Quiet Nights (2 page)

He shook his head. “No kid is gonna listen to a guy with only one arm.”

“For fuck’s sake, Coz, do you even listen to yourself? Why does you not having an arm define anything about you?”

“Because it does.”

“But why does it?”

“It just does!”

“And see, that’s what I mean about you being blind.”

“Listen, nobody wants a guy with only—”

“You’re ridiculous,” I snapped. “Everybody wants you.”

They did. I knew so because I saw the looks he got, heard the come-on lines, and tracked the hunger in people’s eyes. He missed it because he didn’t believe it, didn’t see himself the way the rest of us did, the way I did. It made me crazy that his missing arm had skewed his perception of his own value—but I was, for my own selfish purposes, secretly thrilled at the same time. I still had him, had my best friend in my life, in my space, but any second now he’d actually see himself and find his guy. One of these days, he was going to wake up and realize he was strong and beautiful, and whoever was there worshipping him at that moment would be in for the ride of their life.

“I love that you think my life is some big Hollywood blockbuster where bullshit like what you just said is actually true.”

“You’re so deluded,” I said miserably.

He shook his head, not believing me, as usual.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Which is funny, coming from a man who just ran away from a guy he hasn’t seen in, what? Ten years?”

I scowled. “Go away. Go ticket some jaywalkers or something.”

“You see,” he said, smacking me in the abdomen, “that’s all you think is gonna happen around here. All that shit you said about me being in imminent danger, that you’re worried about me getting shot—gimme a fuckin’ break.”

I growled under my breath. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Great.”

Standing still, I watched as he stalked back to his car, got in, and drove away, flipping me off for good measure when he hit the corner.

Pivoting to run back the other way, I plowed into a woman. “Oh shit,” I gasped as I grabbed hold of her so she wouldn’t fall down.

“For fuck’s sake, man!” The guy following her was quick to yell and would have tugged her out of my hands, but her forward lunge into my arms stopped him.

“There you are!” she announced, hugging me tight, arms coiled around my neck before she kissed my cheek. “I told this nice man that he didn’t have to follow me, that you were right around the corner, that I was meeting you for breakfast, but he didn’t believe me.”

I uncoiled her arms from around me, took hold of her upper arms like I was going to shake her, and then glowered, going for stern. “Why were you even talking to this guy?”

I got a trace of a smile from her, because yeah, we were on the same wavelength. “I didn’t. He talked to me.”

“Oh really?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Yes, really,” she snapped, matching my volume.

I let her go and put my hands on my hips. “Because this seems like Tampa all over again, and we know how
that
turned out and what you made me do to that guy!”

She covered her face with her hands, bursting into tears. “You went too far! Why did you have to—I told you it was nothing!”

“And I told you I didn’t care!”

“We had to move,” she cried. “So you wouldn’t have to go back to jail.”

I crossed my arms, glaring at her before lifting my gaze to the man hovering close. Never in my life had I actually seen color drain from anyone’s face in absolute fear. It was interesting to observe.

“Hey man, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Too late,” I replied menacingly.

He bolted, leaving the tiny sobbing woman with me.

“Wow,” she said as he turned the corner. “Chivalry actually is dead.”

“He totally ditched you,” I said, chuckling as I turned back to her. “And clearly, I’m a psychopath, because I did something heinous to that guy in Tampa.”

She laughed as she took hold of my hand. “Thank you so much. I’ve never had a better impromptu acting partner.”

I squeezed back. “Where’d you pick him up?”

“I was running on that path along the beach and he came up beside me and started talking.” She sighed. “I thought he’d get the hint from the monosyllabic answers.”

“Sorry.”

She coughed. “I got lost when I turned one corner, then another and another, and there was an alley back behind a restaurant that was a bit dark, and he stopped me to talk and got a little handsy… so when I saw an opening, I ran.”

“Good.”

She exhaled sharply, clearly a bit more shaken than she wanted me to see. “I mean, I don’t think he would have done anything, but—thank you for being my knight. I needed one, and they’ve been few and far between here lately.”

“Not a problem,” I said, smiling, changing her grip on my hand so we were shaking. “Kelly Seaton.”

