Love by the Slice (Harbor Point Book 1)

by Heather Young-Nichols

  It wasn’t until I hit the state line I knew where I had headed without realizing it. I wanted to go home. Gramps would always be home but I wanted my mom and dad. Downside was, I obviously didn’t pack for a road trip but clothes could be purchased.

  Several more hours later, I forced myself to pull off the highway somewhere near Ohio into a little diner type restaurant whose only sign read ‘EAT’. Clear enough. I didn’t in fact eat. Mostly I wanted a cold drink and a place to catch my breath where I could call Gramps. I didn’t want him to worry and disappearing would certainly cause a lot of worry.

  The waitress told me with a large smile, almost as large as her extremely pregnant belly, that they did indeed have take-out cups for my drink. Worked for me because I didn’t want to hang out for long.

  Dropping back into my car, I sat sideways with my feet on the ground, typed Romano’s number into my phone and waited. Gramps answered on the third ring.

  “Hey,” I sighed.

  “Bianca, where are you?” He sounded genuinely worried. I hadn’t wanted him to worry. Hearing the ‘poor Bianca’ voice hurt as much as everything else.

  “Ah, I need a few days, Gramps.”

  “Sure. But where are you?”

  I sighed again. The other thing about stopping was it made me want to cry which wasn’t allowed on the road where you had to be watching out for other drivers and focusing your attention on being safe.

  “I need to see Mom and Dad.”

  “Ok, good. That’s a good idea.” Something loud slammed in the background. “Take as long as you need. Get away for a while.”

  Hmmm, he sounded a little eager. “What’s going on? Why are you ok about this?”

  “Because I’m a man, Bianca. I don’t do well with tears and I know eventually, they’ll hit. You need your mom.” I let the silence between us hang there until I knew he’d be squirming. “And…Gio called. He’ll be coming in to clear out his locker.”

  “Right. I’m surprised, though. I figured he’d chuck it all and buy everything new. It’s not like he doesn’t have the money.”

  “Drive safely, Bianca.” He acted like he hadn’t heard what I said.

  Tossing the phone onto the seat, I twisted the volume on the radio as high as I could stand it then got back on the road. Dad accepted a more permanent job in the ER at the University Hospital after I turned fourteen, then bought a house outside of Ann Arbor several years ago. I had a bedroom there. One I’d only spent maybe a dozen nights in yet one I wanted desperately.

  As I crossed over into Ypsilanti, I actually started to feel like I was coming home. Until a signed radiated out at me. An actual sign, not one from above.

  “What the fuck!” Hitting the brakes hard enough to make the car skid to a stop, I checked the rearview mirror as an afterthought. Luckily no one had been close behind me because I would have caused an accident with how hard I hit the brake. Veering into the parking lot, I sat there looking at the sign. ‘Triple D’s Pizza”. Gio’s family had one of their restaurants in my home freaking town.

  I had to see why they were special. Why they felt like they could run around the country gobbling up everyone else’s business. Were they somehow better? I had to know.

  Without thinking, I got out of the car and went inside. I stood there like an idiot taking in every generic detail even though it’d been decorated like a stereotypical pizza joint you’d see on TV or in the movies. None of the charm of our place or any place that took pride in their business. Might as well head over to the Applebee’s.

  So out of it, I didn’t notice or hear the hostess but she’d apparently spoken to me.

  “Just one today?” She asked again with an annoyed smile. Nodding, she led the way to a small table in the corner. The place had a lot of customers with a steady stream of traffic into and out of the kitchen. I told the hostess I only wanted a glass of water while I perused the menu.

  Once she took my order, I waited. Checking for any personal details. Sadly there weren’t any. Great service though and when my pizza arrived, I was truly hungry. I only needed one bite. It was good, damn it. Not as good as ours but nothing was. Waving down the waitress, I asked for a box with the excuse of something coming up which required I leave right away.

  At the register, my waitress swiped my credit card and my heart stopped.

