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I found myself looking forward to it each shift, looking for him any time the door opened, and feeling a crushing surge of disappointment each time it wasn’t him.
Nothing happened again.
Though, not from lack of wanting.
I tried to remind myself as I walked out of the bathroom with need thrumming between my thighs that it was for the best.
I mean, in what universe did someone like me—a goodie goodie through and through—get involved with an actual member of the New York City mafia?
That said, what red-blooded woman raised on steamy booksdidn’thave a thing for the bad boys? The ones who would burn down the world to be with you. There was something undeniably sexy about that.
Even if, clearly, Salvatore Costa did not want to burn down the world to be with me. He just wanted to make sure I didn’t die of sepsis.
And my needy ass was happy to let him tend to me instead of sucking it up and taking care of myself.
What can I say? It felt good to be touched. Even in such a clinical way.
I was going to let myself be that needy and pathetic because, quite frankly, I knew I didn’t have time for a man in my life. Even if I did, the prospect of having to go through the process of online dating made me a little queasy.
So this was as much action as I was going to get for a good, long time. Hell, by the time my life calmed down, maybe I would be all dried up and disinterested. So I might as well take what I could get while I could still get it.
“Pick up, Whit,” the cook called, ringing his little bell three times, making it clear I’d missed the first call. Or two.
“Right. Sorry,” I said, shaking my head as I turned to grab the plates to bring them to their table.
“You okay?” he asked when I came back with another order for a new table.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve been distracted tonight is all,” he said, shrugging it off.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired, I guess. It’s been busy this week.” Especially because I’d picked up an extra shift.
But he wasn’t wrong.
I had been distracted.
Because we were getting close to the end of my shift, and Salvatore still hadn’t shown up.
I couldn’t set a watch by him. He seemed to operate on a different schedule each night. Sometimes he came in for what was something like a late dinner. Other times, it was for a midnight snack.
I purposely kept his booth empty all night because of that. Which was pretty pathetic of me, to be honest.
Almost as pathetic as feeling upset that he maybe just… wasn’t going to show up that night.
I mean, the man had a whole life outside of tending to my wounds. It was ridiculous to expect him to show up every single night.
Babe, it’s five minutes. I can spare five minutes each day for you.
That was what he’d said.
I guess I’d taken it to heart.
Maybe he’d run out of time to spare for me, some random woman he was paying hush money to.
Not his girlfriend.
Not even his casual hook-up buddy.
