Riding The Edge

by Janine Infante Bosco

  “You think my shoes are sexy?”

  “That’s what you got from everything I just said?” I ask. My lips twitch as I shake my head “Yeah, Lady, I think your shoes are sexy as fuck.”

  Biting the inside of her cheek, she purses her lips and crosses her arms before leaning closer.

  “You have a filthy mouth,” she points out.

  “Thank you,” I reply, openly staring at her lips.

  “This is crazy,” she whispers.

  “Maybe, but we get one life, Lady,” I say huskily. “Anyone can arrive at their grave safely, in a well-preserved body, but where’s the fun in that. When I leave this earth, you can bet all the fancy china I’m sure you have stowed in your cabinet, that I’m going to skid into the ground sideways, totally worn out from one hell of a ride. Question is, are you?”

  Something flickers in her eyes as she contemplates my challenge, and the silence stretches between us.

  “I’m off tomorrow,” she replies, straightening her shoulders.

  “Seven o’clock.”

  We continue to stare at one another idly until she blinks, breaking the trance. Smoothing a hand over her shirt, she motions to the door behind me.

  “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Shoving my hands in my pockets, my boots remain rooted as I give her a nod.

  “I’m going to head out,” I reply.

  She moves to step around me but freezes mid-step. Turning a fraction, she lifts her hand to my beard.

  “I’m not shaving,” I warn as her delicate fingers travel the length of it.

  “Good,” she whispers. “I like it.”

  Wrapping my fingers around her wrist, I drag her hand away from my beard and intertwine our fingers.

  Soft as silk.

  “Tomorrow,” I say giving her hand a squeeze.

  She flashes me a smile and Jesus Christ that shit’s brighter than the moon.

  “Good night, Al.”

  Releasing my hand, she turns around and heads for the door. She doesn’t give me another look and when she’s out of my sight, I draw in a deep breath.

  Apparently, Jack Parrish isn’t the only one losing his mind these days.

  As always, I’m right there with him.

  Chapter Nine

  I tried to push the call from Dr. Kennedy’s office to the back of mind. I helped Lauren and the baby get settled at home and I paid a visit to Anthony and Adrianna. After I took the kids for ice cream, I went home and got myself ready for my shift at the bowling alley. I knew I was being irrational that there was nothing wrong with me. The doctor was just being cautious, and I appreciated that, but no matter how hard I tried, my mind always diverted back to that phone call.

  I needed a distraction, something to keep me from counting the minutes until Friday.

  Between the traffic from the leagues and the cosmic bowling, Wednesday’s were packed at Rab’s. making me sure I’d be too busy to dwell on words like cysts and nodules. My plan was working until one of my regulars showed up. Ricky hadn’t been to the alley in weeks, which was odd and, so, I made it my business to greet him. It was then he told me he had lost his son in a tragic car accident. Last year the man lost his wife to breast cancer and now, he buried his son—I couldn’t imagine his grief.

  Immediately my thoughts went to Wolf, and I decided to swallow my pride and drop him a text to see if there was any change in Nico’s condition. I didn’t expect him to call me back and if I’m being honest, I panicked. I know it sounds foolish, but a friendly text seems a lot less personal than a phone call. Declining the call, I text him back informing him I was at work. I had no intentions of calling the man. The last thing I wanted was to hear his gruff voice in my ear after a long day.

  Shortly after, Lenny started getting fresh. It was nothing I wasn’t used to and the main reason I dumped his ass years ago. Before I got the chance to set him straight that masculine voice I was avoiding sounded from behind me. I never had a man speak on my behalf and I didn’t have a need for one either. To say I was ticked off would be putting it mildly. Wolf followed me outside and the moment we hit the fresh air the scales tipped. I barely got the chance to tell him I didn’t need him interfering in my business before he cut me off and made it his point to tell me a man’s hands don’t belong on a woman unless she asks for them.

  I have to tell you, those words—his words, they resonated with me, and I realized I’ve never been bold enough to ask for a man’s hands. Isn’t that strange? I have no problem telling a man where to go and how to get there but telling him how and where I want him to touch me—well, I’ve never done that.

  Unsure what to do with that revelation, I changed the subject and asked him why he was there. He told me his son had woken up and then he asked me to dinner. Talk about being blindsided. Yes, over the last few days, Wolf has been on my mind more than I care to admit. That didn’t mean having dinner together was a good idea. He and I aren’t compatible. He’s crass, rude and let’s face it, an outlaw and I’m the woman who swore off that breed the day my husband skipped out on me. However, when I tried to point that out to him, he managed to show me there are similarities between us. More than that, he showed me there is a side to him, I never knew existed—a side that resembles a gentleman.

  Call me weak or call me a pushover but I found myself unable to ignore that and before I could change my mind, I agreed to have dinner with him.

  A biker who goes by the name of Wolf.

  I don’t think I can go through an entire meal referring to a grown man as an animal so at some point he’s going to have to deal with me calling him Al. We’re also going to have to talk about this motorcycle thing. I’ve spent all day looking in my closet for something suitable to wear when a woman loses her mind at forty-eight and decides she’s going to live on the wild side. Deciding on a pair of jeans was the easier part of the task, casually pairing it with a top was a bit harder.

