Page 45 of Extradition (Mobsters + Billionaires 1)
Joe’s brow raises thoughtfully. “Look, I get that you’ve got a family dynamic I don’t know nothing about, but I gotta wonder if you’ve even tried to have a serious conversation with her. Like, how much of what you just said is reality, and how much of it is just you regurgitating something your father said?”
His question stops me cold. The sneering mani-pedi comment was a direct quote from my father.
He shakes his head. “Sorry. I just…I wish I had been given the opportunity to know my mother. My father only ever said that she was a stupid whore who abandoned me and whose only decent contribution to the world was that she had a son instead of a daughter.”
Fuck.
“That’s awful. I’m sorry, Joe.”
He lifts a shoulder, trying to brush it off, but the hurt is visible just under the surface. “I’m just saying—maybe check your assumptions while you have the ability to.”
“I will. Thank you.”
I make a mental note to check-in on my mother as we walk along in silence.
After a few minutes, Joe turns to me. “Where are we? I mean, within Central Park?”
Grateful for the change in subject, I shrug, looking around. “We’re in the Ramble. Is there anything you want to look at in particular?”
“There a place where we can feed the ducks?”
I smile, looking sidelong at this ex-mobster. “Yeah, we can feed the ducks.” I point out the path we should follow. “This will take us to the Bow Bridge. You’re not supposed to feed them, but you can usually find someone who’ll sell you something better than potato chips or whatever.”
He grins. “Black market duck food? This I gotta see.”
When we arrive at the bridge, the morning sun shines in his eyes and sets fire to the edges of his hair. It’s enough to make me breathe a little funny.
Just as I’m trying to remember how a respiratory system works, a little girl, maybe three or four, walks up to him with a bag full of feed in her grubby hands. She holds it up like a present, and he smiles down at her, causing her to giggle.
Sweet girl, I know the feeling.
Her mother follows straight away, grinning up at Joe. “She likes to offer the food to big strong men because they’ll throw it farther into the lake.”
Or maybe her little girl is trying to lure handsome men into her mother’s lair.
Joe does the thing that Joe always does and brightens everything around him. Obliging the little girl, he reaches into her bag and scatters the feed far into the lake. A small flotilla of ducks follows the arc of his throw, some of them flying low across the water to get to the pellets before they sink.
The little girl screeches in delight, clapping her hands together, dropping some of the duck feed on the ground at her feet. A few enterprising ducks come up close, and she screams again, backing straight into Joe. He prevents her from falling, and she wraps her chubby arms around his hands, gripping him tight until her mother manages to coax her away with sliced apples and caramel dipping sauce.
As Joe dusts the duck feed and kid dirt off his hands, I sidle up next to him, murmuring, “If that mother runs out of the caramel dipping sauce, we might have a hostage situation on our hands.”
Joe laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Too right.”
Does he smell this good naturally, or is that some kind of fragrance? Before I can ask, the mother thanks us for amusing her daughter, then blessedly leaves us be.
That’s right, lady. Keep walking.
Joe watches them leave with a soft smile, and I can’t leave well enough alone.
“You were good with that little girl. You want kids?” I ask, tossing a few stray pellets of feed into the water.
Laughing as the ducks scramble over each other to get to the food, he answers, “Yeah, I love kids. With the right guy…I could see it.”
Even though I already knew he wasn’t straight, his easy confirmation sends a bolt of something—energy, emotion maybe—through my chest.
“Yeah, me too,” I say, the truth tumbling quietly from my lips.
Joe, still looking out over the water, exudes calm acceptance. “The kids or the guy?”
