Page 25 of Dangerous Kiss
Nicco shrugged.
“Space not your nerd thing? Okay.” Reggie was flicking through his phone. “We could catch a sea plane up to Friday Harbor?”
“Done it.”
Cosimo shot a warning glance at his son, who ignored him.
“Look, it’s okay,” Nicco said. “We can just hang out at a mall or something.”
“Thrilling,” Cosimo said dryly, and Nicco flushed. He slid out of his chair.
“Gotta go pee.”
Cosimo sighed and looked apologetically at Biba and Reggie. “I’m sorry, folks. I told you he was hard to entertain.”
“I have a backup plan,” Biba said, and both men looked at her. She grinned. “Do you trust me?” She addressed this to Cosimo, who nodded.
“With my life. Why?”
She sniggered to herself. “Because I’m about to say something to your sixteen-year-old son that might seem shocking…but just trust me. I think it may break the ice.”
Cosimo looked at Reggie who nodded. “Okay. The floor is yours.”
Still, when Biba said to Nicco on his return the words, “Right, Nic, we’re going somewhere that celebrates blow jobs,” Cosimo choked on his coffee, and Reggie put his head in his hands.
Nicco, though, perked up. “Really?”
“Really.”
Biba drove them this time to Dock Street, and they all got out of the car. Nicco looked around. “I don’t get it.”
Biba tugged him along. “Come on.” They followed her over a bridge towards a cone-shaped building on the other side. Cosimo assumed that was where they were headed, but then halfway across, Biba stopped.
“Ta-dah! Nicco DeLuca, I present to you: a celebration of blow jobs.” She indicated the wall in front of them, and Nicco began to laugh.
“Oh, very clever.”
It was a wall with individual showcases of spectacularly blown glass sculptures. Cosimo was both relieved and grateful that now Nicco was laughing. He saw his son relax.
“You are a nutjob, you know that?” Nicco was saying to Biba now. She slung her arm around his shoulders.
“That’ll teach you to be all teenage on us. Come on, you can actually walk under some of these lovelies, too.”
All four of them strolled along the bridge underneath the glass ceiling. Cosimo and Reggie watched Biba and Nicco joke around with each other.
“She’s amazing,” Cosimo said, trying to keep most of his adoration out of his voice. Reggie nodded.
“She is that. Listen, I know you two have become friends. Maybe you could help me out with something.”
“Sure.”
“It’s Biba’s birthday in a week. I haven’t any idea what to do for it other than a party, but that seems lame. Also, Biba’s not wild about them. Maybe we could do something at the manor, out on the lake. Fireworks, maybe?”
Cosimo nodded. “Sounds perfect. I’ll set it up.” Realizing then that he was talking to Biba’s best friend and maybe he, Cosimo, was overstepping, stopped. “I mean, if you want me to, Reg. Biba’syourperson.”
Reggie grinned. “It’s okay, I know what you mean, and I’d like your help. That’s why I asked. You think Stella would be okay with it?”
“I really don’t care if she isn’t,” Cosimo said, “it’s Biba’s birthday. I mean,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief as he saw Nicco and Biba play-fight, “look what she’s doing for me.”
