picture of me and Hollis from our high school senior prom sits next to a photograph of me, her, and Lola from Lola’s first birthday party. Hollis may not have been in this house physically in the last year, but she’s always been here.

  “I asked my mom to put it away,” I tell her honestly. “But she wasn’t having it. Stop beating yourself up, Hollis. You’ve always had a place here, you always will.”

  “Yeah, what he said,” chimes a voice in the empty door frame that separates this room from the kitchen. We can’t take another step before Hollis is pulled from my arm and into a bear hug by my younger brother. Though there’s a year difference between us, Tuck and I could easily pass as twins. We look more alike than Davis and Hollis do, that’s for damn sure. We even have the same heart shaped birthmark on our right shoulder blades.

  “Chase told us not to bring it up, but I’m glad you figured out that Noah is an A-S-S H-O-L-E,” Tucker lowers his voice as he spells out “asshole”. “You are way better than him and we missed you.”

  Of course, he did exactly what I very specifically asked him not to do. Hollis wasn’t talking about it. She hadn’t mentioned Noah once since the ride over to my house last night, and I wasn’t going to push the topic either. She would when she was ready. Knowing that she would start to shut everyone out if everyone was in her face about it is exactly why I asked Tuck and my mom not to say anything. The entire reason we avoided her family’s restaurant last night was because she wasn’t ready to talk about it, and there’s Tucker opening his big mouth.

  Opening my mouth to call him out on being a dick, I only stop myself when I hear the pitter patter of little feet running down the staircase behind us. Tucker lets go of Hollis, anticipating the arrival of the littlest love of all our lives. And just as expected, right into Hollis’s arms goes the four-foot wonder known to the rest of the world as Lola Grace Merrimack.

  Her squeals of excitement fill the room when Hollis spins around with her. My heart starts to race, and I feel myself melting as Hollis adoringly tells my niece—our God-child—that her purple and gold polka-dotted dress is the prettiest dress she’s ever seen before gently putting her back onto the carpet.

  “What am I? Chopped liver?” I ask, scrunching down to get on Lola’s level. “Lola Grace with the pretty face, get over here and give your Uncle Chase some of that!”

  Winking at Hollis, her shoulders relax and the first smile that isn’t forced spreads across her glossy lips. Any remaining anxiousness leaves her body when I use the same endearment Hollis’s own uncle and God-father, Leo, uses with her.

  Tucker and his ex, Mila, had chosen to keep Lola’s name a secret while Mila was pregnant. So much so that not even my mom knew, and Tucker told my mom everything. As soon as Mila went into active labor, the waiting room of The Birth Place at Abbott Hills Catholic Medical Center was full of Hollis’s family anxiously awaiting the arrival of the first great-grandchild. We were, we are, lucky to have Hollis and her family. My mom is an angel. An actual saint, but my dad? Well, he was good for saying he’d be there and then never showing up. He missed birthdays, graduations, every single football game I played in high school and college. It wasn’t until I was drafted into the NFL did he seem to give a shit about me and Tuck. And then, once I retired, he went back to Washington and I haven’t heard from him since.

  It didn’t matter that Tucker wasn’t their grandchild by blood. When a Capparelli and O’Brien woman loves you, they love you wholeheartedly. Hollis was the perfect combination of both of her grandmothers’ hearts. She, with her Nonna and Gramma O’Brien, made sure that Tucker needed absolutely nothing for his baby girl…going as far as making Tucker a “dad bag” for the hospital.

  Mila, Lola’s biological mother, had no one the entire pregnancy. Her family had all but disowned her when she told them she was pregnant. The only daughter of Texas oil tycoons, Lorna and Buck Rogers, Mila and Tucker met while Mila and her family were in New Hampshire for summer vacation.

  Their story is pretty cliché. Girl meets boy in a bar. Girl lies to boy about being on birth control, thinking “it can’t happen to me.” Girl gets pregnant. Girl’s rich, snotty family doesn’t accept the fact she got knocked up by a blue-collared guy from New Hampshire. To this day, we’re still not sure why Mila came back to tell Tucker she was pregnant…or why she begged Tucker to let her stay with him, feeding him the sob story that her family told her she could either have an abortion or she would get cut off from her family’s money. She showed up on Tucker’s doorstep with ultrasound pictures and that was all it took.

  Despite some serious reservations the rest of us held about the paternity of the baby, Tucker asked us to accept that the baby was his, so we did. And not just me and my mom, but Hollis and her entire family, too. Tucker is the least sentimental human being I know, and even he had water pooled in his eyes when Nonna cried at the news of her first “great grandbaby.”

