“You know him?”
“I know of him. Most people do. He’s pretty well-known. You Romano girls are full of surprises.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Gemma muttered at the stove.
Livie leaned closer and murmured, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been turned inside out and steamrollered.” Although breakfast was improving that situation marginally. Bacon was some sort of magical hangover cure, for sure. And the eggs were perfect, flecked with herbs, fluffy, and delicious.
“No, about...you know.”
“Oh, right. Poppy.” Nick dropped his eyes to the scuffed Formica tabletop as he poked at his eggs. Honestly, he’d barely begun to process what had happened yesterday. It hardly felt real. Were they really over? Forever? Or had Poppy thought things through after he didn’t come home last night and changed her mind? When he felt his pockets, his phone was missing.
“I plugged it in to charge last night.” Livie slid it across the table to him.
“You’re a lifesaver. Maybe she texted—”
She hadn’t.
There were a whole lot of texts from people about the various projects he was working on, but not a single word from her.
Guess she hadn’t changed her mind.
He put his hand over his eyes and leaned forward on the table, pushing back against the bleakness inside.
“Nick?”
Right. He wasn’t alone.
He pushed back in his chair. “Looks like I’m apartment-hunting. Fun times.”
She didn’t buy his weak attempt at a joke, and a little frown line furrowed between her eyebrows. “I’m sorry.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s fine. Really. I’ll be fine. Um, I need to...” It was overwhelming. He had to find a new apartment. Even assuming he found something right away, he had to pack up all his gear and move. He could get a hotel room for a while, but that would only solve the problem of a place to crash. He’d also lost his home office, and he was in the middle of half a dozen projects on deadlines. For that, he needed his computer setup, space to work, and a better internet connection than he’d find in any hotel.
“Nick?” Livie asked, touching his arm gently.
He opened his eyes and lifted his head, which had drifted down until his face had been buried in his hands. “Sorry. Feeling a little overwhelmed. I’ll get a hotel. It’ll be fine.”
“But what about your work?” Livie was always surprising him with her perceptiveness. She’d put it together that he was fucked in more ways than one.
“I’ll, um, figure something out.” Somehow.
“Maybe...” She glanced up at Gemma in question. Gemma met her gaze and some sort of unspoken communication passed between them.
Gemma sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, of course,” she said in answer to the question Livie had never asked out loud.
“You can stay here,” Livie said to him. “Until you figure something out.”
“Here?”
Livie shrugged. “Sure. You didn’t get that far last night, but we do have a spare bedroom.”
“Thanks, Livie, but you’ve seen my computer setup—”
“There’s plenty of room for that, too. And we have 2 G’s down and up.”
“Really?” That was pretty fast internet access for a private home.
“I need fast internet for my research.”
If he tinkered with some stuff, he could get it significantly faster. It was only a matter of working around the cable company’s throttling software, which was a piece of cake. “Are you sure?”
“You’d have plenty of privacy to work. Gemma and Dad are at the bar most afternoons and evenings. Jess barely even lives here anymore when Alex is around. And I’m at school a lot.”
He had to admit, it would solve a lot of his immediate problems with one fell swoop. He could be back up and running online by the end of the day, and it would buy him some time to come up with a better long-term solution. “That’s really generous of you, Livie. You sure this is okay?” He directed the last part at Gemma, who seemed slightly less enthusiastic about the idea than Livie.
“Sure,” Gemma replied. “We’ve got the space.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“Livie does, and I trust her. For now. Plus, you’ve earned a seal of approval from Spudge, so you must be an okay guy.”
That meant she had him on probation and if he knew what was good for him, he would not fuck it up. He patted Spudge, who hadn’t lifted his head from Nick’s knee. “Thanks for vouching for me, buddy.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Livie said. “We’ll get your stuff.”
“We?”
“I have some time today. I thought I could help you get some of your stuff.”
“Oh. That’s... You really are the nicest person I think I’ve ever met. Thanks.”