  A photo of a family hung on the wall nearby, one of the guys was clearly Gio. He looked maybe five years younger but still him. They were all looking up like the photo had been taken from a helicopter and they all gave a thumbs up. Yup, everything’s perfect in their world.

  “Who are they?” I asked hoping I at least sounded polite.

  “That’s the family behind our company. The Trinity Corporation. They’ve been in and are pretty decent people. Let me see if I remember…” she thought for a few seconds. “I think it goes like this…These two,” she pointed at the older couple in the middle, “started the company, the De Angelos, and these two are the DeLuca’s and their son. Then over here we have the Diamati’s. That’s how they came up with Triple D’s.”

  She handed me my receipt then disappeared. I stood there for too long looking over the details of that damn photo when something I hadn’t noticed at first jumped out like the boogeyman leaping from my closet. The girl, the teenager standing near Gio and presumably his parents, was Gemma. She looked exactly the same. My new friend was one of them?

  I just couldn’t catch a break.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The front door opened and Mom stepped out before I had a chance to shut the car off. Gramps must’ve called them. She didn’t look surprised to see me there. The walk from the driveway to the front door was one of the longest in recent memory.

  “It’s good to see you,” Mom said wrapping me in a warm, tight embrace. I didn’t say anything before allowing her to lead me inside to the kitchen where my butt fell onto one of the barstools. You’d think I would’ve been tired of sitting, but I was exhausted.

  She thrust a cup of coffee in my hands right as Dad came through the door. He didn’t look surprised to see me either. He gave me one of those arm-around-my-shoulder squeezes and a kiss on the top of my head before pouring his own cup. They both stood there silently leaning against the counter on opposite sides of the sink waiting for me to say something.

  I’d always loved mom’s sense of style when it came to decorating. But the warm Earth tones in the kitchen did nothing to comfort me. Right then, I didn’t think anything would.

  “What did he tell you?” I asked with a sigh. The look in their eyes and the furtive glance at each other when I’d thrown the question out there made my stomach drop. I hadn’t decided how much I’d tell them, but apparently, Gramps pushed me into it a decision.

  “Dad called and said you were on your way here,” Mom started. “I was curious as to why you hadn’t called, but he said you broke up with Gio and were upset. So, I called Tony home.”

  “Ugh, you didn’t have to leave work early.” My eyes felt squarely on Dad.

  He shrugged me off before saying, “they’ll be fine without me.”

  “We did,” my voice dropped to a whisper, “We broke up.” I would not cry. I would not cry. I’m not sure who I was trying to convince because the lump already hung at the back of my throat.

  “The look on your face tells me you’re not happy about that.” Mom’s voice had the exact right amount of softness behind her words. This is what I came for. Tears filled my eyes but stayed there as I shook my head in response. “So, honey, what happened?”

  “He works for The Trinity Corporation.” The words fell out of my mouth. I guess I’d decided to tell them everything and didn’t know it. “It’s his family’s company.” That’s when my body hit autopilot putting the entire sordid story out there. I’d been used. Gio was a pawn for his family, but he’d convinced me we were real. That he loved me. He made love to me … scratch that. He’d had sex with me and made me feel like someone special, someone precious to hi
m, someone he wanted to be with forever. And it was all a lie. He’s a fantastic actor, I said. I told them about stopping at Triple D’s and seeing Gemma amongst the enemy. They’d invaded every freaking part of my life.

  After I’d been laid bare, all the dirty laundry of the past few days exposed, my eyes moved up to them. Dad was pissed. His bicep muscles bulged as if they were aching to connect with Gio’s face. I have to admit, I wouldn’t have minded seeing it right then. And if his jaw clenched any tighter they were going to end up with one hell of a dental bill. Mom tried not to cry. She’d always been like that. Half the time when I scraped a knee or needed something stitched up, Mom would be there crying harder than me. She couldn’t be in the room when I got shots either.

  “Where is he now?” Dad asked through his teeth.

  “I’m not exactly keeping tabs on him, Dad.” They fell silent again but I could tell there were many, many things they wanted to say or ask. I didn’t think I had the energy to do it all right then. “So, can I just stay here a few days?”

