“I’m here, ain’t I?” Forrester returned the gesture with a light punch in his gut.
“Lay off, or you’ll spill my beer,” Tony said, laughing. He pointed at the cards and chips on the workbench. “You missed the game. I got twenty bucks off Jake.”
“I think you cheated,” Jake groused.
Tony chuckled and winked at Forrester. His brother loved to gamble.
“Hey, Frankie.” Dino held out a fist, and Forrester bumped it with his own before giving him a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek. An ever-present baseball cap covered super-short dark hair. He and Tony shared the same wide jaw and thick brows.
Forrester pointed at the engine. “You figure out what was squealing?”
“Just a belt.” Dino wiped his hand on a rag before picking up his beer. “How’s the bookstore?”
“Doing good. Had my first guest author yesterday, and that was a real hit. Summer hours start soon, so we’re getting geared up. Got interviews scheduled for new baristas. That freezer couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“Got it this morning. It’s in my garage. Looks great.” He gestured at Jake. “Hey, start her up, see how she sounds.”
“You should call Gina. I think April needs a summer job,” Tony said.
“I’m not hiring family.” Yeah, that’s what he wanted. A spy to report his every move to the Spaghetti Hotline. When he received odd looks, however, he quickly added, “April can’t even make eye contact when you talk to her. How is she supposed to interact with customers?”
Tony nodded his agreement.
Forrester asked Dino, “Can I pay you next week? I’m running low.”
“No problem,” Dino said. “Get it to me whenever.”
“You gonna need help setting it up?” Tony asked.
“Nah,” Dino said. “I roped Joey into it.”
Jake climbed behind the wheel and rolled the engine over. The throaty rumble and familiar scent of exhaust filled the garage.
“Sounds good,” Dino said, pleased.
“I got the dates for the car show in Gilead this summer.” Forrester watched the engine rumble. “We should take it.”
“Definitely,” Dino said. “All right, kill it, Jake.”
“What kind of author came to your store? Anyone famous?” Tony wanted to know.
“If you read romance novels, maybe. I’m gonna have a kids’ day the first Saturday in June. Crafts and candy and stuff. You guys’ll have to bring the munchkins. I already told Amanda.”
“You tell Missy?” Tony asked.
“I didn’t, but I will.” Why did a three-month-old need to come to a bookstore? But he pulled out his phone and made a note to buy a few baby books, just in case.
“You still drunk?” Dino handed Jake a fresh beer, and Jake once more became engrossed in the game.
“I’m not drunk. Where’d you get a fool idea like that?”
Dino flipped a thumb at Tony, then dropped the hood.
Tony shrugged. “You sounded drunk on the phone to me, Frankie.”
“No, I didn’t. I was busy doing something.”
He probably had sounded drunk, especially with that little show Kyle had been putting on. Damn, he could still taste the flavor of Kyle’s kisses, smell the scent of his warm skin, see the peekaboo of cockhead. He couldn’t wait to suck it, to taste Kyle’s cum, to revel in….
“What were you doing?” Tony asked.
“I was reading,” Forrester snapped, feeling his face heat.
“You’ve always got your nose in a book.” Dino shifted his bulk to sit on one of the stools in front of the workbench.
“You get the buns at least?” Tony wanted to know.
Forrester held up the bags and wiggled them around. “No, I just carry these around for random homeless people and pigeons.”
His brothers laughed.
Sarcasm: the Giordano secret language.
Wordlessly Jake handed Forrester a beer, though the wine coolers chilling in the ice looked better. But he wasn’t in the mood for Jake’s wisecrack that only queers drank wine coolers.
“Thanks, Jake.”
“You’re welcome.”
Forrester glared at the grill. “We just eating hamburgers?”
“No, these are for the kids,” Dino said. “Ma made cheese gnocchi and ziti, and Zia Sophia made a roast.”
“Thank God. I didn’t cancel my plans for hamburgers.”
“Plans? Ha! I knew you forgot Mother’s Day,” Tony announced. “Pay up, Dino.”
