Page 10 of Just For Me
Under normal circumstances, I would have accepted that and let it be. Sofia was a doctor, and I understood that there were plenty of laws and rules and guidelines governing the privacy of those she saw in a professional capacity. But this wasKatwe were talking about, and I wasn’t going to let her slide by with handing me that ‘patient confidentiality’ crap. Especially not when phrases like ‘punch to the face’ and ‘she’s all alone’ were repeating on a loop in my head.
“You’ve already told me most of it,” I reminded her, pinning her with a glare.
“That was before I knew you knew who she was.”
“Well I knownow, and I can’tunhearit, can I?”
She bit her lip, and I almost felt guilty for abusing our brother-sister bond.Almost. “Please, Sofia,” I pleaded, lowering my voice. Her eyes narrowed, and I met them head on with the determination of the Marine who was barely holding my caveman at bay. She knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t ask her to bend the rules unless I thought it was important. This definitely fell into that category, and I wanted her to look deep and reallylistento what I was trying to tell her. “She’s... important to me, Sofe.”
It took a minute, but her eyes softened, and I knew she understood. “All right, Nicky,” she said on an exhale. “But let’s go back to Ma’s and call Vinnie, okay? He knows more about what happened than I do.”
I wasn’t happy about having to wait. The caveman lurking beneath my skin was restless, grunting and swinging his club and wanting todosomething. The Marine was right there beside him, keeping him under control and preparing for an as-yet-undetermined mission. Thankfully, he also recognized the wisdom in my sister’s suggestion, and I found myself nodding again.
Sofie shot a text off to Vinnie, and we did a quick clean-up, throwing stuff into boxes and shoving them into one of the storage rooms. My grandfather, who’d overheard enough of the exchange to also be concerned, promised he and my grandmother would meet us at the restaurant shortly.
An hour later, I grimaced as I saw yet another cousin pushing his way into the already-crowded private dining area. “What did you do,” I muttered out of the side of my mouth to Gina, who was sitting to my immediate left, “call in the whole family?”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “This was supposed to be a surprise dinner for you,” she said, equally quietly. “For making it through your first official signing.”
Before I could feel like too much of an ungrateful jerk, she added, “But with all of them here, don’t count on any of them to keep quiet about what’s going on with yourBella.”
Fuck my life. I sat back and ran my hand down my face, wondering how the hell I managed to get myself into these situations. I loved my big, nosy, pain in the ass family, and I appreciated that they’d do something like this for me, but I didn’t need this right now. All I could think about was Kat, alone and hurting. What kind of animal would do something like that to someone as quiet and gentle as her? The rage was a slow burn deep inside, and it was only getting hotter the more I thought about it.
I had no one to blame but myself. I should have manned up months ago and approached her. I should have taken the hint Fate had provided, putting us both in my grandfather’s bookstore at the same time, over and over again. I should have taken advantage of the perfect opportunity to bond over our shared interests – books and coffee – and let things progress naturally from there. If I had, I was quite certain Kat would have been withmelast night instead of alone in a dark alley somewhere being attacked.
By the time Vinnie showed, we’d forgotten the original reason for the get together and Kat’s attack was the primary topic of conversation. Everyone was up to speed on the basics, and I was ready to crawl out of my skin.
“So Vinnie, what’s up with Kat?” my cousin Lucia asked the moment he sat down. Poor Vin, he looked as confused as I’d been. Still in his uniform, he must have headed over right after his shift, and clearly, Sofie’s text hadn’t given him a heads-up.
“The woman you took to the ER last night – that was Nicky’sBella,” myNonna Mariaexplained. “And now we gotta make things right.”
I saw the realization dawn as Vinnie put the pieces together. He looked at Sofie, then shot me a questioning look, which I answered with a brief nod.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” my brother Paulie said with a shrug, stuffing a meatball into his mouth. “Nicky should just take the book over there himself. Boom, problem solved.”
“The big deal,” my cousin Corina said, rolling her eyes, “is that that’s astupididea. He can’t just show up at her door and spring that kinda thing on her. He’s a freakin’ celebrity.”
Every male at the table snorted at that, including me. Unless you were Tony Bennett or Al Pacino (and occasionally Joe Pesci on a good day), you weren’t considered a ‘celebrity’ in my family.
“Well, he is toher,” Corina sniffed.
“That’s what makes it so romantic,” my seventeen year old cousin Ramona said with a sigh. “Tell me you’ve never dreamed of something like that.”
Surprisingly, not one woman denied it. Even Corina clamped her mouth shut.
“But he’s not a celebrity in Kat’s eyes,” Gina countered. “She doesn’t even know who he is, does she, Nicky?”
I shook my head. Not as far as I knew, anyway. Something told me if Kat knew I was the same guy who wrote the books she clutched and sighed over, she would have been more self-conscious around me. But that was just a guess. Personally, I loved watching her when she got lost in a book and let her guard down.
“That’s even worse then,” Lucia was saying. “’Cause then he’s just some creeper guy from the bookstore who knows where she lives.
Ouch. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she might have a point. While I’d felt a connection with Kat early on, we didn’t actuallyknoweach other. Using her as my muse and quietly observing her from afar didnotqualify as proper courting, not evenclose. Other than our collision the other day, we’d never even spoken to one another.
Then I thought more about that collision. Of her sharp intake of breath. The way she trembled slightly beneath my fingers. The brief but unmistakable flare of lust in her pretty eyes before the embarrassment kicked in.
“No, I don’t think so,” Ramona said reflectively, tilting her head as she looked my way. “Nothing about Nicky says creeper. All of my friends think he’s kind of like an Italian Captain America. They think he’s totally hot.”
Horrified, I gulped down some of my ice water, but my brothers’ evil grins told me they’d heard and would not let it slide by.
