Acrobat

by Mary Calmes

  He nodded. “You’re on for Friday. What opera?”

  “La Bohème.”

  “Nice. Give the kid some culture, huh?”

  “That’s the plan. Plus he needs the extra credit.”

  “Okay.” He smiled at me, turning to look at Dreo. “We’re good here. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Dreo nodded, and all five men said good night to me and then left. Dreo locked the door behind them and then turned back to me, eyes locked on my face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he said flatly.

  “Okay. Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head.

  “If you want to just go home and relax, I can send him later.”

  “No, it’s nice over here.”

  And I knew he liked it, as many times as he’d given me compliments.

  “What you’ve done to this place… the hardwood floors and the ceiling all exposed with the pipes, all the stone by the fireplace.” He shrugged. “It beats the hell outta mine.”

  “All right, then, take off your coat and sit down.”

  I started back across the room.

  “It smells good in here too.”

  “Oh yeah?” I teased, walking ahead of him. “Does it smell like the grilled cheese that I made earlier?”

  “No,” he said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder, so I stopped and turned to look at him. “It smells like fire and vanilla and something else.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Sì,” he said softly, and I saw those melting eyes of his narrow in half.

  After a minute of his scrutiny, I smiled. “I think he wants to talk to you,” I told him, and he understood that I meant Michael.

  I watched as he pulled off the trench coat he was wearing and the suit jacket underneath and laid them both on my love seat, loosening his tie as he walked to the couch. He cleared a space before he sat down on my coffee table across from his sprawled nephew.

  The red-and-blue print tie was pulled off and folded and put down beside him as he leaned forward to look at Michael.

  “What can I get you?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Come on, leftovers? Grilled cheese?”

  “The grilled cheese was the best thing I had today,” Michael said softly, turning to look at me over his shoulder.

  “Better than Johnny’s ravioli with the spicy marinara?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “It reminded me of when my mom used to make it.”

  I really hoped that was a good thing.

  “God, I can see everything you’re thinking right on your face.” He smiled. “Yeah, Nate, it’s a good thing.”

  I shrugged before looking back at Dreo. “Apparently my grilled cheese is good? Tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t wanna be no trouble.”

  “I really want to feed you,” I told him.

  He sighed deeply. “I don’t want you to cook, but if you wanna heat something up for me, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Coming right up.”

  After a few minutes, he joined me in the kitchen, leaning on the counter while I moved around.

  “I think this is the most we’ve ever said to each other at one time,” I commented.

  “I know,” he groaned. “It’s because I never know what to say.”

  “You could just talk. I don’t bite.”

  “Yeah, but you’re real smart.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah, I’m brilliant all right.”

  He shrugged. “Smarter than me.”

  “Hardly,” I assured him. “But we should talk more. I mean, we’ve got that kid in common and all.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, we do.”

  “I’ve known you a long time.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “So?” I pressed him.

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “We’ll talk already.”

  I chuckled. “Don’t make me twist your arm or anything.”

  “You’re kind of a smartass.”

  “Which you would have never known if you weren’t chatting me up.”

  He grunted.

  “Can I pour you a glass of wine?”

  “Red?”

  “With marinara?” I teased. “Of course red. You want a Chianti or… oh, I have a really good Côte de Beaune as well.”

  “The Chianti.”

  “Coming right up.”

  I made his plate, filled a glass for him, and carried both to the table where I was sitting. He was still standing in the kitchen when I turned.

  “What are you doing? Come sit down.”

  He levered off the counter and crossed the room, sitting down next to my laptop.

  I passed him the napkin and the fork and told him to go for it.

  The look I got when he tilted his head back was lost. If it hadn’t been, if he had thanked me or smirked or done anything else, things might have been different. But his gaze, full of need, like he was hurting a little, slammed into me hard.

  “Jesus, what’s wrong?” I said, hand in his hair, pulling the heavy glossy black mane back from his face.

  He tensed, and I realized what I’d done. “Shit, sorry.” I dropped my hand and took a step back from him.

  His fingers curled around my wrist fast, and his grip so tight, he’d leave marks. “I’m not a little boy.”

  I squinted at him but didn’t try and tug free. “I know that.”

  “You don’t need to take care of me like you do Michael.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  He stared up into my face.

  “Could you let go?”

  He said something, but I didn’t get it.

  “What?”

  His eyes lifted to me. “Ho una gran voglia di baciarti.”

  The words had almost been whispered. “I don’t know what you said.”

  Quiet grunt from him as he let go and went back to eating.

  “Dreo, I—”

  “No,” he cut me off, shaking his head before he looked back up. “I’m sorry, I was an ass. I overreacted.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sit down and talk to me, tell me everything that happened.”

  “Fine, but you have to give Michael a pass on the lecture. I already did that.”

  Heavy sigh. “Sì.”

  “I like that.”

  “What?”