“Olivia Lassiter,” she answered, beaming at me, taking my hand in both of hers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kelly. You have to come have lunch with me and my family.”

Lassiter? “I—”

“My whole family is here visiting,” she continued excitedly. “We never have time to get together anymore, but my brother is moving here to become a partner at a law firm, and I just got accepted to graduate school at Cornell and—”

“Sounds like a real celebration,” I said, extricating myself from her, needing to get out of there. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” she assured me, grabbing me again, making sure I couldn’t get free without prying at her fingers. “You saved me—you’re wonderful.”

“I appreciate—”

“Come and have lunch with my family,” she insisted, trying to tug me after her.

Lassiter… holy crap…. “I wish I had time, but I have trees to check on and my boyfriend is expecting me for dinner so I can’t eat a big lunch so I should just go.”

“Boyfriend?”

Oh yes, the easy out. “Yeah, I’m gay, so I—”

“Serious boyfriend?”

What? “I’m sorry?” She was the strangest girl.

Her eyes opened wide like I was the one who was odd. “It’s a simple question: is the boyfriend serious or not?”

“I—he’s more a friend than… why?”

“I have a super hot brother.”

Yes. I knew that. “Who’s about to become a partner at a law firm here in town,” I reminded her. “And I’m sure he doesn’t need any distractions or—”

“No,” she said quickly. “He could use a distraction.”

I had my out. “Actually, I have never been a one night stand guy myself,” I said flatly, pulling out of her grip. “But thanks for thinking I was trashy.”

“Oh no,” she blurted, “that’s not what I meant at all.”

“I’ll see you around,” I said, turning and jogging down the street, back on track to get to checking on the Italian cypresses.

“That’s not what I meant!” she yelled after me.

I waved a hand in the air to let her know there were no hard feelings.

“My brother needs saving, is all!”

That was not my job. He’d have to do that all on his own. I learned that lesson the hard way. I was no one’s knight in shining armor, and the days when I was looking for one were long over. I could ride to my own damn rescue.

Y
ES
,
SOMETIMES
it took me a minute to put two and two together, but as I stood in the shower that evening, washing off the dirt and sweat and grime of the day, it hit me.

“Holy shit!”

I was fuming by the time I threw open Annalise Renaldi’s front door. I froze, confused, because a man I had never seen before was standing there.

“Hello,” I greeted the stranger.

He was older—I was guessing midfifties—and he looked startled. “Are you another son?”

I was at a loss.

“Yes!” came a yell from the kitchen. “That’s my adopted one—that’s Kelly!”

“Oh,” the man said, smiling, offering me his hand. “I’m Emmett Cheong.”

I shook his hand, because what the hell else was I supposed to do? “Pleasure?” I couldn’t help but make it into a question, because learning the man’s name didn’t dispel the stranger in the house thing. Who in heaven’s name was he?

“Annie and I are seeing each other.”

Annie? Seeing? And didn’t using that word instead of just saying “dating” mean something important? I opened my mouth and closed it just as fast.

“Kel!” Coz bellowed, and because he sounded a bit off, his voice too high, scratchy, slightly frantic, I smiled fast and bolted.

The kitchen was a huge space with one of those islands copper pots hung over and a fridge just for wine, and more open cabinets and shelves than any one person should ever be able to fill. But Annalise Renaldi tried, and to that end: roosters. So many roosters, made out of everything from brass to wrought iron to ceramic to stained glass. They were supposed to be lucky, but dear God, they were everywhere.

“So she’s dating,” Coz muttered, then drained his wine glass as I reached him. “Did you know she was dating?”

“Nuh-uh,” I said, glancing over at Mia. She had the same dark eyes and ochre skin as her mother and brother. “You?”

She inhaled deeply. “Nope.”

My attention was back on Coz.

“Dating,” he repeated.

I had nothing.

Mia poured Coz another glass before taking a swig straight from the bottle.

“Oh, Kelly,” Annalise said cheerfully as she sauntered by on her way to the oven. “Have a glass of wine, dear.”

