What Happens in Summer

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “Unless something comes up at work, I should be free. And when you get the contract for the guitar building, send it over, and I’ll take a look at it.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Reyes.”

  “I’ll also reach out to some of the town council and see what they’re thinking about the rezoning. But what if they’re dead set on making it residential?” she asked.

  “Then I guess we turn the building into condos and keep on looking,” he said.

  She didn’t doubt that he would do just that. He was that flexible, and while some might view that as a favorable trait, it scared her to think about whether he’d be like that with her. Whether he’d move on without a thought, just like her father had so many times in her life.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said, but he saw through her acquiescence.

  “I’m not afraid to fight for something I want, Connie.”

  As she met his gaze, she realized he wasn’t talking about the building, and it alleviated some of her fear, but not all. It would take a lot more on his part to convince her he was here for the long haul if that’s what she wanted.

  * * *

  Restlessness rambled through her as she walked through the door of her Jersey City condo. Jonathan had dropped her off and gone home to deal with Dudley, eager to make sure his baby was fine, like any new papa. It made her wonder what he’d be like as a real dad, which was part of the reason for her restlessness. She was missing family and friends now that she was alone, something that normally didn’t bother her.

  Her mother and grandparents would be having their Sunday supper, and she was always welcome. But her eagle-eyed mother would quickly recognize that something was up with her, and the CIA had nothing on her mom when it came to interrogations. She didn’t feel like explaining what was going on with not only Jonathan, but also with her career.

  Normally, she’d turn to Maggie when she was feeling like this, but with her friend and Owen in the newlywed stage of their marriage, she didn’t want to intrude. Besides, her law firm’s office was in the annex connected to the Chrysler Building, where Maggie worked. She could always see her friend during the week.

  She had missed seeing Emma that weekend in Sea Kiss. Emma lived on the outskirts of town not far from where Jonathan wanted to set up his new research and development center. Longing to hear Emma’s friendly voice, she speed-dialed her, but when her friend answered, it was hard to hear her over the noise in the background.

  “I’m sorry. It sounds like you’re busy,” Connie shouted into the phone.

  “I’m with Carlo and his family. Are you still in Sea Kiss?” Emma asked.

  “We came home early. I should let you go,” she said, since it clearly sounded like her friend was in the middle of some kind of party.

  “Hold on,” Emma said, and it was accompanied by a muffled burst of chatter, as if Emma was holding her hand over the mike on the phone. “Carlo says you should come over. I think you should too.”

  Connie had been to one of the da Costa family parties over the Christmas holidays, and it had been fun, but she didn’t want to intrude. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “You’ll talk to me when you get here if you don’t want to piss off me and Carlo.”

  Before Connie could reply, the call ended. She stared at her phone, wondering if she should go or ignore her friends. The little voice in her head said, Go. It’s only twenty minutes away. Her sensible side said to take the afternoon to think about the weekend and work and everything else that was making her worry.

  Fuck being sensible, she thought and grabbed her car keys.

  * * *

  The Ironbound section of Newark where Carlo’s family lived was an enclave of mostly Portuguese, Brazilian, and Galician Spanish immigrants. Sandwiched between the airport and the Passaic River, it had managed to survive the economic ups and downs of losing businesses in the area. The da Costa family home was just a few blocks off Ferry Street, the heart of the Ironbound section and the location for their business, the Caminho Bakery. The home, like many in the area, was modest but well kempt. A carefully tended garden boasted flowers and a massive fig tree ripe with the last of the season’s fruit.

  Connie was lucky to find a parking spot just a few doors down from the house. After parking, she walked to the front gate and stopped to run her hand over the intricate tile azulejos of the Lady of Fatima by the stoop. Muted chatter filtered from the backyard, and she walked up the steps and around the side of the house to the garden behind the home. Carlo and Emma, along with assorted members of Carlo’s family, sat around two picnic tables resting in the shade of a large maple tree.

  Carlo spotted Connie as she entered the yard and quickly rose to hug her and walk her to an empty spot next to Emma before sitting on the other side of her friend.

  “Hey, Connie,” Emma said and embraced her.

  “Hey yourself,” she replied, but she barely had time to say another thing as Carlo’s two older brothers and their wives hurried over to the table with platters of food. They laid the dishes on the tables, and there was a flurry of activity as people started serving the different offerings family style, while Carlo’s younger brother, Paolo, and his friend Victor continued cooking at an immense barbecue grill.

  In less than a minute, she had a dish swimming with clams and shrimp in a white wine sauce, as well as grilled sardines sitting in front of her. It was enough food for a meal, but she knew from her prior experience that the da Costa family was just getting started with both the food and the conversation.

  “It’s always so much,” Emma groused in mock complaint as Carlo’s older brother Ricardo scooped a large sardine onto her dish.

  “You’re too skinny, Emma. Eat up! Carlo needs more meat on his woman,” Ricardo retorted with a waggle of thick, black brows. It earned him a playful elbow from Carlo, not that it dissuaded Ricardo.

  “You too, Carlo. My little brother is getting too skinny,” he said.