“Jeez,” Dino grumbled, pulling a ten out of his wallet and passing it over to the sniggering Tony.
“You betting on me?”
“Yup,” Tony said unapologetically. “I said you forgot and would only come for Ma’s cooking.”
Eleven months younger than Forrester, Tony had inherited more than Dad’s bulk. He had his inflated opinions too. When younger, Forrester and Tony fought incessantly, but surprisingly Tony had made him the best man in his wedding two years ago.
“I can’t believe you forgot Mother’s Day.” Dino shook his head.
Blustering, Forrester replied, “I remembered. I even got Ma earrings.”
“You’re the worst liar, Frankie.” Tony laughed. “I should tell Ma you forgot.”
“And I should tell Missy you weren’t hanging out with me last Friday night,” he returned. Tony’s wife would not be happy he’d been playing poker after his promise not to gamble with real money anymore.
“You do and I’ll knock you into next week.”
Forrester stood straighter. “And I’ll knock your big ass right back.”
Dino sighed. “Can you two try not to argue for once in your lives? I don’t wanna spend my afternoon listening to you two squabble like a couple little girls.”
“Whatever,” Forrester said at the same time Tony did.
Bickering with Tony wasn’t how he wanted to spend his afternoon either. Naked and reading more of that book with Kyle, now that would’ve been a good afternoon.
Jake joined the conversation when the game went to commercial. “Maybe you two little girls should go to that new fag bar in the old laundromat.”
Forrester’s skin flushed.
Dino laughed. “I can’t believe a place like that opened in Shiloh. And it’s always packed.”
“We had to send a unit out there last night,” Tony said, startling Forrester. “Big fight.”
“Oh yeah?” He’d have to ask Lucas and Holly if they’d heard about a fight.
Jake sniggered around his beer. “What? Somebody wearing the same outfit?” His voice went high-pitched, and he flapped his wrist. “Bitch, you’re wearing my shoes!”
Tony and Dino both laughed, and Forrester told his mouth to move into a smile but made no sound.
Crap like this was exactly why he hadn’t come out yet.
“Actually it wasn’t like that,” Tony went on. “Somebody was heckling one of the guys standing outside, and the gay dude straight-up beat the shit out of him. Had to arrest both of them.”
“No shit?” Dino looked dumbfounded.
“Huh,” Jake said, but the game returned from commercial, and his attention fixed back on the screen.
Dino glanced out into the rain. “I wonder when Joey’s getting back with Nonna.”
Tony studied the driveway as though expecting a car to pull up. “He shoulda been back already.”
And just like that, the conversation shifted, as if mocking gay people was just another natural part of everyday life.
Forrester was convinced if you weren’t gay, it just might be.
“Where did he take Nonna?” Forrester asked.
Tony and Dino laughed. “She weaseled him into taking her to church this morning.”
“Better him than us, eh, Frankie?” Tony said.
“You ain’t lying.”
They all three shared a fist bump. Nothing was worse than sitting through a long Catholic mass in Latin, even if Forrester did love his nonna
. Joey never could manage to get out of it.
For half a minute, he thought about telling his brothers about Joey and Alfie last night, then decided against it. They would be pissed, forcing Joey into doing something stupider just to prove he wasn’t an idiot.
“So how’s Holly?” Dino asked—a typical Giordano, always looking for a subject to fill in seven seconds of dreaded silence.
“She’s fine.”
“When are you gonna marry her already?”
“We’re just friends.”
Dino laughed. “Maybe that’s what she thinks. But I saw the way you were all over her at Louise’s wedding. Whispering in her ear, kissing her cheeks, and giggling when you were dancing with her.”
Forrester sniffed. Dino’s incorrect estimation was understandable. They had been “whispering” and “giggling” all night about all the things they wanted to do to the ushers. And he probably had kissed her—alcohol made him affectionate. But he kissed Holly all the time, just like he kissed Lucas, Amanda, Zia Sophia, Nonna, and Ma….
“No dude hangs out with a chick that hot because he wants to be her friend,” Dino continued.