I leaned sideways as I was trained to do, and she kissed my cheek before grabbing a pot holder and a slotted spoon and opening the door to check on the sausage and peppers. It was funny; people always thought when they met her that the sweet Southern lady would make fried chicken for dinner, but she’d spent most of her life married to an Italian man, and because she loved him, she’d learned to cook all his favorites. Slowly, insidiously, Sicilian cuisine became what she was best at and known for.

“So,” I choked out as Mia put a glass down in front of me and poured from the same bottle she was quickly draining. “Dating, huh?”

“Yes,” Annalise sighed as Emmett came into the room. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I coughed, took a big gulp of wine, and let Mia top me off before she finished up the bottle. “We need another one,” she announced, walking out of the kitchen toward the wine cellar at the back of the house. “I’ll get it.”

“I need vodka,” Coz whispered, emptying his wine glass for the second time in less than two minutes before passing it to me on his way out.

“I think we surprised them,” Emmett informed Annalise as I chugalugged my Chianti.

“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “It seems so.”

“How—” I gasped. “—did you guys meet?”

“Well, darling, Emmett and I met at a—”

“Wait!” Mia yelled as she rushed back into the room. She carried another bottle of wine with her, and she moved to her mother’s side, facing me. After grabbing the opener off the counter, she told her mother to proceed.

“Whatever is wrong with you?” Annalise asked her daughter.

“Oh, no, nothing,” Mia said with a belch. “I just want to see Kel’s face when you tell this part again.”

Annalise scowled at her, the very expression she had passed on to her son, the one I saw in my sleep. “As I was saying,” she said, turning to me, “Emmett and I met at a tantric sex education class a year ago, because I didn’t feel that just because Agosto passed on, that he wouldn’t want me to explore my sexuality anymore.”

I actually felt the air leave my body.

“Oh yeah, there it is, that’s the same face I made.” Mia snickered as she peeled the foil from around the top of the bottle and let it drop to the floor before putting the bottle between her legs to go to work on it with the corkscrew.

Annalise remained unfazed. “What began as a purely physical exploration—”

“I found vodka and bourbon,” Coz practically shouted as he walked back into the kitchen.

“—deepened beyond merely extended orgasms—”

“Get ice,” he demanded as Mia popped the cork out of the second bottle of Chianti and took a long pull without letting it breathe.

“—and so it became important to me that Emmett meet y’all, all my children, since clearly we were progressing from a robust physical relationship that included experimentation and shared fulfillment to—”

“Ice!” he barked at me, and I put down the empty wine glass he’d left with me not even a couple of minutes earlier. “Now!”

I darted quickly around the kitchen, first to the cabinet for the glasses, then to the refrigerator to push the lever on the icemaker, at the same time retaining supportive eye contact with his mother. I loved her, so I was practicing my active listening, even though I was pretty sure I was about ready to pass out.

“—a journey that we’re taking together of mutual love and renewal,” she finished, beaming at me.

“Here,” I muttered, shoving two tumblers full of ice at Coz.

“So, of course, I felt like it was time to let y’all in on our relationship.”

Coz poured fast, splashing a bit of the pricey Belvedere, which was a shame, but truthfully I had no time to lament—I needed the alcohol
in
my system. 

“He’s also my gynecologist,” she added cheerfully. “He says I have the vagina of a forty-year-old woman.”

The vodka went down the wrong pipe, and for a long moment, I really thought I was going to die.

Coz thumped my back as I did my very best Gollum impersonation and tried to bring up a lung.

“Oh, honey, are you all right?”

“Same”—I rasped—“hole.”

She nodded kindly, then went flitting around the kitchen, pulling first a Greek salad out of the fridge and then a pecan pie out of the oven.

Once I straightened up, Coz threw back the rest of his drink and poured us each another double as Mia took a gulp from the wine bottle.

“Did you want to let the second bottle of wine breathe?” Emmett asked her.

“Maybe later,” Mia answered, pouring him a glass before taking yet another healthy swallow. “Sorry about that, I swear I’m germ-free.”

“Oh, so am I,” he said kindly, gazing over at Annalise. “And just so you know, your mother and I both got tested so we could have safe sex.”