Livie turned her face slightly away to hide her smile. A faint blush stained the tops of her cheekbones. He was reminded, suddenly, of that revelation he’d had a few days earlier, that Livie was pretty, when you stopped long enough to look carefully. Not that he would be looking. Because she was a good friend and valuable colleague. And he was with...well, he and Poppy were over, but that didn’t mean he was ready to... Not that he would with Livie anyway, because... Well, she wasn’t his type, and she was a friend, and she was being really kind letting him crash at her house. Which was why he was definitely going to avoid all thoughts about Livie’s attractiveness. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to have them in the first place. Vodka was a bitch.
When he tore his eyes away from Livie, he found Gemma watching him with an expression on her face that sent a chill down his spine. That woman was not a fan.
But she didn’t call him out or rescind the offer to stay. She just dumped another couple of slices of bacon on his plate. “Okay, eat up and get out of here. And welcome to the Romanos’, Nick.” Despite the “welcome,” he heard the warning in her words loud and clear. Stay away from her sister. Which was fine. Livie was a good friend and that was one relationship he had no intention of fucking up.
Chapter Twelve
It ended up taking half a day to retrieve Nick’s computer equipment from his apartment. He was understandably picky about how it had to be dismantled and packed up, and he didn’t trust movers, so Livie and Nick had to pack it and load it into a rented van themselves, then unpack it all once it was loaded into their spare room.
Half a dozen times during the course of the day, Livie asked herself what she’d been thinking when she offered to let him stay. Sure, he was in a bind and they were friends. But he already engendered a million uncomfortable, inconvenient feelings in her, and now he was going to be living in her house. Her safe space. What was wrong with her?
But it was too late now. His equipment was loaded into the spare room and he was already hard at work running cables and doing something to their internet connection that Livie didn’t want to know too much about. If she kept it strictly business and steered clear of him as much as possible, she’d be fine.
The next morning, she left for school well before class, to avoid the awkwardness of running into him in the kitchen over coffee, and she stayed at school as long as she possibly could, finding one project after another to keep herself busy.
When she couldn’t put it off any longer, she finally returned home, only to find the house quiet and dark. No sign of her father and sisters, which wasn’t all that unusual. It was Friday. Dad and Gemma would be working at the bar. Jess was probably at Alex’s place again. But where was Nick?
A quick peek into the guest room told her his stuff was all there. Not that he’d brought much. All the computer equipment, of course, but only a small bag of clothes. He’d said he’d get the rest of it later.
Maybe he’d gone out? He didn’t seem to have any friends
locally, but maybe he had a late work meeting?
Or maybe he was with Poppy.
Maybe she’d had second thoughts, and he was with her now as they patched up their relationship. It was entirely probable that they would, right?
But suddenly, standing in the doorway of his empty room and imagining Nick back at his old place with Poppy gave her an unexpected and brutal stab of pain. She was nearly breathless with it—nearly leveled by this sense of loss.
Ridiculous. He wasn’t hers to lose. If Nick managed to patch things up with Poppy, she was going to be happy for him, like a friend should be.
Downstairs, she headed to the kitchen to feed Spudge, where she spotted a note in Gemma’s handwriting, stickied to the table.
Cooked tonight. Dinner at the bar.
Gemma cooked something every night, even if it was no more than a pot of sauce and some pasta. If she was leaving notes, it was because she was trying something new and wanted everyone there to sample it.
Well, Nick was a grown-up, and she refused to dwell on where he might be, or who with. After she’d fed Spudge, even though she suspected he’d already conned Gemma into feeding him, she headed over to the bar to see what Gemma had whipped up.
It was a Friday, so it was a bit more lively than the other night. Actually, it was a lot more lively, and not because of the Friday night crowd joining the Romano’s regulars. The bar stools, she noticed, were almost full, and not just with patrons. Jess and Alex were here. And so was Nick.
