“You’re kidding.” Lilly picks up her shot, daring him to say more. A swig of disgusting whiskey feels like a small price to payfor the chance to listen to someone else shit all over Will Darcy. “Care to elaborate?”
Nick hesitates. “I don’t know,” he says, crinkling his nose up in a way that makes him look like a little kid confronted with a heaping plate of broccoli. “I don’t want to talk smack about a guy when he’s not here to, like, defend himself.”
Lilly rolls her eyes. “A little bit you do,” she counters, and Nick grins guiltily.
“Fine,” he agrees, lifting his shot glass and clinking it gently against hers. “Twist my arm.”
They drink; Lilly winces at the burn of it in her throat and sternum, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. “Back in New York,” Nick begins, “when Darcy was at ballet school or whatever the fuck, he and his artsy-fartsy buddies used to be regulars at this bar I worked at on the Upper West Side. And, like, they were fine, or whatever—I mean, they didn’t tip for shit, but you get used to that—but one night, I don’t know if he didn’t get the lead in the school play or what, but he was hammered. Just belligerent as all hell. Grabby with my waitresses, rude to the other customers, you name it.”
“Seriously?” Lilly frowns. Will is a douchebag, 100 percent, but he’s never struck her as a handsy drunk—and if there’s a tiny voice in her head that reminds her that possibly that’s because she’s usually the one drunkenly gropinghim, well, that’s nobody’s business but her own.
“Yeah.” Nick grimaces. “Anyway, I cut him off and told him he had to go home, and he definitely wasn’t happy about it, but that’s what bouncers are for, right? So he left, and I’m thinking that’s that, but the next day when I showed up for my shift, my manager said that one of our regulars had come to him and toldhim he’d seen me take a handful of cash from the register. And the guy fired me right there, no questions asked.”
Lilly’s eyes go wide. “Are you kidding me?” she asks. “Will did that?”
Nick shrugs. “I mean, I can’t prove it,” he concedes. “But it’s one hell of a coincidence, if not.” He reaches for the bottle of Jameson, pours them each another shot. “Anyway, some friends of mine were moving out here around then and asked me to tag along, so it’s not like I didn’t land on my feet in the end. But I definitely wasn’t expecting to run into him three thousand miles away.”
Lilly’s mouth drops open. “What an absolute schmuck,” she says quietly, every single rude, obnoxious detail of Will’s shitty personality suddenly thrown into searing relief. Not for nothing, but he’s got a lot of nerve to accuse other people of being trash bags. She’s hit with the nearly physical urge to call him up and tell him so. “I mean, just like, the entitlement alone! And don’t get me wrong, I am saying this as a deeply entitled person.” She shakes her head. “I am really, really sorry that happened to you.”
“Yeah, well.” Nick’s full mouth twists, likeWhat can you do?“Like I said, it all turned out okay. Led me here, didn’t it?” His smile changes then—warm and slow and private, the intent in his expression unmistakable. “I don’t want to talk about Will Darcy anymore.”
Lilly tilts her head to the side, a feeling like a desert flower blooming deep inside her chest. “Oh no?” she asks as casually as she can muster, reaching out and grazing one finger delicately over his knuckles. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know, Lilly Benedetto.” Nick turns his hand over on the bar top, laces his fingers through hers. “You tell me.”
Chapter Eleven
Dominic
The goddamn accountants want to meet again on Wednesday, which means that by the time Dominic fights traffic all the way to Culver City and back again the entire afternoon is shot, he’s missed two workouts, and all he’s heard all fucking day is bad news. “You really ought to consider bankruptcy here, Dom,” one of them told him, some self-satisfied teenager in a slim-cut suit and Clark Kent glasses. Dominic didn’t pop him directly in his Ivy-educated nose, but it was a near thing. Since the bypass he tries to keep his temper.
He sails by the exit for the original location of the shop, in Sherman Oaks, then changes his mind and turns around. He’ll say hello just for a minute, he tells himself. See how things are going. It’s the only Meatball King he still visits with any regularity; it’s also the only Meatball King he still technically owns, but that’s just semantics, that’s all. Back when they first started expanding he used to like to drop in on all the other locations—mug with the customers, say the line—but after a while it was suggested to him by certain parties that perhaps the individual franchisees might not appreciate the imposition with quite such frequency. “I’m the face of the goddamn company,” Dominic reminded them, but what can you do? Times change.
He yanks open the glass door and sucks in the familiar smellof garlic, the dual hum of air-conditioning and industry audible in the background. Right away he feels his blood pressure drop. Dominic likes business. More than that, hebelievesin business in general and in his business specifically, in the honesty of a hard-earned dollar and the viability of the American dream. He’s had a job since he was ten years old, sweeping floors at Pathmark back in Newark; how he somehow failed to instill any sort of work ethic in at least three-fifths of his offspring remains a mystery he is unable to solve.
He looks around at the mostly empty tables—well, it’s not quite dinnertime yet—frowning at a half-empty Parmesan shaker, a smear on the dessert case at the front. Above the register is a faded picture of the girls from a beach trip back when they still lived in the Valley—June with her head ducked, digging for seashells; Lilly and Marianne in a fight; Kit and Olivia still in diapers, their rear ends thick with padding underneath their ruffly swimsuits. When Dominic thinks of his daughters this is always the image that comes to him: Five little girls with dark hair and sunburned shoulders. All of their faces turned away.
He’s used to a big hello from whoever’s working the counter but the girl back there today is one he’s never seen before, her expression devoid of any recognition whatsoever. “Can I help you?” she asks dully, no intonation at all.
Dominic frowns. “Who are you?” he asks, his voice coming out small and peevish. He feels old all of a sudden, doddering; there’s a moment where everything tilts and he’s worried he’s going to wind up demented in St. Monica’s like his father in New Jersey.Can you help me?he wants to ask her.Can youhelpme? I’m the fucking Meatball King!
Luckily his manager comes out of the back just then, a dark-eyed kid named Carlos who’s been with him for ages. “Hey, Mr. B,” he says with a smile, lifting a hand in greeting. “How you doing?”
Dominic feels himself relax. Ninety-two locations in fourteen states at the height of the business, he reminds himself, throwing his shoulders back. That’s hardly nothing. That’s something to be proud of, in the end. “Never better, Carlos,” he says cheerfully. “No complaints.”
Chapter Twelve
Lilly
When Lilly gets downstairs two mornings later she finds Colin sitting at the kitchen island in a pair of glasses that are almost certainly not prescription, a thick stack of pages on the table in front of him. “Cugina!” he greets her. “What’s up?”
“Not much.” She glances at his manuscript as she heads for the coffee maker; then, actively feeling all the blood drain out of her body, she glances at it again. “Is that—” she asks, then finds she sincerely cannot make herself finish the sentence.
Colin takes care of it for her: “Your screenplay!” he reports happily. “I’m almost done.”
Lilly opens her mouth, then closes it. Tries one more time. “Where did you—”
“Oh, your mom gave it to me,” he confesses. “She said you didn’t want to take advantage of our relationship, which I think is really decent of you. But seriously, you should have just asked me. You know I’m always glad to help you out.”