  “When you go back and forth between Italian and English.”

  “Do you?”

  “It’s pretty.” I nodded before walking to the kitchen to get my own glass of wine. “It must drive the women wild, huh?”

  He didn’t say anything, but when I turned, he was studying me.

  “Just tell me,” I said playfully as I returned.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I knew it.” I exhaled, sitting down, elbow on the table, head on my hand to look at him. I explained about Michael ditching basketball practice and bringing Danielle home with him. By the time I got to where we were on our way to take her home, he was shaking his head. “So Mr. Tulia hit me, as any father probably would have, because if I was home, I should have called him and his wife to make sure it was all right that their daughter was with Michael.”

  “What?”

  “That’s just parental courtesy.”

  “Why?”

  “Just something you do, check up, make sure, and with them even more so, because she’s a girl and he’s a boy,” I said with a smile.

  “So this girl should have had her parents’ permission to be in my apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

  I gave him a quick pat on the arm. “It’s precautionary.”

  “It’s old-fashioned.”

  “Parents should know where their kids are. It’s important.”

  “Michael isn’t your son.”

  “No, but Mr. Tulia didn’t know that when he got out of the car.”

  He shrugged. “Thank you for taking care of Michael. Ever since
he moved in with me…. I realized today that I count on you to watch out for him all the time, whether I’m here or not.”

  “Of course.”

  “It means a lot.”

  I nodded. “Tell me, who told you Mr. Tulia hit me?”

  “Michael called and told me. He said it was his fault.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “It was. If he hadn’t had that girl over at our house, you—”

  “He’s sixteen, Dreo. What were you like at sixteen?”

  “I was careful,” he said quietly.

  “Of not getting caught,” I teased.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, he’s a great kid, and you know that.” I chuckled.

  “Yeah, I know that.” He sighed.

  I realized how exhausted he looked. “Why don’t you just go home and go to bed. I’ll send him over once he’s done.”

  “The wine is good,” he told me, sipping it, ignoring my comment. “But my mother cooks better than this.”

  “Mothers always cook better than restaurants.” I smiled. “And Michael said yours was feeling better. I’m glad. He said she had a stent put in her heart?”

  “Which sounds a lot scarier than it was,” he said, leaning back in his chair, looking at me. He had unbuttoned his dress shirt, and I could see the rose gold cross on the white T-shirt he was wearing underneath. It was somehow endearing, the sign of faith on the man.

  “So she’s okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I’m glad. Maybe now he can work on getting closer to her.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He seems to think she wants to take him away from you, so that’s what’s holding him back from liking her.”

  “It is?”

  I nodded.

  “Shit, I had no idea. I’ll talk to him.”

  “She doesn’t want to take him away from you?”

  “She never wanted to take him away; she wanted me to move home. It makes sense if you think about it.”

  And it did. “Sounds like you’re right, like maybe you should talk to him.”

  “Yeah.”

  When I looked up from my wine glass, his eyes were locked on me. “What?”

  “Thank you for giving a shit about him. Thank you for being there today—thanks for all of it.”

  I nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  “He reminds you of your son?”

  “A little. He’s nicer than mine was at this age, but I suspect that’s because mine always had his parents and Michael’s learned hard lessons about loss already. He’s very lucky to have you.”

  He scoffed. “I don’t know. I haven’t been doing a very good job of taking care of him here lately. He’d rather be here with you than home with me.”

  “But you’re working to support him. He understands that and he loves you.”

  “We hardly say two words to each other most days.”

  I shrugged. “That’ll change. Mine was an angsty piece of crap too for a while.”

  He leaned forward, and I noticed that his wine glass was empty.

  “You want some more?”

  “Sì.”

  I got up and went to the kitchen, but when I turned to go back to him, I realized he was there, right behind me, so that when I pivoted with the bottle, my knuckles brushed over his shirtfront. My head tipped up so I could look at his face.

  His hand came down on the counter, on one side of me, and I stepped back as he leaned in closer.

  I took a breath. “The Tulias were scared shitless when they found out that Michael was related to you.”

  He nodded, studying my face, his eyes finally coming to rest on my mouth. “And you thought what about that?”

  “It made no sense to me; I mean, I have bunny slippers scarier than you.”

  A beat of time passed and then another until, wonder of wonders, the man smiled.

  In four years, at no time ever had I even seen a grin. His lips never lifted in the corner, they didn’t twitch, mirth didn’t hit his eyes… nothing. But I was suddenly and without warning looking at a smile that made my breath catch, my heart still, and my mouth go dry.

  God, his whole face changed when he smiled. Everything softened, his eyes, his mouth, hard edges smoothed, and he was simply breathtaking. How had I missed that he was so pretty the whole time I’d known him?

  He made a noise, maybe a half chuckle, a happy grunt, and then let his head drop forward as he let out a deep breath.

