NICO AND ROCCO
Nico entered Rocco’s suite at the hotel with Sofia and Beatrice and placed the key card on the entryway table.
After the podium celebration, Rocco and Dario had had to run off to do a number of interviews. His nieces had practically tackled Nico and begged their mother, Rocco’s sister, Isabella, to let them stay with Nico while she went to go meet some friends. Nico told her she’d be happy to do it, and Isabella agreed.
So, Nico and the girls had gone for gelato and walked through the park before returning to the hotel.
Nico glanced at her watch. Isabella would be picking them up in about an hour.
“I’m glad you’re still friends with us,” Sofia said once the door shut behind them.
“Of course!” Nico said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well,” Beatrice said. “Uncle Rocco did call you a cockroach.”
“Yeah, but that was a while ago,” Sofia insisted.
“Yeah,” Beatrice agreed. “He wanted to explain the other night, but you were gone after he got dressed.”
Smiling, Nico nodded. After he’d fled, she’d done the same. She didn’t want to make things more awkward than they already were. Since then, he’d tried to take her aside a couple times over the weekend, telling her he wanted to explain, but they were always interrupted by Casey or one of the crew.
“What do you want to do?” Nico asked as they pulled her into the living room.
Nico picked up a collection of Grimms’ fairy tales from the coffee table and sat on the sofa. Some of the book’s pages looked as though they’d been put through a shredder. “What happened to this?”
The girls sat on either side of her.
“Dog,” Sofia said.
“Yeah, Uncle Rocco’s supposed to get him a scratching post, but he always forgets.”
A scratching post for a dog?
“Is he your pet?”
“Uncle Rocco’s.”
“Maybe he’s bored,” Nico said. “Maybe he should take him for a walk or to a park so he can run around.”
“You mean on a leash?” Beatrice asked.
“Sure,” Nico said. “Why not?”
The girls looked at each other, grinning. “Dog on a leash!” they exclaimed. And they both fell backward, roaring with laughter.
Nico furrowed her brow. Must be some kind of inside joke.
“Uncle Rocco was reading it to us last night,” Sofia said, indicating the book of fairy tales when they finally stopped laughing.
Beatrice sighed. “He didn’t realize there were pages missing. He started to read us one of the stories, but then couldn’t finish. He got so mad.”
This brought on another fit of laughter.
Nico chuckled. “What story was he reading you?”
“It was about a girl named Snow White,” Beatrice said, “and her evil mother, who’s a queen.”
“Not her mother,” Sofia corrected her sister, “stepmother.”