  “Like you have to ask,” Mom said.

  “I’m going to need to buy some clothes because I didn’t exactly plan this.”

  Mom promised an early morning shopping trip and Dad offered one of his t-shirts to sleep in. Exhausted, I headed up to bed even though it was barely eight o’clock. My beige bedroom showed no signs of being mine. The inside contained a queen-sized bed, a dresser, a desk and a TV. It looked like a nice hotel room complete with attached bathroom. I knew my parents used it as guest quarters when I wasn’t around and I didn’t care. I didn’t grow up there or anything anyway.

  The TV flickered to life for a little bit of company and to drown out any noises I might make. Checking my phone, there were a few text messages and I noticed the battery blinked red. So, I made a mental note to buy a charger in the morning. I had one text from Bailey, in all caps. She really wanted to murder Gio. Then another from Nick, whom Bailey took upon herself to call as I expected. He made sure to remind me about the mad knife skills he picked up in culinary school should I want him to put those to use. I snorted. Even at a time when laughing felt unfamiliar and pretty much out of the question, both Bailey and Nick threatening to end Gio made me know I’d chosen the right friends.

  There were two from Gio. I didn’t read those. But I didn’t delete them either. I’d leave the decision for later. I also had five voicemails. Checking my missed calls first, I found that three were probably from him and I didn’t want to hear his voice, instead of listening to any of them, I tossed the phone on the desk, burrowed down into bed and fell asleep faster than I would’ve expected.

  True to her word, Mom woke up and got ready to go long before I dragged my sorry ass out of bed. I hated keeping her waiting but needed to do things in my own time. Using the last of the battery power on my phone, I sent Bailey a text telling her about Gemma and asked her to let Gramps know so he’d take care of her before I got back. Unfortunately, the phone completely died before I got her response. But I knew my girl. She’d take care of it.

  Pulling my hair back in a ponytail, I couldn’t slap any makeup on or even change my clothes because I hadn’t planned this little impromptu trip. I didn’t care about any of it anyway. I needed some things to get me through a few days.

  We drove in silence into the city to the mall. Dad left long before I woke up. He’d be gone until evening since his shifts were at least twelve hours long. Which meant a lot of alone time with Mom. And that could be worrisome. She already knew everything, including how he slept with me for the only reason of getting in good with the family, but it wouldn’t stop all the questions she’d have following my admission.

  She actually did pretty well. Even surprised me a little. It wasn’t until after lunch (which I picked at) that she asked about how I was handling things or my feelings rather than anything else. Plus, like the expert, she is found a way to ask about Gio without actually asking about him. Talking about him wasn’t something I’d planned on doing, yet somehow it felt ok with her. It felt safe to hash everything out with her.

  Three more days of vegetating around my parents’ house, visiting Dad for food in the hospital cafeteria and wedging myself between them on the couch to watch a movie like I did when I was a kid, all left me ready to go home. They didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, they did everything exactly right giving me the ideal mix of a shoulder to cry on and tough love. But it was time to go.

  Back home, the days started to blur together. Bailey hung out with me every night I wasn’t working and never asked for more details. That’s what I love about her. She’s always there. We didn’t talk. We sat watching movies, eating ice cream and pizza and a ton of other things which should’ve made me gain a hundred pounds but I never ate enough of it to matter. I think I actually lost weight. She even forced me onto the phone with Nick, who threatened to track Gio down and kick his ass. A small part of me wanted to take him up on the offer. As pissed as Nick was, Gio might not stand a chance.

  Gemma called me several times but I refused to answer. Bailey finally did and told her to go fuck herself. I missed Gemma, too. We’d become pretty close in a short period of time. Now I knew it had all been part of the plan and I didn’t know how much of her was her and how much was her trying to get in good with me. I couldn’t trust anything. Which quickly became the worst part.

  Not the lying. Not even the using, because let’s face it, at least out of Gio I got a lot of great sex. But I could no longer trust my judgment of people. And it sucked.

