by Sam Mariano
“Few years ago.”
“Is that where your family is?” she asks casually.
I go quiet at that one. I’ve never really talked about my family with girls more than I had to, but it’s a whole different category of off the table now. There’s something about her weird interest in my criminal side, though, that tempts me to share. One of the things that’s always created distance for me with girls since Mia is how none of them know about my past. If I could look at my old life as something I’m completely removed from, as another life, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
I can’t, though. I wouldn’t be who I am now without my past. Maybe I don’t live that life anymore, but it was 19 years of my existence—and it’s just been wiped out since I left. It’s even worse since Vegas, when I threw myself back into it, when I took Mia. I stood no chance of feeling authentic with anyone after that because I could never tell anyone about it.
“Sorry, sore subject?” she asks, gently. “You don’t have to share; I was just curious.”
“We should probably hold off on that one.”
“Okay,” she says, easily.
Unease moves through me all of a sudden. That she brought it up at all, even though she dropped it easily enough, makes me edgy. She’s from Chicago, born and raised, she said. She knows my last name. Unless she’s troublingly sheltered, surely she’s heard of my family.
Her interest in me suddenly makes me suspicious. It wasn’t until I introduced myself as Vince Morelli that she started showing up on my doorstep.
Turning to look back at her over my shoulder, I ask, “What brought you to Connecticut?”
“Hm?”
“It’s a long way from Chicago. You came here to be a waitress?”
Her blue eyes meet mine, but I don’t pick up any sudden changes to indicate I’ve made her nervous. “No, I got an internship here. In Hartford. This was nearby and cheaper than living in Hartford, so I ended up here.”
“What kind of internship? When did it start? When does it end? Are you only here for a few months then?”
“Whoa.” She smiles uneasily, pushing up on the couch and curling her legs beneath her. “This just turned into an interrogation pretty fast.”
“It’s just kinda weird that we’re both from Chicago and we both ended up at this apartment complex within a few months of each other, isn’t it?”
Now she frowns, scooting down so she can get off the couch without disturbing me. “I don’t know. I guess? Chicago’s not exactly a small town, Vince. A lot of people are from Chicago.”
“Yeah, but not a lot of those people probably end up in the same corner of New England in the same apartment complex. On the same level, even.”
“Did I say something wrong?” she asks, frowning at me. “I was just trying to get to know you.”
“Why do you make so many comments about me being a criminal?”
“Because you own a lock-pick set,” she states, eyebrows rising.
I shrug, pushing up off the floor since she’s standing now. “Hobby. I like to know how things work.”
“All right? I don’t know why you’re being so defensive all of a sudden, the criminal stuff—it’s just gentle ribbing. You seemed to find it amusing.”
“Do I seem amused?”
“Not right this moment,” she admits. “Is this because I asked about your family? I just remembered you saying you didn’t have a home to go to for Thanksgiving, and I thought—I was just making conversation.”
“Do you know Mateo Morelli?”
Fear flashes through her eyes—it’s too fleeting and too unfamiliar in her for me to know why, but it does. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad sign that she pales a little and takes a step back, putting a little more space between us.
My eyes narrow and I take a step closer.
She takes another tentative step back, regarding me with no small amount of caution. That she knows to be afraid of me fans the flames of my paranoia.
“I think maybe you should go,” she finally says.
“You do know him, then,” I remark, taking a step closer.
She backs herself right up against the wall, but I hold her gaze. “I told you I grew up in Chicago, Vince,” she states. “Sure, I’ve heard of Mateo Morelli.”
“And you knew my last name was Morelli.”
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters. It’s to herself, not me, but she rakes her hands through her hair, looking down instead of at me. “You just told me you were from Chicago two minutes ago. Morelli isn’t the rarest name in the world, Vince. If this is your way of telling me you’re mobbed up, you might want to work on fine-tuning your delivery.”
Since I’ve advanced on her while she was backing herself into a corner, I’m right on top of her now. She’s staring at my chest instead of my eyes. I try to read her, but I just don’t know her well enough. She stirs up shit inside me that no one else does anymore, but ultimately I don’t know this girl. I’ve seen her surface layers, but nothing underneath.
I reach out and grab a fistful of her soft blue sweater. She inhales fast and exhales shakily, but she doesn’t demand to know what the hell I’m doing—which is probably the more reasonable response. She should be scowling at me, demanding I get my hands off her, threatening to call the cops since I’m behaving like a lunatic.
That’s probably what an innocent person would do.
Carly doesn’t do any of that. She doesn’t utter a word, doesn’t scowl—she just waits to see what I’ll do.
This is not what I would expect an innocent person to do.
My suspicions double. I reach for the hem of her shirt and yank it up, checking her for a wire. She gasps as I do, but again, voices no objection. When I lower her shirt and release my hold on it, she stares at me like I’m a tiger whose cage just fell apart—but still doesn’t object.
None of that’s normal. That’s not a normal way to react to some guy getting aggressive with you and yanking your shirt halfway off.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” I demand.
Her eyebrows rise in vague disbelief. “I don’t want to make whatever’s going on here worse.”
