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“Alright,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and a slow smile beginning to stretch under his rapidly whitening mustache. “Who is he?”
“Who is who?” I asked, feigning innocence. How did he know?
“The boy. Whichever one has you a’ humming like a little songbird.”
“What, I can’t hum a song?” I asked, mocking offense but struggling to gain any believable insolence due to the overwhelming happiness coursing through my veins.
“Sofia does not hum,” he said, enunciating every syllable with extreme prejudice.
“I do too. I hum while I cook.”
“To music,” he retorted. “Not to the nothingness and the air and the angels. Who is he?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, sweeping out of the kitchen and heading to the bar. “I’m going to go relieve Leo from the bar since we can’t trust him not to give out free shots to women with big boobs.”
I backed out of the swinging door without looking, and as soon as I turned around, the rubber on the door making that weird fwump sound as it closed, I was confronted by three very excited sisters.
“Oh, shit,” I said, knowing there was no way out. What Papa couldn’t get out of me, they would by sheer will alone. They could pester with the best of them. I knew it for a fact. I’d taught them everything they knew.
“Who is he?” Amara asked, nearly buzzing with excitement. “Is he that guy? The one?”
“Which one?” Camilla asked.
“The hot one,” Luna said. “The one from the fire department.”
“Fire department?”
“Tall, blonde hair, big arms,” Amara said, and when that didn’t work, “Probably a size thirteen.”
“Oh,” Camilla said. “The hot one. Right.”
“Jesus,” I muttered under my breath, trying to brush by them, but the passage was too narrow, and they moved in unison to block me. When I repositioned and tried the other direction, they blocked that too.
“Tell us,” Luna pleaded, letting the s sound hang forever like a demented Italian snake.
“Yeah, sis,” Camilla said, using the dreaded s-word that she only used when she wanted something.
I made a frustrated groaning sound and looked behind the bar, where Leo was casually chatting to a blonde woman, and noted that the bar was, at least for the moment, not in desperate need of my presence.
“Fine,” I said, “come with me.”
Falling in line behind me, my sisters squealed enough that Leo tore his attention away from the girl for a split second to look over. Not enough to come investigate, thank goodness, but we were now on his radar. I brought them to a six-top that was positioned so we could see through the door leading to the restaurant proper, in case customers came in and needed Camilla.
“So,” Amara said, “is it the fireman? Did you see his hose?”
“Oh God,” I said.
“Did you slide down his pole?” Luna asked.
“Did you fuck?” Camilla said, stopping all three of us. She looked around innocently and blinked her big, jealousy-inducing doe eyes. “What? That’s what we’re talking about, right?”
“Be glad you’re beautiful,” Luna said. “Because God gave you tits and an ass and not much in the noggin.”
“Shut up. I want to hear what Sofia has to say,” Amara said. “Go on.”
“Well, that’s a first,” I said, then sighed. “Alright. So. We hung out at his place yesterday and cooked for a bit. Then I kind of made a move, and he responded.”
“He responded?” Luna asked eagerly. “Like, responded?” She made a complicated humping motion in her chair that I was pretty sure would have gotten her banned from television up until recently.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Holy shit!” Luna exclaimed.
“Tell me everything,” Amara said.
“Did he have a big dick?” Camilla asked.
Again, the three of us stopped and stared at our formerly innocent sister. The one we all thought was the angel. The one with all the gifts that each of us got one of but she got all of and seemed so completely unaware of. The one we all knew was going to end up marrying a millionaire somewhere.
The silence settled over the table for a few seconds before Luna slowly turned back to me, cleared her throat, and splayed her fingers on the table.
“Well,” she said, “did he?”
The next five minutes felt like hours. I fielded questions that were simultaneously wildly out of line and yet perfectly normal sister banter because they were questions I would have peppered them with too. I tried to hold back, to keep some vague mystery to it all, but I couldn’t. I was too excited, too proud, too damn happy to not tell them. By the time the door in the bar swung open again, I was catching myself going into far, far too much detail about last night. I shushed them as I saw who it was coming out of the kitchen, though, his eyes focused on me.