  After two weeks of mopey Bianca, I decided to pull myself together and live. Step one meant lunch with Gramps on the rare day neither of us had to work. Since cooking wasn’t something I felt up to, I went into town for take-out. No one acted like the world had crumbled, well, my world anyway. Then I realized those who weren’t close to me would think Gio and I broke up without any of the details.

  “Gramps,” I called out once I got into the kitchen and shut the door behind me, “I brought food.” Hearing the TV, I knew he was in the living room watching the mid-day news. I dropped the bag of takeout on the table and headed into him.

  “In business news, rumblings within The Trinity Corporation…” That’s when I tuned out.

  “Gramps, I don’t want to hear this.” My hands slapped over my ears almost involuntarily. I know it how childish it seemed but I needed to work on ridding myself of the Diamati’s.

  When he tapped my shoulder I knew he’d turned it off and we went to eat. We talked about a lot of things, but Gio and his family were off limits.

  ***

  Three weeks after Gio walked out my door (it’s not like I kept track or anything), I got a shock when I came around the corner from the kitchen at work and found Gemma standing there looking incredibly nervous, shifting her weight. She blinked about a hundred times in the couple of seconds I stood there. She kept running her hands over her thighs like her palms were sweaty.

  “What’re you doing here?” Pleasantries weren’t something I wanted to waste on her. She and I had been friends. Or I thought we had been.

  “Bianca,” Gemma sounded breathless. “I … I just wanted to check on you. See how you’re doing.”

  “Seriously?” How I was doing? Not as good as before the Diamati family took a big dump on my life. Diamati. Gemma’s real last name just like Gio. It became clear pretty quickly that we were in the way of the others trying to do their job. To get out of their way, I motioned for her to follow me to the break room. Once inside, I didn’t sit. “So, you’re here to see how I’m doing?”

  “Yeah, Bianca, I’m so sorry. We—”

  “Stop right there,” my hand went up. “None of this we bullshit. Did he send you here?”

  “No,” she shook her head looking younger than she actually was. “Actually he told me to leave you alone. To stay away.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “I couldn’t.” She sighed much the same way Gio did when apologizing. Gemma began to remind
me of him far too much, making me wonder how I didn’t see the signs before. “I’ve never had a friend before. And I felt you were one. I’m so, so sorry for … everything. I never should’ve given you that stuff.”

  “So, you’d let me live in ignorance?”

  “No. Gio,” I flinched, “wanted to tell you. He was going to tell you. Which is why I had to beat him to it. I’m not proud of it but my parents aren’t the easiest people to defy. Things are getting pretty ugly.”

  “I get it. I do. I know this is just business as usual for your family—”

  “You weren’t. That’s the problem.”

  Both of them had tried to convince me I was someone special, something more than the run of the mill assignment they were given. But my life is not a book and I was definitely not the girl so beautiful everyone became awestruck by her. They’d duped me once, it wasn’t going to happen again.

  “This is what your family does. I get that. It’s all you’ve ever known and that makes me sad for you.” I purposely didn’t say both of them. I had to keep him as far from my thoughts as I could. Even with one question nagging at me. “But, it hurts. I’m hurt.”

  Tears filled her eyes. If this girl had never been allowed to get close to anyone, she’d never had slumber parties and the melodrama which comes with being a teenage girl. Hell, she probably hadn’t been allowed to date or have a messy breakup. Gio probably hadn’t been allowed either. I hated their parents for it and much more.

  “I understand. I just … I needed to make sure you know how sorry I am. I won’t bug you anymore.” She turned to walk away but must’ve thought better of it. “Hey, Bianca, I know I don’t have a right to ask but if, in the future … you have my email address, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean, in case.”

  This time when she went to leave, I called her back. I tried talking myself out of it but I wouldn’t listen to me. I shouldn’t want to know.

  “Wait, Gemma.” We closed the space between us until we were standing close enough that no one else would hear me. “Did…um ... did he say anything…about sitting outside my apartment?”