  Connie eyed Carlo and thought that no one could ever accuse the handsome man of being either too skinny or little. At six foot two, he was well muscled and powerful looking. But she supposed that to his much taller and more rounded brothers, he was a runt. His older brothers clearly indulged in their bakery’s products a trifle too often. His younger brother was built much like Carlo and just as handsome.

  “Ignore them, Carlo. You’re just right,” she said in defense of her friend.

  “You can say that again,” Emma whispered beneath her breath.

  Carlo either didn’t hear or didn’t want to respond, since he seemed embarrassed by his brother’s comment.

  As she dug into her food, Emma said, “How did it go this weekend?”

  Connie shrugged. “No luck with the houses, but Jon fell in love with a building for the business.”

  “I guess there weren’t any nice houses,” Emma said while Carlo leaned forward to listen to the conversation.

  “They were all really nice, but Jon said none of them felt like home.” She didn’t add that she worried he’d never find one until he let go of his attachment to his family’s home.

  “Sometimes it’s not the place. Maybe Jon just needs the right person to share it with,” Carlo said and eyed her with too much interest.

  Much as Carlo had elbowed his brother before, Emma nudged him in the ribs and glared at him in warning. Since Carlo was not a stupid man, he kept his silence as another round of food was served. But it wasn’t long before Emma said, “So you had a nice time with Jon?”

  Since she knew her friend wasn’t going to give up without some kind of answer, Connie said, “I did. Jon is different but the same. He seems to want to settle down, but then he’s talking about changing what he’s doing.”

  “Like?” Emma pressed, needing more of an explanation.

  “Like buying a building for his business. Mary,
the real estate agent, said that they might be changing the zoning, but he didn’t care. He said he’d just turn the building into condos. And then what? Will he find somewhere else for the facility? Maybe he’ll go out to the West Coast. It’s where so much of the tech sector is located. Who knows what his plan is?” Of course, she could have asked, but she’d been afraid of the answer he might give.

  “And you’re all about the plan,” Emma added.

  Connie nodded. As her gaze connected with Carlo, who, like her, always seemed to have everything in order, she said to him, “It’s like a recipe, right? You know what you have to do to make it come out tasty, and you follow those steps.”

  Carlo smiled and gave a regal nod of his head. “Life is like a recipe, but you know what I’ve discovered over the years?”

  Both Emma and Connie looked over at him as he paused.

  “Sometimes the best recipes are those you experiment with, changing up one ingredient or another. Embracing something new to have an unexpected but totally tasty result.”

  “Unexpected doesn’t always work out well,” Emma sputtered, because Carlo’s wisdom didn’t only apply to her and Jonathan, Connie knew.

  “You’ll never know until you try, Emma,” he said. The words were drenched with sadness.

  To try and alleviate the dark mood, Connie grabbed a sausage from a plate that Ricardo’s wife held out in front of her and plopped it on her plate. She cut off a piece and cheerfully said, “This looks wonderful. What is it, Carlo?”

  A mischievous smile warned she wasn’t about to like his answer. “Morcela,” he said, and at her puzzled look, he translated. “Blood sausage. Eat up.”

  She met Emma’s amused gaze and said, “The things I do for a friend.”

  Chapter 18

  Dudley is better than any alarm clock, Jonathan thought as the little terrier jumped up on the bed and excitedly licked his face. Not that he normally used an alarm clock. He’d always had a natural biorhythm that had him up just past the crack of dawn and let him stay awake long past midnight. If he was tired during the day, he’d catch a power nap and then go back to work. Since he listened to his body, he’d rarely used a watch for most of his life. It was only now, when his partners and business demanded that he attend meetings or other events, that he relented and used his phone to keep track of the time. Too often, he got caught up in his work and forgot that others needed his attention.

  Luckily, no one needed his attention today except Dudley. And Connie.

  It had been barely twenty-four hours since he’d dropped her off at her condo, and he was already missing her. Missing the way she tucked herself into his side, her soft curves molding to his body. Missing the tickle of her hair just beneath his jaw and the fresh smell of her skin. The sound of her laugh and her sigh of satisfaction after making love.

  Dudley jumped up onto his chest, sloppily licked his chin again, and let out a few determined barks, cutting short his musings.

  “Okay, boy. I know you have to take care of business.” He patted the dog on the head, tossed on jeans and a T-shirt, and walked Dudley the few blocks to Union Square and the dog park. He turned the little terrier loose to play with the other canines there but kept a close watch, since many of the dogs were quite a bit larger than Dudley. Luckily, the dogs played without incident, chasing each other around for several minutes. Seemingly tired of the game, Dudley returned to his side, and Jonathan took a ball out of his pocket and tossed it up in the air. The pup quickly snared it and returned it to Jonathan’s hand. Jonathan tossed the ball a few feet away, and Dudley raced after it, returning it for another pat on the head and toss. For the next fifteen minutes, they played a game of fetch.

  “Good boy,” he said and rewarded the dog with a treat from his jeans pocket. Dudley eagerly lapped up the treat and grinned, then barked at him for another treat. When Jonathan hesitated, he jumped up on Jonathan’s lap and licked his jaw, almost pleading. Laughing, Jonathan relented and gave him another treat. Satisfied, Dudley hopped back down. Jonathan thought that he was going to have to make sure he wasn’t giving Dudley too many treats. There were even TV shows these days about obese pets. At this rate, Dudley was going to get roly-poly if Jonathan didn’t watch out.