“Unless he’s gay,” Tony chimed in, to Jake’s hilarity.
Keeping his expression neutral, Forrester made his usual deflection move. “With that logic, every man who has girls for friends is gay, Tony. You’re an idiot.”
Tony laughed and Dino went on, unaware of the irritation prickling up Forrester’s spine. “Well if you’re not gonna make a move on Holly, you should come to Smitty’s next week. That cute blonde from your class, the one with the great tits, Britany Mitchel? She asked about you.”
All three of his brothers were obsessed with tits. He never could see the reasoning behind the obsession. Big boobs brought back memories of his misguided heterosexual days and reminded Forrester of his mother.
Lord knew there was nothing sexy about that.
“Might be worth it just for the tits, Frankie,” Tony told him.
“I’m more of an ass man,” Forrester said truthfully.
Tony laughed heartily, swigging down his beer.
For half a second, he thought about adding he was also a dick man. He swallowed the hysterical urge to laugh. That would sure be one way to out himself.
“She’s got an all-right ass,” Dino admitted. “Kinda flat, though.”
“No fun fucking a flat ass,” Jake said.
“I’ll drink to that.” Playing along, Forrester raised his bottle, and Jake clinked it.
He’d been doing it his entire life. Why stop now?
“Hear! Hear!” Dino added, then took a couple taps on his bottle.
While peace reigned among the Giordano men as they toasted the perks of a nice, round backside, Forrester decided that was his cue to ditch Ford Country and its resident Neanderthals to find Ma.
Until Jake said to Tony, “I saw that big heroin bust SPD did on the news. Good job.”
“Thanks. It’s a strong lead, but we haven’t broken up the ring yet,” Tony said, frowning. “Just caught one of the distributors. Something bigger’s going on. Got the DEA sniffing around.”
“When was this?” Forrester wanted to know.
It was no secret a lot of drugs moved through their part of the world, especially heroin. With Interstate 75, the Ohio Turnpike, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, and the Canadian border all within a three-hour radius of Shiloh, and Chicago not too far either, their little college town had become a stop for dealers on their way to bigger and better places, unloading their illegal wares on college kids. Tony had been promoted to the new narcotics unit to fight the growing heroin epidemic—a promotion he loved talking about.
Tony raised his brows at him. “If you bothered to call once in a while, you might know.”
“You know, there’s no reasoning with you,” Forrester grumbled. “Why would I call you when all you do is tell me what I’m not doing right?”
“I do not. I’m just pointing out how you never call. You’re always so secretive.”
“C’mon, guys,” Dino said again. “Can you just lay off?”
“I’m going in to see Ma,” Forrester announced, leaving his beer on the tool bench.
Chapter Eleven
FORRESTER SHOOK the water off his jacket, then hung it up on a hook. Due to the rain, a gaggle of children watched a movie in the living room. The cries of a baby—Tony and Missy’s, no doubt—and feminine voices drifted up from the basement. The house had two kitchens. One upstairs and one down. Ma always cooked downstairs when she hosted large gatherings, because she didn’t want anyone to see the mess.
He kicked off his flip-flops and added them to the giant pile of shoes by the back door. No one wore shoes in Maria Giordano’s house and lived to tell about it.
“Uncle Frankie!”
Setting the hamburger buns on the table, he braced himself as Dino’s two youngest, Giovanni and Natalia, plowed into him, each attacking his pockets. Cousin Joanne’s kids joined in too, all of them asking, “Did you bring us candy, Uncle Frankie?”
He pried the two off. “There’s nothin’ in my pockets, ya little twerps.”
The kids pouted until he made a great show of revealing a huge bag of candy from inside his jacket. “Oh, you mean this candy?”
While they had a slew of uncles, he guaranteed his position as favorite via candy.
Giovanni snatched it and huddled with his male cousins, keeping it from the girls. Dino Junior, or DJ, was eleven now and in the I’m-too-cool phase to do more than offer Forrester a nod from over the top of his Nintendo 3DS.
“You better share, Vanni!” Natalia yelled.
