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“I know, I love lasagna.”
“I mean about ignoring them, wiseass.” He pulled out his phone. “Look at this.”
It was the ‘Jack's Fat Chick Rules’ Facebook page, and though the name made her cringe, secretly, she was thrilled at how her family had rallied around to defend her.
“What about it?”
“It's more popular than the 'I hate' one.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, trying to rotate her brain to apprehension.
“People are identifying with you, Lili. This page Gina created has almost 19,000 fans and it's gaining every hour. Don’t shy away from this. You should be embracing how freaking gorgeous you are.” He turned on the DeLuca smile that looked ten times better on the males in the family. “Just sayin’. And anyone’s better than Marco Rossi.”
“You don’t like Marco because he’s fond of helping himself to your precious.” She waved around the space her ex considered his personal wine supply much to Tad’s chagrin.
“I don’t like him because he never treated you the way you deserved. All that crap about how cuddly you were and how he loved having something to hold onto. Asshole.”
Tad’s mouth was set in a grim slash. Always indefatigably good-humored, it was a shock to see him as anything else. Marco’s careless ‘compliments’ had wounded, but Lili had always considered them the necessary trade off in dating a hottie. Now, she wondered if she’d been selling herself short all these years.
“He lives thousands of miles away,” she said, getting back to Jack.
“Two hour flight. Phone sex.”
She’d be lying if she said it hadn’t occurred to her. Dirty weekends in the Big Apple. Delicious phone sex. And then a scandal when their spicy sexts got hacked because knowing her luck, that was the most likely outcome.
“He’s kind of intense. It’s hot and all, but I don’t know if I can be what he wants.” Jack’s need couched as a command still haunted her. Really be with me. How could she keep a man that passionate satisfied and above all, interested? He wanted a woman who could match his appetite and drive, not a sharp-talking mouse.
Tad heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I know what the real problem is.”
“Of course you do.”
He brushed her forehead with a kiss and when she wiped it off dramatically, he grinned. It was a thing they did. “Listen to your favorite cousin, I’ve never steered you wrong. You’re afraid.”
“Stunning deduction. Absolutely stunning.”
“No, listen, not just about this online shit. You have it pretty cozy here. Sure, the business is headed to the crapper and Tony could give Genghis Khan a run for his rubles, but you’ve got a niche. You took over as mother hen when Frankie became ill. You’re the person everyone relies on, and that can be comforting as hell, but it can also be confining. Time to bust out of those chains, babe. Learn to fly.”
He flapped his hands like wings, and she slapped them away. Learn to fly, her ass.
First Cara, now Tad. Everyone was an armchair psychologist.
“What do you think I was doing in O’Casey’s with Jack? I tried to bust out of my comfort zone and take a chance. He made promises…” She flapped her own hands now. “With his eyes! He promised me a one-night stand with all that hot ‘n’ heavy smoldering and then he changed the rules. And I’m the one who ends up trending on Twitter.” With her comfort zone shattered and no longer showing up on any known maps.
Tad blinked at her outburst. “Jesus, you really need to get laid. So Jack challenges you. Very positive start.” He returned to dusting off a couple of bottles of a nice Super Tuscan she was rather partial to and set them on the bottom step.
“You’re such an ass,” she said, not unkindly. Jack Kilroy liked her and she liked him. It was silly to feel such hope, but strangely easy in this cool, darkened room insulated from the world above her head. But more than hope, she felt one step closer to the person she had dreamed of becoming back in those harrowing days. Cool, poised, forward-thinking Lili. Her blood surged like the first time she picked up a camera and realized there were myriad possibilities.
“Go make him an offer he can’t refuse,” Tad said with a straight face.
She groaned. “How long have you been waiting to use that one?”
“All my life, babe.”
Twenty-Four
Jack was officially in the ninth circle of hell. Not knowing how the original circles of Dante's Inferno were actually populated, Jack invented his own occupants. The seventh circle was for guys who hadn't got laid in months. The eighth was for idiots who were sex-starved and had a sizzling woman raring to go, but still chose to wait it out in the hopes of getting a date.
And the ninth was for the suckers who had the same problems as the ones in the seventh and eighth circles, but had to suffer through it all while listening to opera.