“You got Mia’s shampoo when you went on a trip to Chicago. Why did you buy Mia’s shampoo?”
“Who’s Mia?”
I narrow my eyes at her.
“I told you, my sister and I got our hair done. I bought a new bottle of shampoo.” She shakes her head, like she’s at a loss for a better explanation.
Would Mateo have sent a girl? He wouldn’t have sent a 22-year-old girl, right? She’s too young, too friendly—she couldn’t possibly be qualified.
Unless he figured I would think that.
Unless that was all an act.
But if he sent her, why am I still alive? That doesn’t make sense. He’s not going to want to keep an eye on me this time; he’s going to want a bullet in the back of my head.
“Did he send you?”
Her chest rises and falls rapidly but she manages to keep her cool as she shakes her head no. “I’m not here to hurt you, Vince. No one sent me. We both happen to be from Chicago and we both live here now. It’s not that weird. I don’t have a better explanation for you, I’m sorry.”
“Do you have weapons in the house?”
Her eyes go wide and she shakes her head. “No.”
I let her go, but I head for her bedroom. “I’m going to check.”
Her eyes are still bugged out, but she follows me down the hall. I’m more interested in her response than anything else—if she looks in a certain direction, like the place she might actually be keeping a gun. Right now she just follows me to her bedroom, but she’s still not trying very hard to kick me out of her house so I don’t trust her.
Then again, neither did Mia. Maybe I’m being unreasonable, expecting this 22-year-old girl who has likely never encountered a situation like this before to know how she’s supposed to handle it.
“Vince, I don’t have any weapons. I hav
e knives in the kitchen for chopping up vegetables—that’s about as dangerous as it gets over here.”
Mateo would have cameras on her. If Mateo sent her, he wouldn’t leave anything to chance. His cameras are so damn well hidden though. My gaze darts around her bedroom but I don’t even know what I’m looking for. He’s had them installed in the stupidest shit—clocks and knick knacks. Once there was this stupid statue of a hippo in the library and I got to looking at it. Right there in its mouth was a camera.
I need to sweep her apartment. I don’t have the right equipment to do it quickly or thoroughly, but there’s gotta be something I can detect on my own.
I watch Carly to see what she’s most concerned about, expecting her gaze to drift to something incriminating, but she keeps her eyes on me like she’s more concerned about me than whatever she might be hiding. She stands there, arms crossed, not speaking as I toss her belongings. Her lips are downturned like she’s sad, and somehow it pierces my paranoia. I don’t want to make her sad. She’s never been anything but nice to me, and here I am tearing her bedroom apart looking for a gun. Worse, she’s letting me.
But she’s had a multitude of chances to kill me if that’s what she came to do.
She’s had even more chances to turn me over to Mateo, if that’s what she came for. Is there any reason he would just keep an eye on me? I know Mia didn’t want him to kill me before, but my assumption is she’s a lot less firm on that after Vegas.
No, she wouldn’t stand up to him for me. Not now, even if she might have once. And that’s assuming he’d even tell her, which he won’t. He’ll just quietly have me put down, that way he doesn’t have to interrupt his fucking happily ever after with the girl I brought to his attention.
I slowly close the drawer of Carly’s nightstand. I straighten, hyper aware of the horrible silence hanging in the air around us. Frankly, I’m braced for her to cuss me out and tell me I’m a fucking psycho, now that I’m emerging from the red haze. She probably kept quiet before because I was behaving like an unhinged lunatic and she was afraid I would turn the violence on her. She probably just wants to get me out of her apartment so she never has to see me again.
I turn back to look at her bed—I yanked up the mattress to check underneath, and now the once-neat sheets are bunched up at the bottom. Her pillows are on the floor. Items of clothing litter the ground because I searched her dresser drawers like a madman.
I shake my head very slightly, suddenly aware that I just lost my shit on this girl for no real reason.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, quietly. Without waiting for her to respond, I slip out of her bedroom and head for the door.
Chapter Six
Vince
“Vince, wait.”
I did not expect her to follow me, but here she comes outside in the freezing cold to follow me to my apartment. I steal a glance back, expecting anger or at the very least irritation, but she still looks concerned.
Damn, does this girl have a lick of sense?
I’m a mess; stay away.
Apparently she doesn’t, because she barges right into my apartment like always—but this time after I ransacked hers while hurling nonsensical accusations at her.
I try to ignore her, but she grabs my arm like she can stop me. I’m unimpressed by her efforts, but I guess I shouldn’t be since it works—I stop walking and turn back to face her.
“Carly, just go home.”
“No,” she says, her chin jutting out in a show of stubbornness. “You’re upset.”
“I just tore all your shit apart—who cares if I’m upset?”
“Not all of my shit. A small portion of my shit,” she says, minimizing the damage. “And I don’t care about that. It’s just stuff. You didn’t light it on fire; you just gave me a few extra household chores.”
“Why are you so nice to me?” I demand, scowling at her again.
“I’m trying to be your friend,” she states, still holding onto my arm. “You don’t exactly make it easy.”
“So why do you keep trying? Just stop. No one’s asking you to keep trying.”
She releases my arm and her hands come to rest on her hips. I can tell in her face I’m starting to aggravate her—and it’s about damned time.
