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Before I knew it, the glass I planned to sip and savor was empty.
I glanced over self-consciously, but found Aurelio’s glass was empty as well.
“I’m gonna go get the bottle,” he said with a mischievous little grin and glint in his eye that made that strange warm sensation flush across my chest again.
I tried to tell myself it was the wine.
But I knew better as I turned to watch him walk away.
It was just… interest.
Unexpected and inappropriate, yet undeniable.
He returned with the wine, refilling my glass, and a platter of the sugar cookies he’d made too.
“I think you missed your calling, working as some big shot in a fancy restaurant somewhere,” I told him, savoring one of the cookies whose sweetness immediately made my wine more tart.
Aurelio shot me a warm smile. “There’s a lot of restaurants in my family,” he admitted. “I’ve been in those kitchens. Only sadists and masochists want to work there,” he told me. “I prefer cooking for pleasure instead of profit.”
“I enjoy your cooking for pleasure too,” I said, almost immediately wanting to suck those words back in. Until I heard Aurelio’s deep, rich chuckle. “I’m going to have to go up a size by the end of the month,” I added. Then, quickly, “If we’re still here.”
“I hope you will be,” Aurelio said, sounding like he meant those words, but his gaze was focused forward on the backyard, and it was impossible for me to tell.
We’d done a fair amount of small talk over the past few days. Polite conversation over dinner since Judah wasn’t exactly a conversationalist yet, focusing mostly on shoveling in handfuls of the carbs and fat he was so often denied at his father’s home.
I knew about his immediate family. He was the second of five children, with only his eldest brother married and having children. Their mom, Adrian, was apparently always on the rest of their cases about giving her more grand babies.
Family dinners were a big deal. For both the immediate family and the extended one.
He was careful not to divulge important information about the workings of the mob, but I did learn about some of the hierarchy and connections, stuff I figured I could probably even figure out with an internet search.
He told me about the house when he’d first bought it—a split-level, decades in disrepair—and how much work he’d done to turn it into the beautiful home he had now, with his mind on a wife and kids. Hence the four ‘guest’ rooms upstairs when he never had any sort of overnight guests.
I liked listening to him talk. And he seemed to have a never-ending source of stories, thanks to the aforementioned large family.
He asked me about myself, too, about my life before Warren. Which was, admittedly, not all that interesting. I’d still been in that ‘young, and trying to figure it out’ stage. I hadn’t been able to figure out what I wanted to ‘do with’ my life, so I’d skipped college and went right to work at a local chiropractor’s office, making enough money to pay my bills and put a little bit in savings for a rainy day, but not exactly live the high life.
That was probably why I’d been so taken with Warren and his expensive suits, fancy cars, and the exclusive restaurants he brought me to, and the jewelry he bought me.
“Did he buy you that?” Aurelio asked, gaze slipping to the cross I wore around my neck.
“No,” I said, my hand going to it. “This was from my mom on my Confirmation.”
I refused to wear the jewelry Warren bought me after he’d dragged me back. I loathed wearing the clothes he’d picked out for me, but having no way of getting my own, I’d needed to endure that.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked, watching Aurelio’s profile as he looked off into the backyard, lit with the floodlights from the back deck.
“Wondering if that tree limb would work for a swing for Judah,” he said, gesturing toward the one in question.
There was that warmth again.
Amplified this time by the second glass of wine flooding my system.
I was feeling flushed and a pleasant kind of fuzzy as I placed my glass down on the table.
“Let’s see,” I said, making my way down the steps and toward the tree, hearing Aurelio joining me.
I stood under it for a second, gauging the distance, then doing a small squat, and jumping upward, glad when my fingers grabbed the limb.