He turned as she entered, gifting her with a glorious smile, and she felt a sudden, wholly inappropriate rush of relief that he wasn’t off somewhere with Poppy. Oh, this was very bad. No matter how often her brain went over all the reasons she needed to stay away from him, the rest of her seemed determined to get closer, like a moth to a flame. And everybody knew how moths turned out in that scenario—burnt to a crisp.
“Hey, you’re here,” she said, trying to keep her tone as normal and disinterested as possible.
“Your sister lured me here with the promise of dinner, which was unreal, by the way.”
“Right? I told you, man,” Alex chimed in.
“You did not lie,” Nick said to him.
Alex turned to Gemma, who was wiping down the bar. “Gemma, it’s always good, but tonight, you outdid yourself.”
Gemma twirled her bar towel in the air and gave a little curtsy. “Thank you, kind sir.”
“And Gemma thought I should meet your dad, since I’m, you know, living in your house at the moment.”
“You ready for a refill, Nick?” Livie’s father called from the other end of the bar where he was turning the TV channel to ESPN.
Nick lifted his half-full beer glass to her father. “Not yet, but thanks, John.”
“Sit, Livie,” Gemma ordered. “I’ll bring you a plate.”
Livie dutifully sat down on the corner stool, on Jess’s other side, as her father made his way down to their end of the bar. “I put the baseball game on for you, Alex.”
“Thanks, John.”
“Who’s playing?” Nick asked.
“Mets versus Cubs,” Alex replied.
Nick eyed him warily. “Who’s your team?”
“The Mets,” Alex declared.
Nick raised his beer in salute. “Good man.”
Alex clinked it with his glass of scotch. “You said it.”
“When did this happen?” Livie murmured to Jess.
“It was bromance at first sight,” Jess murmured back.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Nick was settling right into her family. Everybody liked him—well, maybe not Gemma yet. But a charming, friendly guy like Nick would have no problem winning over the rest of them. Part of her liked it—liked that her family liked him, too. But it also felt a little strange, maybe slightly scary, because she could tell it would be very easy to get used to this, to think that it might last. And one thing she was sure of was that Nick’s time with the Romanos was temporary. No matter how right his presence felt right now.
“Hey, you didn’t tell me your computer genius was this computer genius,” Jess said.
“Which computer genius?”
“The computer genius who hacked the Department of Defense when he was at DeWitt.”
Livie felt her face flush. “Oh. That.”
“Yes, that. He’s famous at DeWitt.”
“Famous? Really?”
“Well, more infamous, really,” her sister conceded. “Like Billy the Kid or D. B. Cooper. You should have seen Alex when he realized who he was. Instant fanboy.”
“All because Nick hacked some computer when he was eighteen?”
Jess shook her head, smiling fondly. “Boys.”
Gemma returned, sliding a plate of food across the bar to Livie.
“Mmm, smells good, Gem. What is it?”
“I was playing around with one of Grandma Romano’s old recipes for chicken in a cream sauce,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “I classed it up a little, and left the chicken breasts whole and pounded them flat, layered it with some parma ham, added some rosemary and shallots to the pan drippings, finished it with sherry...”
Livie stopped listening after the first few words and just ate. Gemma was always trying to interrogate her about her recipes. “Is it too heavy on the tarragon? Maybe a little lemon zest for brightness?” Livie was terrible at teasing out one flavor from another. She only knew what she liked, and this was delicious.
“It’s really good, Gem,” she muttered, her mouth full.
“That’s a vast understatement,” Nick said. “Gemma, it was magnificent.”
Gemma gave him a grudging thanks. That was an improvement from all the distrustful glares she’d been shooting at him that she didn’t think Livie had noticed. Seemed Nick might be winning her over, too.
“That’s our Gemma,” Dad said, squeezing her shoulder. “She’s a miracle worker in the kitchen.”
When her father was called away to refill another customer, Frank roped Alex and Nick into conversation.
Livie leaned in to Jess. “You think we should rescue them?”
“Nah, they’re good.”
“But Frank is talking about his ex-wife again. You know he never stops once he gets started on that.”