Instead of leaving like a reasonable person, she tells me, “Sometimes people who need love the most show it in the most unloving ways. You’ve been needlessly mean to me since I moved in here, so I’m pretty sure you’re starving for something. You’re not likely to find it if you push away every single person who tries to get close. I’ve done nothing to offend you, so I assume you push away anyone who tries to get close. Also, you know, a lot of women get turned off by shit like that back there, and I’m not even sure your face or body can make up the difference,” she adds, pointing toward her apartment.
“You should’ve been turned off long before that,” I mutter.
Shrugging like it’s insignificant, she says, “You can keep trying if it makes you feel safer, but I’m going to keep bugging you. You’re not going to scare me off. I’m going to keep trying to be your friend. I don’t care if you’re one of those Morellis or you’re not. As long as I feel like you need me, I’m going to keep showing up on your doorstep.”
“Don’t say shit like that if you’re not going to back it up.”
Her gaze sharpens briefly. I feel like I’m bleeding a little, just having said that. She finally shakes her head, moving in closer. Now I’m the one who should run for my life, but now she’s the one backing me up against the wall. “I won’t,” she says, simply.
I have no idea what we’re doing here, but it’s hell on my nerves. Her hands tentatively come to rest on my sides and she moves in, her body brushing mine. Then she wraps her arms around me more tightly, rests her head against my chest, and hugs me.
It’s innocent as can be, but it makes my heart rate kick up a few speeds regardless.
I don’t hug her back, but she holds onto me for a full minute anyway. When she pulls back, her blue eyes are clear, maybe a touch optimistic. “Now, we didn’t even get to my favorite red kryptonite Clark episode. Why don’t you come back over so I can convince you this is a good show?”
“You’re something else, aren’t you?”
Smiling, she lets her hand drift down to catch mine. I can’t believe she has the balls to hold my hand after all this, but she grabs it like she has a right to and hauls me back out the door.
I let her. I pull the door shut behind me, and though I’m still confused as hell as to why she even wants me to, I follow the irrational neighbor girl back to her apartment.
---
I stare at the empty notebook lying open on my kitchen table, each empty line taunting me. What I want to be doing, what I need to be doing, is filling it with plans. Jotting down ideas, filing away information.
Instead, I’m making a grocery list.
Carly comes up behind me, bracing her hands on the back of my chair and leaning over my shoulder to peer at it. “Did you forget the recipe? We can just use mine. It’s really yummy.”
“I didn’t forget the recipe,” I mutter.
She straightens. Her hands come to rest on my shoulders, and before I fully realize why, she starts kneading the muscles there. “Why are you so surly today?”
“You’re thoroughly distracting.”
I hurl it like an insult, but she takes it like a compliment. “Thank you,” she chirps, her palms working my back.
My eyes drift shut and my head lolls to the side. “Damn, you’re pretty good at that.”
Now as she works my tense muscles, she leans down, letting me get a whiff of that goddamn shampoo as her long, blonde hair falls over her shoulder. She leans in near my ear and murmurs suggestively, “I’m good at a lot of things.”
It goes straight to my cock.
Which was her intention, obviously. I don’t know why she plays with me like this, but she hasn’t tried to escalate anything, so at this point I let her. It’s n
ot the worst thing in the world to be flirted with on a regular basis by an attractive, affectionate woman who expects no commitment and insists she’s only trying to be your friend.
I have some doubts about that, but I’m ignoring them as long as I’m able.
As she does, Carly changes the subject before I can get skittish. “Every year around Christmas, Laurel and I make batches of Nana’s homemade spaghetti sauce. We have a running tradition of making chicken parmesan for our Christmas Eve dinner, so we make it nice and fresh.” She pauses the back rub to kiss the tips of her fingers like she’s an old Italian man. “Bravissimo.”
I can’t help smiling. Her hands go back to my shoulders and she continues to work my muscles. “What are your parents like?” I ask.
She’s mostly pretty open, but she hesitates there. “I don’t really have parents. I mean, I have a mother somewhere out there, but besides a brief guest appearance when I was in college, I haven’t seen her since I was seven and I don’t care to, My sperm-donor bailed when my mom told him she was pregnant. Laurel and I grew up living with our grandparents. That might be why I like Gus so much—he’s the age group I’m accustomed to,” she says lightly.
“Huh. I guess we have that in common. I didn’t grow up with grandparents—my grandfather was psychotic and his wives died before I was born—but I didn’t grow up with my parents, either. I stayed with my cousin when my father moved away.”
“Older cousin?”
“Yeah. Not old enough or interested enough to be a parental figure, but I did okay without one. None of us really had parents; we just grew up like siblings and figured it out on our own.”
“And you’re not close to any of them?” she asks, understandably surprised.
“I was. I left behind a sister I was close to and a cousin, Francesca. Unfortunately the cousin I don’t get along with is the one who makes the rules, and his rule is I’m not allowed back in Chicago.”
Her hands come to an abrupt stop. I think I surprised her. “The whole city? He exiled you from the whole city?”
“He’ll exile me from more than that if he finds me,” I say, more lightly than it warrants.