Page 24 of Out of the Shadow

“Right. I’m not blind. He’s sexy.” Her finger traces screen. “That jaw. Those cheekbones. His eyes, for goodness’ sake. And he looks even better in person if memory serves—although you wouldn’t introduce me when I was at the office last week. Don’t try to tell me you haven’t noticed how hot King is.”

“I haven’t noticed.” Much. Maybe a little bit. It’s not like his hands branded my shoulders yesterday or anything. “We fight most of the time. He’s superficial and arrogant. He works out obsessively.” He might have mentioned once or twice that he went to the gym before coming into the office in the morning.

“He took that real estate test in no time at all. Even you have to admit that’s pretty impressive.”

Some of my bravado spills onto Mama’s hardwood floor. She’s right. Iamimpressed. Despite myself. “Well, that’s a point in his favor. But it’s not like he didn’t have incentive. I made it a condition for doing the show with him, and the producer agreed. So, he had to take it. And fast.”

“Uh-huh.”

I raise my right eyebrow. “What? I did make it a requirement.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want a fake agent topretendto work with me. People are going to see the series and come in looking for me. Or him. And they’ll get suspicious if he’s not there.”

“Sure.” She taps the screen on her phone while I focus my attention on the TV. Scoreless game. “Well, you may be on to something.”

I force my attention back onto my sister. “What?”

“They mentioned your real estate agency.”

I grab the phone out of her hands and, ignoring the photo, read the small article. “It says he’s working at Russo Real Estate! And they even used my address. Awesome!” I do a happy dance in my seat. Being a part of the show is putting the agency on the map already.

My sister takes her phone back and sighs. “I guess you were smart to sponsor him to take that test.”

I offer her a smug smile. Yes. This is going according to plan. Once the show airs, Russo Real Estate is going to be the place everyone goes to buy or sell their house. I rub my hands together.

“Still,” Juliana continues, “when does he find out if he passed?”

“A couple of weeks or so. I hope he did, though. Then we can put it behind us and focus on filming.”

She wiggles her eyebrows. “You’re going to be in pretty close contact with him over the next couple months.”

I need to shut down this kind of talk. Permanently. “Sort of. From what I can tell, we’ll be doing a lot of things separately. Like, we’ll meet with a couple together and then go off and do our own thing to win the ‘contest.’ I’m actually not sure how much we’ll be seeing of each other.” The less, the better.

“The more, the better,” Juliana’s sentiment reverses my thought.

My eyebrows form a “V.”

She puts her hand on my wrist, above my tattoo. “This will be good for your business, I get that, but he could be good for you personally, too. It’s been—

I know exactly where she’s going with this, so I cut her off. “No.”

Her hand slides off my wrist. “You know, I’ve never bought into the whole one soul mate story from Mama and Nonna. You were so young with Dante—”

I stand. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

“You found great love once, but I don’t believe that was your only shot. If something were to happen with Frank, I’m sure he’d want me to find happiness again. I know Dante wanted that for you, too.”

I purse my lips but don’t say anything. Now that Juliana’s said her peace, again, we both focus on the television. The Yankees’ defense is putting up a good fight, but their offense isn’t getting the job done, and the Reds have scored a second run. Now it’s the fifth inning. “There’s still time for the Yankees to catch up.”

The rest of the family, including my young nieces, come barging into the family room. We watch the game together, commenting on our team’s chances and any particularly stupid or brilliant plays. But my mind keeps returning to what Juliana said. And that snippet of conversation I overheard the other day between him and the NYU student. The tone of his voice was so compelling. But I’ve always operated under the assumption that there’s only one lid for every pot. My parents have been married for forty years, and my grandparents were married for over sixty. The lesson is clear—you find your match and stick to them, no matter what.

Hoots from the room bring me back to the game, where the Yankees have just scored three runs,, and now are ahead. I focus on the game for the remaining couple innings, cheering them on to victory.

I help Mama clear the family room of all the food that made its way to the coffee table. Placing a bowl of popcorn down on the kitchen island, I ask, “Question for you.”

“What’s up?”

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