“Say thank you to your uncle Frankie,” his sister-in-law’s voice came from the stairwell in the kitchen.
“Thank you, Uncle Frankie!” a chorus of children’s voices sang.
“You can call me Uncle Forrester,” he reminded them loudly.
“I called you Uncle Forrester.” Natalia gave his legs a hug. His goddaughter barely came above his knees. “Thank you for the candy.”
“I knew you were my favorite for a reason,” he told the little girl as he scooped her into his arms and kissed the top of her curly brunette head. He pulled a candy necklace from his pocket. “Here,” he whispered, “make sure you rub this in your brothers’ faces too. And don’t share any of it with them.”
Her brown eyes lit up, and she squeezed his neck in a hug. “Thank you, Uncle Forrester!”
When he put her down, she raced into the living room and announced, “Uncle Forrester loves me more than you chumps. He told me not to share it with you either.”
Forrester laughed.
“You’re gonna make her a brat doing that kind of stuff.”
He turned to see Amanda carrying a pot of sauce from the basement. Even six months pregnant, she looked like a blonde bombshell, and her huge boobs were huger than usual and accentuated by a skintight purple sweater, which didn’t look like it came from the maternity department.
The Giordano men, Forrester included, all had a blond-track mind.
He took the heavy pot from her, and she heaved a tired sigh. “Thanks.”
“No problem. And how could Natalia ever be a brat? She’s perfect.” Forrester set the pot on the stove and smiled at his niece playing in the living room—actually, she’d just punched her older brother in the kneecap.
“Says you. When Nonna gets here, keep an eye on her. We don’t need her to fix”—she did air quotes—“the sauce.”
“No doubt.” Sadly Nonna had forgotten most of her recipes, but she didn’t think so. She was always going behind Ma and adding spices to things. The oregano-overloaded meatloaf had been memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Hugging his sister-in-law, he kissed both her cheeks. “Happy Mother’s Day, Preggo.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a sarcastic grin at the nickname he used every time she got pregnant. They’d had a gender-reveal party last month, and the cupcakes had all been pink.
&n
bsp; He gave her belly a Buddha rub. “How’s my new little niece doing?”
“Kicking me in the kidney all day,” she answered, brushing her perfectly styled hair out of her eyes with the long acrylic nail of her third finger. Forrester didn’t think he’d ever seen the beautician less than fully made-up and perfect.
Forrester leaned in to whisper to her belly. “Be nice to your mommy, bambina. She’s the only normal one in this family.”
“You can say that again.” Amanda laughed and pushed him away. She’d been with Dino since Forrester had been twelve, and he loved her like a big sister.
“You have a name yet?”
“No clue. Once we see her, we’ll figure it out.”
He pointed at the pot of sauce. “You need any more help?”
She gestured to the basement door. “Yeah, you can carry up the tray of antipasti Joanne finished.”
After a quick stop to hide the chocolates in Nonna’s nightstand—Ma didn’t like her to have sugar—Forrester headed downstairs. The overwhelming heat and smell of oregano and garlic enveloped him as he stepped back into the eighties. Aqua carpet lined the floor of the kitchen/family room, and dark walnut cupboards and puffy white couches with peach and teal strokes of color filled in the rest. Tucked in the corner, their foosball table had been commandeered as Ma’s craft table. The old projection big screen still worked for ball games. The macramé owls Nonna had made for Ma hung on the paneled walls beside photos of the family through the years.
The moment he entered, women swarmed him, all talking at once, some in English and some in Italian.
“Ciao, Frankie, come stai?” That one came with a kiss from Zia Sophia. Just like her mother, Nonna, she was on a mission for the young ones to know how to speak Italian.
“Sto bene, grazie, Zia.” He returned the kiss with an “I’m fine, thank you, Aunt.”
“Did you get the hamburger buns, bambino mio?”
“Right here, Ma,” he answered. She always called her sons “baby,” though she was three times smaller than they were. She wore stylish gray pants and a pink blouse with a flowered apron. Oddly, she wore no makeup today, not that she needed it.
La Famiglia Page 11