  And, when Mila was asked about
her family, the brutal honesty of the situation baffled every one of Hollis’s family members. Each of them promising Mila that the baby would want for nothing. The Capparellis may not be oil tycoons from Texas, but for as long as I’ve known them, they’ve basically owned Abbott Hills, New Hampshire.

  Hollis’s Nonno and Nonna, Giuseppe and Camilla Capparelli, opened the first and to this day, only Italian restaurant this town ever saw in 1977—ten years after they came to America with their three young children. Hollis’s Uncle Leo is the oldest. Choosing to follow in his parents’ footsteps, he’s been the general manager of Capparelli & Co for as long as I’ve been in Abbott Hills. He was also the high school football coach and the reason I got to chase my dream of playing professionally.

  He ran his football team like the restaurant, with high expectations. His wife Emily started off as a server as she was putting herself through college. Now they work hand in hand. Emily handling most of the behind the scenes things, like the books, and Leo handling all the day-to-day things inside the restaurant. Their son, Leo Jr. or LJ, is the front of the house manager, handling all the servers and bartenders on the floor.

  Hollis and Davis’s dad, Lorenzo, is in the middle. He owns the largest carpentry business in Abbott Hills. If you needed anything fixed or built, from coffee tables to home renovations, Lorenzo is the one you wanted to call. He’s always booked out months in advance. Even with three crews—Tucker being the lead of one of them—they’re never out of work.

  Hollis’s aunt, “Zia Kat”, is the baby of the three. Katerina took the money her parents gave her for college and went to cosmetology school. At twenty, she opened Capparelli Cuts & Curls, a two-floor hair salon on Main Street, a block away from her parents’ restaurant. Her last name is now Lindsey because she’s married to Martin Lindsey, Lorenzo’s best friend and the third project manager of Capparelli Construction & Carpentry. Ellis and Travis are their twins, who, by sheer luck are just two weeks younger than Davis and Hollis. Their daughter Elisabeth is seven years younger than the twins. Kat’s also my mom’s best friend and boss. Though, if you knew them, you’d say the term “boss” should be used lightly. Co-conspirators is more like it.

  As a teenager, I was secretly a little jealous of the Capparelli kids. The six of them have been as thick as thieves the entire time I’ve known them and when we were younger, they wanted for nothing. From the outside, they look like spoiled, rich kids. It didn’t take me long to realize they had the world handed to them on shiny silver platters because their grandparents and parents work their asses off for those platters and made damn sure the kids knew the value of hard work too.

  And the Capparelli work ethic crossed down into the next generation. As soon as they turned sixteen, they were expected to help with one of the family businesses. Hollis, Ellis, LJ, and Ellis’ little sister, Elisabeth all worked and still work at Capparelli & Co. Hell, even Tucker and I worked there as table bussers and dishwashers during the summer as kids.

  LJ is the only one there full-time today. Elisabeth hosts on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays while going to college full-time. Ellis bartends on Friday and Saturday nights, and works full-time at the salon. Hollis serves at Cap & Co. on Friday nights and does the music gig on Saturdays if it doesn’t interfere with her radio schedule. Travis and Davis opted to work for Lorenzo until they joined the Marines right out of high school. When they both came home for good, they studied for six months, took the test, and both became Abbott Hills police officers.

  And as hard as they all work, they love harder. Every single one of them would give the shirt off their back, without hesitation, if you needed it. That sneaky bitch Tucker got pregnant caught on to that real quick. Mila played every single one of them. Pretending to get close to Hollis, Ellis, and Elisabeth. She had my mom wrapped around her finger. Everyone was bending over backwards for a girl they barely knew because she was carrying Tucker’s baby.

  Until seven months into the pregnancy, when she tried to convince Tucker to put the baby up for adoption. At this point, my brother had seen the ultra-sounds, heard her heartbeat, and he wanted no part of giving her away. But Mila had decided she wanted no part of being a mother. Somehow, Camilla Capparelli worked her magic and convinced Mila to stay in New Hampshire until the baby was born. She denies it, but I don’t doubt there was money involved.

  When Lola was born, Mila wouldn’t even look at her. She wanted no part in naming her and she refused to hold her. Even requesting that Tucker be moved to a different room with the baby immediately following delivery so she didn’t have to see her. She arranged to have a lawyer come to the hospital and signed over her parental rights less than twenty-four hours after her daughter entered the world. And as soon as she was cleared to leave the hospital, she got into a taxi and we presume went back to Texas. None of us have heard from her since.