“They haven’t heard it a thousand times like us. Listen. They’re actually giving Frank advice.”
Nick leaned forward on his elbow. “You know what you need, Frank? You need to sign up to a dating site.”
“What, on the internet?” Frank scoffed. “I’m too old for that nonsense. No woman out there is looking for a dried-up old relic like me.”
“Frank,” Alex said. “You own your own house, and in this neighborhood, that place is worth a fortune now. You’ve got your police department pension and most of your hair. You’re a real catch.”
Frank considered that for a minute. “You think?”
“I do,” Alex said. “You know, Jess and I met online.”
“I thought you went to college together.”
“It was both. We had to meet twice to get it right. I’ll help you get set up on Match. Jess’ll work on your profile with you, won’t you, Jess?”
“You will?”
“Sure,” Jess said.
When Frank and Dennis started discussing dating profiles with Nick, Alex turned his attention back to Jess. They were whispering to each other about something, Jess’s hand brushing lightly against Alex’s. Alex slid his hand up under her hair, stroking the back of her neck. A moment later Jess cleared her throat. “I have some news.”
Gemma finished topping off Frank’s Michelob and turned away from the taps. “Did your MTA source finally give you the dirt?”
“It’s not about a story.”
John Romano, his paternal senses tingling, walked over to their c
orner of the bar, tossing his bar towel over his shoulder. “Something wrong, Jess?”
Poor Dad. Losing Mom when they had, being left alone to raise three girls, had put such a burden on him. He worried about the three of them constantly, always concerned that they were missing out on something because they didn’t have a mother. Really, their dad was the greatest, supporting everything they did, whether he understood it or not, and always wrapping them up in his quiet, unassuming love.
“Nothing’s wrong, Dad.” Jess and Alex exchanged another glance, a million unspoken words flying between them. She took a deep breath and turned back to them. “Alex and I are engaged.”
For a moment, it felt like the world stopped turning. There was silence, and Livie examined that word as it made impact and sank in. Engaged. Jess. And Alex.
Gemma was the first one to speak, and when she did, she shrieked loud enough to rattle the liquor bottles on the shelf behind her. “Oh, my God, Jess! That’s amazing! When? How? Tell me everything!”
“He asked me when he got back from Brazil. I’m not going to tell you how, because it’s none of your business.”
Color stained the tops of Alex’s cheekbones as he stared down at the bar. Livie could guess that the “how” had probably happened in bed. Without clothes.
“Married?” their father asked, finally finding his voice. “Aren’t you both a little young for that?”
“Dad.” Jess scowled at him. “I’m twenty-four. Alex is twenty-five. Gemma was a toddler by the time you were my age.”
“Things were different then.”
Gemma swatted at him with her bar towel. “Dad, it was nineteen ninety, not eighteen ninety.”
Jess fixed her wide brown eyes on their father. “Dad, aren’t you happy for me?”
John relented, his shoulders dropping and his heavy dark eyebrows unfurrowing. “Course I am, kiddo. Alex, you know I think of you as one of the family. It’s only...” He looked at Jess, his eyes turning glassy. “I guess I just wasn’t ready to lose one of my girls.”
“Aw, Dad, you’ll never lose me.” Jess’s eyes began to water, too.
Jess was getting married. She was going to build a new life with Alex. For years, it had been the three Romano girls taking care of each other. And Gemma, older by several years, had been as much a mother as a sister. It had been Jess, not quite a year younger than Livie, who’d been her constant companion in everything. Their personalities had diverged in a hundred ways, but when it mattered, they’d thought and acted as one. It had been years since they slept in the same bed, comforting each other through thunderstorms and nightmares, but it didn’t feel like the distant past, not when Jess was still right across the hall whenever Livie needed her. Now Jess was moving out, moving on. Jess was in love, and so happy. Livie wanted to be happy for her, too. But part of her felt like it was breaking inside.
Love and the Laws of Motion Page 8