Page 17 of Blood Money

“What is this?” she asked as she pulled the box out.

“What’s it look like?” I prompted.

“Vittorio.” Her voice was low in reprimand. “You can’t buy me a phone.”

“I didn’t,” I lied. “But I felt bad that yours got broken, and I noticed we had the same carrier. I was due for an upgrade, and they were buy one get one free.”

“What? No way,” she argued.

I shrugged. “It was a helluva lucky coincidence. I figured we both win, right? I got a new phone, and you got a new phone.”

She hugged it to her chest, and her eyes went shiny. “This is so sweet of you. You really didn’t have to do this.”

“Like I said, I felt bad that yours got broken because you ran into my”—I spread my fingers and acted like I was squeezing my pecs—“rock-hard chest.”

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the way her mouth wanted to lift at the corners. Then she pulled the box away from her body and looked down at it as if she was in love.

Tell me why I wanted her to look at me like that.

“Thank you,” she gushed before throwing herself in my arms and hugging me. Again.

I might’ve held her a little tighter and a little longer than I should’ve.

That was the beginning of the best summer of my life.

“SignoftheTimes”—HarryStyles

Present Day….

I’d gone straight to see Nonna in the hospital as soon as I’d arrived in Chicago. She looked like she’d aged twenty years since I’d seen her last, and it had only been a few months. Granted, I never stayed long when I visited. I was always afraid I’d run into… him. Someone I didn’t want to… but still.

God, I could hardly bring myself to think his name. When I did, it hurt like it was yesterday.

“Kendall, listen to me. I need you to go straight over to the bakery. There’s a customer coming by to pick up their order I finished this morning. Tillie normally would’ve been there, but she had to leave early for her daughter’s piano recital. I told her I’d be down when she left, but then this happened,” Nonna told me as her hands worried the edge of the blanket. After her heart diagnosis, she’d hired Tillie on as assistant manager. Tillie had worked for my grandmother since she was in high school, and she’d been a godsend. Her helping out had allowed my grandmother to take the afternoons off.

“I’m sure if I call them and explain the situation, they would understand,” I reasoned, but she was already shaking her head.

“No. You have to be there. It’s a very important order. Promise me!” she vehemently pleaded.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go over there. Just please, don’t get too worked up. That can’t be good for you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

I’d left with a promise to return as soon as the order was picked up.

With traffic, I’d barely made it on time, but I needn’t have worried. They were late.

Glancing at the clock, I huffed in frustration. The box had been in the cooler, so I’d grabbed it and placed it on the back counter so it was ready and waiting. The customer was now officially ten minutes late, and we were supposed to close in twenty minutes. As if it would suddenly make them appear, I stared at the entrance and willed the bell to jingle.

“For fuck’s sake, people,” I grumbled under my breath.

Restless, because I’d rather be at the hospital, I paced. Then I got curious to see what this customer ordered that my grandma had believed was so important. Obviously, to them it wasn’t worth being on time. I lifted the lid on the cake box to find a rather plainly decorated quarter sheet cake. The decoration almost made me spit on it, though. It had green trim—and an edible image of the middle-finger emoji in the center.

As I went to cover it back up, I noticed the corner of an envelope sticking out from under the cake board.

Nosy, I carefully slid it out. It felt like…

No way.

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