  But those aren’t the moments I remember about the first few days my niece came into the world. I remember my mom coming out of the room, with happy tears streaming down her face to let Hollis and I know Tucker wanted to see us first. I remember Hollis grabbing my hand and squeezing it so tightly that it hurt. And when I stuck my head into the hospital room, still filled with doctors and nurses, I remember seeing my little brother, sitting in a chair in the corner, filled with a pride and a love like I’ve never seen before. I remember my heart bursting when Hollis started crying as Tucker reluctantly handed Lola over and the way my heart skipped a beat when it was my turn to hold her.

  But what stands out for me the most is when Hollis finally passed Lola to me for the first time and asked, “So, what is this beautiful little girl’s name, Tuck?”

  When my brother said, “Lola Grace, after the best big sister I could have asked for and hopefully, Lola’s God-mother.” Hollis clutched her heart, and then cried in my brother’s arms as he asked me to be Lola’s God-father.

  It was a moment I will never forget for as long as I live. So, right now, as Hollis clutches her heart and lets her bottom lip out as Lola leaps into my arms, the memory of the very first day Lola came into our lives plays back in my head. God, I’ve shared so much of my life with Hollis. Come to think of it, every moment that’s mattered since she came into my life, she’s been there.

  “Gram made boo berry pancakes because they’re Zia’s favwit,” Lola tells me, snapping me out of my thoughts and bringing me back to the living room.

  “They are my favorite,” Hollis pipes in from behind us as my mom walks into the room. “But you didn’t have to make anything special for me, Misch.”

  “Did you really think I would let a birthday weekend go by without making my first favorite girl some blueberry pancakes?” she shushes Hollis as she opens her arms and envelops Hollis similar to the way her granddaughter did just a few minutes ago. “Why don’t you ladies go take a seat at table? Lola, you can show Zia your beautiful drawings! Chase, you get that birthday girl a coffee, and Tuck, come give me a hand with the eggs.”

  Knowing my mother is not one to argue with, I carry Lola into the kitchen, placing her down at the round pine table in the kitchen.

  “Oh! I learneded a new song at school estaday,” Lola exclaims, when I put her down. “Wanna hear it?”

  “You better believe it,” I tell her, as she climbs onto one of the four curved double seater benches that sit around the table. For a long time, it was just Tucker, me, and my mom. She hated the thought of a square or rectangular table, because, we “were a team.” There was no head. Like King Arthur and his knights, we all had an equal spot at the table. No one was better than the other.

  The fourth bench sat empty most nights, until Hollis came along. Then it became her spot. And when Lola was big enough to sit out of her high chair, it was hers too. Today the two of them would share it and I can’t tell who is happier about it, Hollis or Lola.

  The smile on Hollis’s face as she slides onto the bench with Lola is genuine, her eyes full of pure adoration. Any sadness or anguish she felt before walking into the kit
chen has left her and that makes me more content than it probably should. With her attention captivated by the blonde haired, blue-eyed little lady to the right of her, I take the moment to soak her in. She’s so fucking beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me how easily she manages to take my breath away. Even in leggings and a sweatshirt, there’s something about Hollis that puts her above everyone else.

  A sharp jab to my ribs from my brother tells me I’ve been caught staring. Shrugging, I don’t take my eyes off her. Fixated completely as she offers my niece a spoon and shows her how to use it as a microphone. Clearing her throat, Lola begins belting a very off-key, but adorable rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. When she seems to lose the lyrics halfway, Hollis doesn’t hesitate to help guide her along. When they’re finished, they get a loud round of applause from me, Tucker, and my mom.

  “You know,” Mom starts as she drops a cup of chocolate milk in front of Lola. “Your Zia is a singer. That’s her job, LoLo! She even sang the National Anthem when your Uncle Chase played for The Patriots!”

  “I want to be singer when I grow up,” Lola tells Hollis, matter of factly.

  “Hmmm…”

  I can practically see the wheels spinning in Hollis’s head as she plays out something in her mind. Just as I’m about to ask her what’s going through her head, she looks at Tucker and says, “So, I start my set at 6PM tonight. You should bring the little lady down. You should all come. It’s family friendly till about nine.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Mom answers for everyone. “And when it’s time to go, LoLo can just come home and have a sleepover at Gram’s, so her daddy can spend some time with his friends.”