Sure it’s true. By my teen years I was already my father’s apprentice. I accompanied him on a Vegas trip to meet with a roomful of Mafia overlords. In my spare time, I got dirty with the daughter of the hotel’s owner. We didn’t have sex but we did enough.
“My only excuse is that I was seventeen and horny,” I tell Cecilia.
She takes a delicate sip of her beer. “I see. Now you’re thirty and no longer horny?”
“Ouch. I’m not thirty yet. And I’m more horny than ever.”
She chokes on her last sip of beer. I’ll count that as a victory.
When she recovers, she dabs at her lips with a napkin and says, “You’re not like your brothers. I mean, all four of you are different. But with you, nothing you say or do seems frivolous. You get what you want but not by being impulsive.”
“It’s just that I have more self-control.” A quality that rapidly fades the more I stare at her soft lips and imagine all the ways I can use them.
She chews on this answer for a moment. “I think there’s more to it. You’re insightful. Shrewd. Determined. None are bad qualities. I’m not knocking you for being practical.”
“You strike me as pretty damn practical yourself.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’ve been accused of beingtoopractical. Maybe that explains why I’ve never fallen in love. Not that it matters.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
Her fingertip traces a bead of water sliding down her beer glass and her brow creases. “My grandfather and Angelo kept a close watch on me. They chased away every boyfriend I ever had.”
“Then to hell with them. Useless pricks.”
She sniffs out a laugh. “They weren’t all pricks.”
“Trust me on something. Chasingmeaway would be impossible.”
“I believe you,” she says and this time her eyes wander, focusing on my mouth. “You haven’t been in love either, have you?”
“Not even close. How did you guess?”
“Because you wouldn’t have considered this whole marriage arrangement if you had. You’d want to wait for something better, something real.”
“Real isn’t better. Real can destroy you, leaving you with nothing but heartsickness and an addiction to memories.”
She’s startled by this candid observation. And it’s probably too heavy a line to drop in a crowded bar while my brothers grind on college girls a few feet away and the women sitting behind us tell penis jokes.
But this is where we are. She might as well know where I stand and what I’m offering.
Slowly, she nods as the wisdom sinks in. “You’re not wrong.”
Her whiskey shot is untouched but now she picks it up. I want to laugh at the way she holds it gingerly with two fingers like it’s a sharp object. She takes a tiny sip and grimaces.
“You need to down it all at once,” I say. “Or it’s not really a shot. By the way, I don’t recommend this in your case.”
She continues to hold the glass with uncertainty. “How’d you figure out that I don’t drink much?” A teasing smile touches her lips. “Were you spying on me before I got here?”
Yes.But I’m not confessing.
“The one time I saw you pick up a wine glass at dinner you only took two sips and made a face,” I tell her. “But if you need to learn the hard way what whiskey shots do to you if you’re not used to them then go for it. I promise to hold your hair back when you vomit.”
I expect her to set the glass down but another unexpected willful spark strikes.
“Here’s to new experiences,” she says and tilts her head back, swallowing the contents of the shot glass with one gulp. The sight is so unexpected and so hot that I end up gripping the edge of the table to keep my cool.
She coughs twice and turns the glass over on the table, still grimacing as the heat of the alcohol sears her throat.
