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“Keep him from what?” I asked.
Tyler shifted, maybe even a little uncomfortably. I could hear his heart thumping away, deep within his chest. Sliding my leg higher along his thighs, I put my lips against his skin and gave him a gentle kiss.
“It has to do with the Army, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Tyler paused. Eventually, he nodded.
I bit my lip in confusion. “Luca told me he was a communications officer. That his job was boring.”
“It was,” Tyler confirmed carefully. Eventually he added: “Until one day it wasn’t.”
I waited a full minute in the silence, wanting him to continue. The only sound in the darkened bedroom was the powerful thrum of his beating heart.
“Luca did lots of things in the Army,” Tyler eventually conceded. “Some of them he told you about. Others he didn’t.”
His hand began stroking my hair again. The touch made me feel happy. Safe. Sleepy. I sighed in contentment as I squirmed into him.
“Have you looked on the mantle?” he asked softly. “Over the fireplace?”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. “The set of dogtags?”
“Yes,” he answered solemnly. “But also the flag, folded in its mahogany case. The kind of flag you only get when, well…”
“When there’s a military funeral.”
Tyler exhaled slowly and deeply, his broad chest falling to meet his flat, rippled stomach. “Have you looked at those dogtags?”
“I have,” I confirmed. “At first I thought they belonged to his father. But I don’t think so. The name’s not the same.”
“No,” Tyler agreed. “No, it’s not.”
I could sense there was more there; something deeper, something more personal I needed to know about. Only Tyler couldn’t be the one to share it with me.
“I just assumed Luca would tell me one day,” I shrugged. “When he’s finally ready, or—”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
I blinked a few times, wondering if it was such a great idea. But Tyler persisted.
“Go on,” he said. “Ask him.”
“Really?”
“He loves you, Jenna,” Tyler murmured, as if those words were so obvious they were no big deal at all. “Ask him and he’ll tell you.”
He rolled again, this time into me, both literally and figuratively. As my thighs parted and the breath left my lungs in a grateful sigh, Tyler’s lips slid up next to my ear.
“It might even be good for him to talk about it.”
Thirty-One
JENNA
Aegean’s grand re-opening wasn’t just successful, it was a whole damn town event. Customers showed up from every far-flung corner of Northhold, as did three schools, five clubs, and pretty much the entirety of the police department.
We were ready for it though, in that there was plenty of food and the old ovens were eternally full. They churned out orders so quickly the case never filled with specialty pies, and Tyler had to stop taking phone orders altogether. Delivery — at least for this first week or more — would have to be canceled, as there were so many people wanting food it ended up as a first-come, first-serve basis.
As fantastic as it was watching the place flourish, seeing the looks on Tyler and Jay’s faces was even more rewarding. They were beaming and happy and covered in sweat, chatting excitedly with customers as they handed over pies, garlic knots, calzones, and everything else that had made the place famous in the first place. Christopher showed up straight from school to jump in, as did Luca, myself, and two of the restaurant’s servers that had been temporarily laid off during the move.
