Page 11 of Naz & Roz

FOUR

Naz didn’t drive women home, let alone walk one. They were lucky if he called them a cab come morning, to be honest. It wasn’t that he was purposely trying to be an asshole, but he was upfront about what he wanted or expected from a woman, too.

Usually something quick.

One night.

Even better if they were gone before morning.

That was it.

He didn’t have time for more—his life didn’t allow it. He was accustomed to handling the physical side of his life and needs as they came up, and moving onto the next task in his day. It was how his brain liked to micromanage everything.

Relationships and sex were the same thing.

Except … he wanted nothing more than to walk Roz back to her parents’ home simply because she said he could when he asked. He wanted five minutes with her where they weren’t surrounded by everyone else watching.

Because yeah, they’d been watching.

His parents. Hers. Their siblings.

Fucking everyone.

Roz hadn’t seemed to notice, and maybe that was a byproduct of the fact the girl was used to being on display, in a way. She’d have to be used to people staring at her considering how often she sat in front of a piano on stage, right?

Naz wasn’t the same.

He noticed.

The genius thing made people pay attention to him, anyway. But that novelty quickly fucking wore off when people realized the only thing the genius thing did was make Naz smarter than them at the end of the day. It didn’t make him particularly special—but he was just because he was him, and there was only one of him—or a goddamn superhero. He swore people thought just because he had a genius level IQ that some kind of magic was about to pop out of his ears from his brain.

That’s not how it worked.

Nonetheless, he was very aware of the people around him at all times. It was partly because of the genius thing, and he wasn’t fond of attention but also because of who he was. His last name and the legacy behind it meant Naz couldn’t afford to not pay attention. The moment he decided to follow his father’s footsteps in Cosa Nostra and as a gunrunner meant Naz no longer had the excuse of being distracted.

Even if he seemed like it.

So yeah, he noticed.

Naz was a lot of things.

Criminal.

Dangerous.

Quiet.

He was not, however, unaware.

And right now …

Roz looked over at him, and smiled.

He was also in love—how and why and all the rest, he didn’t know. But it was the strange clenching of his chest every time he caught Roz’s stare with his own; the way his heart beat-beat-beat like it was going to pound a hole right out of his chest; how he felt like if he took his sights off her for too long, she might fucking disappear.

Because he didn’t know how this was real. How was something like falling in love with someone at first glance real?

But what else could it be?