  I had no idea what to do, but doing nothing when I was being offered a gift, a chink in the armor, was a mistake. He trusted me with it, with the smile, with the lowering of the wall, so I put down the bottle of wine and put my hands on his face and lifted.

  The thick black hair was just as silky as Michael’s, just as thick, but whereas Michael’s was rail straight, Dreo’s had curl to it, so my fingers were tangled fast.

  “I just want you to know that I’m not afraid, all right? And Michael and I both think you’re pretty great.”

  “I do nothing… for either of you.”

  “You make a home for him, and because of that, I get to have my kid fix,” I said, dropping my hands, tipping my head for him to move. “Now go home already before you pass out in my kitchen.”

  He grunted his agreement and stepped back.

  I took a breath, a ridiculous breath that I shouldn’t have had to take, because if Sean Cooper was too young for me, twenty-eight-year-old Dreo Fiore was jailbait. And he was potentially dangerous, plus he was the guardian of the kid I was kind of attached to. It was just a bad idea all the way around. Not to mention, of course, that the man was straight.

  “Nate?”

  He was Italian, and Italian men were just a whole touchy-feely group. He probably didn’t even know how close to me he was.

  “Tesoro.”

  I looked back at him. “Sorry?”

  “That you answer to.” Second smile of the night, this one sort of bemused. “I’m going. Thank you… again.”

  “Hey, remember he and I are going to the opera tomorrow. We’re taking Danielle with us.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl I’m not going to let him get pregnant.”

  “You think you’re funny?” he said with a slight frown.

  I smiled and nodded.

  His grunt was filled with disgust that just made me smile bigger.

  The scowl I got next was even better. He was really kind of nice to look at.

  “So what time are you guys going?”

  I liked the strong line of his jaw, how wide his shoulders were, and the inky black of his hair.

  “Nate?”

  “Sorry, the show starts at eight, so we’ll leave here at six, since we’re going to eat first.”

  “You and Michael and Danielle.”

  “Right.”

  “So where did the third ticket come from?”

  I shrugged. “I got it for you because I thought you might want to go, but then I figured an outing with me might be weird for you, so—”

  “I know you’re gay, Nate.”

  “Yeah, I know you know,” I said. “But still, being cool with it here at home and being cool with it out in the world are two completely different things.”

  “I would agree.”

  “But it worked out perfect because we got to take Danielle.”

  He nodded. “So you have a date on Thursday?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, you heard me tell Sal that.”

  “With who?”

  “With the doctor you met last night. I was supposed to go tonight, but—”

  “But you had to be me instead.”

  “I had to be there for Michael,” I corrected.

  He nodded. “Okay. Thanks for dinner, and the wine and the company.”

  “Anytime.”

  He walked across the room back to Michael, who, between texting on his phone, watching the hockey game, and doing his homework, was completely engrossed. Bending forward, Dreo
put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder, said something, and then kissed his cheek. Italian men—had to love them.

  I enjoyed watching the man walk, the fluidity of it, seeing the muscles bunch and flex under his shirt, the material pulled across broad shoulders, muscular biceps, triceps, and the power evident in his frame, in his every movement. The pants that encased his heavy thighs, legs, his ass, hugged every rippling curve, and I found that breathing was hard just for a second. When he turned back to look at me, I forced a quick smile.

  “Alla prossima.”

  “Me too.” I chuckled, having no idea what he’d said.

  He left then, closing the door gently after him, and I returned to the table where his plate still was.

  Michael was there a second later, picking it up and taking it to the sink.

  “That’s okay, I can do it.”

  “The man’s a pig.” He shook his head, smiling. “He probably thinks because it’s your house that you’re supposed to do the dishes.”

  “I do have to do them.”

  “He should have, but he’s just used to me taking care of him.”

  “That’s nice, huh?”

  “For him, yeah,” he groused. “But for me it’s annoying as shit; I’m supposed to be the slob, not him.”

  I chuckled as he went to wash the dishes.

  He grunted.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I have a glass of wine?” he asked, looking at me over his shoulder.

  “You can have a Pepsi.”

  He made a noise like I was just so irritating, and I smiled as I checked my e-mail.

  “Hey.”

  I turned to look at him.

  “Alla prossima is like see you again, or see you later.”

  “Oh. It sounds better in Italian.”

  “Everything sounds better in Italian.”

  I couldn’t very well argue.

  Chapter 5

  MICHAEL saw him first, so there was no way to ignore it or pretend I hadn’t as well.

  “What the hell?” he growled, freezing there in the middle of the sidewalk. “Isn’t that your doctor?”

  Sean Cooper was obviously on a date, as evidenced by his presence in the restaurant. But it had nothing to do with me, and I knew that. The sixteen-year-old with me, as well as his date, didn’t get it. So there we were, the three of us—me, Michael, and Danielle—lurking at the entrance to an alley across the street from a very upscale restaurant close to the Miracle Mile.