Page 92 of Wicked Sinner
I bite my lip, turning into a small parking lot with a retro-style diner on one side of it, a big sign that saysFran’s Drive-Inout front. It’s been here for decades, complete with red vinyl booths and waitresses on roller skates. "This is where my dad brought me for my birthday every year. Best hot dogs in South Florida, according to him."
Caesar looks at the humble restaurant with its neon signs and checkered floor, and I can't read his expression. "You want to eat here?"
"You said you wanted to see my world." I turn off the engine. "This is it."
Inside, Fran's Drive-In is exactly as I remember it—slightly run-down but clean, filled with the smell of grilled onions and the sound of classic rock playing from a genuine jukebox. The waitress who seats us looks like she's been here since the place opened, her gray hair teased into a puffy bun and her uniform a throwback to another era.
"What can I get you folks?" she asks, pulling out a pad and pencil.
"One regular dog with sauerkraut, one chili dog with onions," I say without looking at the menu. "A chocolate milkshake, and an order of fries to share."
"You got it, honey." The waitress turns to Caesar. "And for you?"
He's studying the menu with the intensity of someone trying to decode a foreign language. "I'll have the same," he says finally.
After she leaves, Caesar looks around the restaurant with obvious curiosity. "You really came here every year?"
"Every birthday from age five to eighteen." I slide into the red vinyl booth across from him. "Dad said it was important to have traditions, things that stayed the same even when everything else was changing. He’d cook us holiday meals at home, even though it was just the two of us, had a different place that we went to for his birthday every year. He liked sameness, routine. The comfort and stability of it."
Caesar is looking at me with an expression I can’t entirely decipher. “He sounds like an incredible man.”
"He was." I fidget with the paper napkin, thinking about how different this is from the fancy restaurants Caesar has taken me to. "This probably isn't what you had in mind when you suggested a date."
"Actually, it's perfect." He reaches across the table to cover my hand with his. "I'm getting to see a side of you I've never seen before."
"What do you mean?" I feel my shoulders tense slightly at his touch. It feels good. Too good. He hasn’t run away screaming yet, and a part of me wishes he would. It would make things easier. Would confirm that we’re all wrong for each other, that we can’t possibly be compatible, if he’d balked at eating here and demanded we go somewhere else.
"You're relaxed here. Happy." His thumb strokes over my knuckles. "You look like you belong."
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I tease, trying to break up the moment with humor, but Caesar doesn’t let me.
“You know which it is,” he says calmly, not letting go of my hand.
The waitress returns with our milkshakes—thick, old-fashioned chocolate malts topped with whipped cream and cherries. Caesar takes a tentative sip, and his eyebrows go up in surprise.
"Good?" I ask, amused by his expression.
"Better than good." He takes another sip. "I don't think I've had a real milkshake since I was a kid. This is more sugar than I’ve had in years."
"What did you do for fun when you were growing up?" I ask, wondering what his answer could be.Funprobably isn’t high on the list of activities for a mafia kid.
Caesar’s expression turns guarded. "My idea of fun and my father's idea of appropriate activities didn't always align."
“So, nothing fun.” I bite my lip, stirring my straw in my shake. “Target practice? Kicking puppies? What are mafia kids supposed to do?”
Caesar looks at me, a glimpse of annoyance on his handsome features. “Not everyone in the mafia is an evil bastard,” he says flatly. “I know that’s the trope, but?—”
“You kidnapped me,” I remind him, and he sighs.
"I liked cars," he says finally. "Fast cars, motorcycles, anything with an engine. I used to sneak out to go to illegal street races when I was sixteen."
My eyebrows shoot up, and I feel a tingle of excitement run through me—followed quickly by my heart dropping in my chest.Why does he have to be a mob boss? An asshole with enemies and a world that I don’t belong in? This just makes meeting him, seeing him, wanting him, all feel so much more unfair. "I assume your father didn't approve?" I manage, shoving the feeling down.
"He thought it was beneath the heir to the Genovese family." Caesar's smile is bitter. "He wanted me to spend my time learning about the business, about power and control. About becoming a man like him, which is exactly what I didn’t want to be."
I want to ask more about why he left. But I want him to open up, to be the one to share all of what happened with me. If he’s going to be honest, as he promised, then he will.
Which means part of me also wants him not to. Then, it’ll be easier to walk away. I can point and sayhe wasn’t honest. He didn’t share all of himself with me. He kept secrets.