  Now, it’s a quarter to seven and I’m standing in my bedroom wearing the jeans and my bra, staring at the mountain of clothes on my bed.

  “This is ridiculous,” I mutter, moving towards the dresser. Pulling open the first drawer, I grab the first shirt I see—a gray cotton tank top. Throwing it on, I smooth it down and stare at myself in the mirror. Accepting I’m no Reina Parrish, I decide this is as good as it’s going to get and slide a few gold rings on my fingers. Slipping my feet into my favorite pair of heels, I grab my purse and make my way into the living room just as a knock sounds on my front door.

  Rolling my neck, I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath.

  “It’s just dinner,” I murmur, pulling open the door.

  Leaning against the frame, I watch his eyes start at my shoes and travel up my body in an agonizingly slow sweep. When his gaze finally meets mine, his lips quirk behind his beard and for the briefest moment, I wonder what lies hidden behind all that scruff. As curious as I might be, I’m not sure I really want to know. There’s something about a man with a neatly trimmed beard. If I ever discover what that something is, I’ll be sure to share but for now, I’m going to say it’s the mystery that sparks my interest and leave it at that.

  “Lookin’ good, Lady,” he murmurs.

  I could say the same thing about him. I expected the usual attire—jeans, t-shirt and vest. He wore the jeans but aside from the band around his wrist and the worn boots on his feet, there was no trace of leather. He also opted for a simple black t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and hugged his bulging biceps.

  “Thank you,” I reply. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  Touching a hand to his chest, he glances down at his shirt.

  “I pulled this out of the hamper,” he deadpans, tossing me a wink as he pushes off the doorjamb. “You ready to roll out of here?”

  “Yes,” I say, sliding the clutch bag under my arm.

  “Whoa,” he mutters, diverting his eyes to my bag. “No suitcase?”

  “Very funny,” I reply,
pulling the door closed. “I wasn’t sure where one puts their purse when traveling on two wheels. I figured the smaller the better.” As the words leave my lips, I realize the clutch was probably a bad choice. Something with a shoulder strap would free my hands and allow me to hold on for dear life.

  I’m about to ask him if I should change bags when he takes my hand in his.

  “We’re not riding,” he reveals as he leads me down the walkway.

  As far as I knew, Al didn’t own a car.

  “We’re not?”

  Keeping our fingers intertwined, he reaches into his pocket with his free hand and produces a key fob.

  “Didn’t think you were the riding type.”

  Unsure if I should take offense to that, I open my mouth to object. However, the words get lost on my tongue as I follow his gaze to toward the shiny red Dodge Charger that’s parked in front of my house. Widening my eyes, I turn my attention back to him. The car looks like he just rode it out of the showroom.

  “This is yours?”

  “For the next twenty-four hours,” he replies. “I rented it.”

  “You rented a car,” I murmur.

  Leaning closer to me, his eyes twinkle with mischief as he brushes my hair away from my ear and whispers against it.

  “Don’t worry, Lady, I’ll still take you for a ride.”

  Slapping his shoulder, I make a face and watch the corners of his eyes crinkle as he lets out a laugh.

  “What?” he says mocking innocence. “I meant in the car.”

  “Sure, you did,” I retort.

  Releasing my hand, he proves to be a man of his word and opens the passenger door for me. Slipping into the soft leather seat, I lift my head and smile at him.

  “Thank you.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine, Lady,” he says before closing the door. I drop the clutch onto my lap and reach for the seatbelt. Securing it, I watch as he folds his large frame into the car and I can’t help but chuckle. You can take the leather from the man but put him behind a steering wheel and he looks like a fish out of water.

  “For you,” he mumbles, firing the engine.

  “What?”

  “Haven’t been behind the wheel of anything but a cage in years,” he says. “For you, I went and rented a car,” he says, turning his eyes to me. “I guess I’m a sucker for a woman in heels.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t remember the last time I put on a pair of jeans or a simple tank top.”

  He smiles at me and I swear, it’s slowly becoming my favorite thing.

  “Meetin’ in the middle,” he comments.

  “Somewhere between leather and silk,” I add.

  “Like that,” he mutters, tearing his gaze away to focus on the road. As he peels away from the curb, I find myself struggling not to stare at him. From the way he’s groomed himself to the way he drives with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the shifter, I’m fascinated by him and the fact that we’re here together. Two unlikely people daring enough to take a chance.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, breaking the silence.

  “Ferdinando’s on Union Street.”

  “The foccaceria?”

  “You familiar with the place?”

  “Enough to know they close after the lunch rush.”

  “Lucky for us, the owner is a friend of mine.”

  “I thought you weren’t trying to impress me.”

  “I’m not,” he says with a shake of his head. “I’m just experienced enough to know you only get one first date with a woman and a man’s gotta make it count if he wants a second,” he adds.

  “Is that what this is… a date? What happened to dinner between two friends?”

  His eyes flit to mine.

  “You swap purses for all your friends?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Yeah, I don’t rent cars for mine either,” he says, looking back at the road. Moving his hand off the gear shift, he touches my knee. “Don’t you worry, Lady, I’ll tone things down next time and take you to Roll N’ Roaster on a Vespa.”