  He snapped on the leash again and walked Dudley back toward his loft, stopping at a local deli to pick up a bagel and coffee, because he didn’t want to waste time making anything when he got home. Besides thoughts of Connie, his mind had been whirring with ideas for expanding the use of the batteries they’d developed into home and industrial power storage, as well as designing a new organic fuel cell to eliminate the use of expensive and environmentally damaging heavy metals.

  When he got home, he fed Dudley, made sure he had enough water, and then sat at the large oak trestle table he used as a desk and not for dining. He usually gobbled down his fast-food dinners while sitting on the couch in front of the television. He cleared a space free of the research papers and notes he’d collected the last couple of weeks and plopped his coffee and bagel next to his laptop. Using a secure VPN, he tapped into the files and notes on his company’s network and went to work.

  Except for a bathroom break for himself and Dudley, he kept at it, mindless of the hours spent running through equations, formulas, and designs. It was only when his stomach growled loudly that he realized that it was well past time for dinner. He considered calling Connie to ask her to join him, but as he’d told her, he didn’t want to rush her. Not to mention he wasn’t above a bit of ego and didn’t want to seem too needy.

  That rationale didn’t keep him from thinking about her as he did another walk around the block with Dudley and then returned home. He fixed a dish for Dudley and then went online and placed an order for Chinese. As he tackled his emails for the day, he rubbed the pup’s belly and waited for his food to be delivered. Most of the emails were routine requests, but he saw that the real estate agent had gotten back to him with a contract for the purchase of the guitar building. His finger hovered over the forward button for long seconds as he recalled Connie’s comments about business, pleasure, and friendship.

  After this weekend, he had no doubt about the pleasure part of being with Connie or even possibly about the business part. He was sure they could keep those two issues separate. The friendship thing, however, was an unknown. He liked her and not in a friend with benefits way.

  He hit the forward button before he could reconsider and left the message blank, because thinking of what to say to her would take way too long and probably sound stilted anyway. Counting to ten to contain his impatience, he phoned her as soon as he hit ten.

  Each ring had him holding his breath until she finally picked up. “Hello, Jon. I was hoping you’d call, not that I was sitting around waiting for it,” she said.

  He thought he detected a muffled curse across the line. “I just wanted to make sure you got the email with the contract, but that’s not the only reason I was calling,” he said, annoyed that, all of a sudden, they both seemed as tongue-tied as teenagers on a first date.

  “I did get it, thanks. I’ll look at it in the morning. I’ve got an urgent project I’ve got to get finished tonight.”

  “I guess that means you can’t do dinner,” he said, thinking that he could always refrigerate the Chinese food he’d ordered if she said yes.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s a sandwich at my desk for me tonight,” she said.

  He thought he heard the shuffle of papers. “I’ll let you go. I’ll wait for your call on the contract.” Maybe by then, he’d have found a way to eliminate his reluctance around her. Normally, he just forged ahead for whatever he wanted, so he wasn’t used to being so tentative. He sure as shit wasn’t used to waiting, but for Connie, he’d learn some patience.

  She must have sensed something in his voice. “I promise I won’t be long.”

  He smiled and wished for a moment that he had video-called her
. He was big on tech, so he wanted to smack himself that he hadn’t thought of it. “I’ll be waiting. Thanks again.”

  “Anytime,” she replied and disconnected.

  He sat there for long moments after, replaying the call, trying to figure out what she was thinking and where he stood with her. Funny really, considering they’d fucked each other’s brains out at least twice in the last two weeks. And maybe that was part of the problem.

  “I’m an idiot, Dudley,” he said, worried that he had rushed things, but then again, she had rushed things as well.

  In sympathy, the terrier jumped up onto his lap, laid his paws on Jonathan’s chest, and licked his face as if to say, “No, you’re not.”

  Jonathan smiled and rubbed the dog’s head. “Thanks, buddy,” he said but thought, Next time, things will be different.

  As his intercom buzzed to warn that his food had arrived, he shut down thoughts of Connie. It was time to get focused again and get back to work.

  * * *

  Focus, Connie. Focus, she told herself as the words on the page blurred together from a combination of exhaustion and, truth be told, boredom. She’d seen contracts like this one time and time again during her tenure as a new associate and normally didn’t do work like this anymore due to her years of experience, but Goodwyn had assigned her the project at the last minute and demanded it be done by the morning. It was a power play, but until she made a decision about whether to stay or go, she had to dance to his tune. It grated on her, but she had no choice.

  She hated the feeling of being powerless. She’d experienced that too often in her young life. Had seen her mother struggle in a similar fashion for so many years. She’d vowed that she would never let herself be in that situation again, and yet, here she was.

  Shaking her head, she mustered her flagging energy and sharpened her focus to read through the last few pages of the contract and make the changes she thought were necessary. She’d get in early in the morning and do another review, since even one word or comma could make a world of difference.