  “Isn’t that a scooter?”

  “Start small before I break you into a Harley,” he quips.

  Giving my knee a squeeze, he tears his hand away. At the loss of his touch, I realize I might like the feel of him. More than that, I might like the whole package. Leaning back against the plush leather seat, I feel a smile stretch across my face as I stare out the window.

  “Like that more than the shoes,” he mutters beside me. Turning to him, I question him with my eyes as he tips his chin to me. “Your smile, Lady,” he explains.

  Yeah, I might like Wolf.

  I might like him a whole lot.

  Chapter Ten

  Sometimes you gotta go with your gut. You gotta ignore the warnings and do what feels right. Asking Maria to dinner was impulsive, but I didn’t regret it. Not last night, not this morning when I woke up or this afternoon when I rented the Charger and sure as fuck not now. Sitting across from her in a tiny restaurant, watching her butter a piece of bread, the only regret I got is not asking her to dinner earlier.

  Leaning over the table, I pluck a piece of focaccia from the basket in the middle of the table and ask the question I’ve been dying to ask since she opened her door. She wasn’t dressed in her designer threads and the casual clothes made her appear younger than usual. Knowing she had a son in his thirties, I tried to do the math in my head but none of it was adding up.

  “I gotta ask…”

  “Uh oh,” she teases. “That’s never good.”

  Dropping the bread into my dish, I lean my elbows on the table and stare at

  her flawless complexion.

  “How old are you, Lady?”

  “And here I was starting to think you were a gentleman,” she replies, folding the napkin over her lap. “There is an old Italian proverb,” she says, lifting her glass of wine. “Age and glasses of wine should never be counted,” she adds, bringing the glass to her lips. My eyes divert to her throat as she swallows.

  Even that I find sexy making me realize a sea of whiskey isn’t nearly as intoxicating as a drop of her.

  “Forty-eight,” she reveals, setting the glass back on the table. “And, yourself?”

  “Got a year on you,” I reply. Leaning back, I bring the longneck bottle of beer to my lips. Letting it linger a moment, I continue. “Had your son young.”

  Nodding, she meets my eyes and watches me drink.

  “I was fifteen when I got pregnant,” she explains. “Sixteen when I delivered,” she continues. “I was young and stupid—incredibly naïve.”

  “You were a kid,” I defend.

  “Yes, and, having a baby as a kid forces you to grow up real quick. My father was a street guy who ran a social club for the Falcone family. Carmine, that’s my ex, he worked for my father as a bookie. When my father found out I was pregnant, he forced us to get married, sparing himself and his crew any embarrassment.”

  Typical gangster bullshit.

  “My father was killed five days after we were married,” she says, taking another sip of wine. “Leaving me with no one other than Carmine in my life.”

  “Where was your mother?”

  “When I was five, my mother had another child… a boy… both she and my brother died from complications during childbirth.”

  “Jesus, Lady,” I hiss, placing my empty beer bottle on the table.

  “Yeah, us Rinaldi’s never had much luck.”

  “Had the horns on you,” I agree. “I take it Rinaldi is your maiden name?”

  She nods as I grab the attention of our waiter and motion for him to refill our drinks.

  “I never changed my name back because of the kids. If I had gotten remarried, I might’ve considered it, but I was so jaded by my first marriage, I swore on a stack of bibles, I’d never marry again.”

  Smart woman.

  “Where’d it go wrong?”

  “For something to go wrong it has to be r
ight from the beginning and me and Carmine were never right. After my father died, he stopped running numbers for the Falcone’s and picked up a gambling habit of his own. To say things were hard would be an understatement. I was working multiple jobs just to keep the house running and our son fed while he was out all night trying to win a buck instead of doing something to actually earn one. I became pregnant with Lauren and things just got worse. I’ll never forget being 8 months pregnant, standing on the fire escape of our apartment, throwing his clothes in the gutter.”

  “Sounds like a scene out of Goodfella’s,” I teased, winking at her.

  “Karen Hill’s got nothing on me.”

  “I bet,” I say with a smirk.

  “Anyway, after Lauren was born he did us all a favor and took off,” she says, pushing her bread dish away from her. “Literally, he went for milk and never came back. Lauren doesn’t remember him, and Anthony will never forget his back as he walked out the door. Ten years later, the cops paid me a visit at work. Apparently, he had been running from the Falcone’s and they finally found him. They put three bullets in the back of his head and that was the end of Carmine. It sounds awful, but I was relieved. For years I wondered why he left. I mean, everyone has a right to leave someone but at least tell them why. It’s painful to be abandoned but even more so knowing the person leaving felt you weren’t worth an explanation.”

  Through the years, Anthony never gave the club much. I’m sure he divulged more to Jack but the rest of us knew the bare minimum. We all knew Maria was a single mother but none of us knew her father and husband had been killed by the mob. The revelation provided so much insight to the woman sitting in front of me. It’s no wonder she despised Victor’s role in her son’s life. It also makes me understand her resentment towards every man who walks on the other side of the law.