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Liza leaned forward and kissed him. “Take me.”
Epilogue
Conor sat alone in the restaurant, marveling at the efficiency of the Moretti family. He had to hand it to them, when they made a mess, they cleaned it up. He’d watched them reorganizing the tables and chairs this evening, shifting and moving everything, and all he could envision was his restaurant manager showing up tomorrow morning and suffering a coronary over having to put it all back to rights.
Looking around, he couldn’t tell they’d moved a single chair.
The last of the partiers—Gage, Penny, Toby, and Rich—had left a few minutes earlier. Conor wasn’t sure why he hadn’t followed them out and locked the door behind him. It made more sense to go home and kick back on his comfy recliner rather than sit at this table.
Regardless, he didn’t move. Couldn’t find the energy.
Tonight had been wonderful. Gage was going to be a father, and if that slow dance Matt and Liza shared was any indication, his big brother was on his way to his own happily ever after.
Which left him the last Russo standing.
Alone.
What else was new?
He’d always felt like the odd guy out in his family, and now, with his brothers both in love and moving on with their lives, he was once more relegated to that role.
Conor had spent his entire life as the invisible kid, and now…man. All of Dad’s attention had been focused on Matt, the oldest, his heir. Not that Conor begrudged Matt for that. Shit. If anything, Matt had taken one for the team as far as Conor was concerned.
And while Conor had been close to their mom, there was no denying she’d preferred Gage. Why wouldn’t she? They had a million things in common, and Gage had followed her around like she hung the moon. Gage had also been a lot better at dealing with Mom’s dark days. Whenever she went into a depression, remaining in bed for days at a time, Gage was the one who would sit with her, talk to her, try to draw her back out of the darkness.
During those times, Conor withdrew to his room because seeing her like that scared him. He’d always been prone to panic attacks and seeing Mom so lost and sad was a trigger. So, most days, he avoided her and the rest of his family, losing himself in his books. Fiction had been his escape from reality ever since he’d graduated to chapter books in first grade. Books were his way of disappearing from his real life when things felt too hard or too frightening.
He startled briefly when he heard a knock at the door. Glancing up, he was surprised to find Luca Moretti waving from the front window.
Shit.
While he was happy for his brothers, their newfound happiness meant Conor was more frequently subjected to things he’d prefer to forget.
Or maybe just one thing.
Luca.
Conor forced himself to rise, crossing the restaurant to unlock the door. “Hey. Is everything alright?”
Luca nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad I caught you. I was hoping someone would still be around. I think I left my phone here.”
“Oh.” Conor gestured for Luca to come in.
“Thanks.” Luca headed to the booth where he and his twin brother, Gio, along with Gio’s partners, Keeley and Rafe, had been sitting earlier.
Luca and Gio were a year older than Conor, so they’d all attended the same elementary school when they were kids, before Frank Moretti had moved his family to Baltimore. Frank moved back to Philadelphia with his five kids after his wife died, when the twins were freshmen in high school. However, their paths and Conor’s didn’t cross again until a year later, when Conor moved from middle to high school.
Unlike their brothers, Matt and Tony, Conor and the twins hadn’t picked up the stupid feud that had been raging between their families for years.
Quite the opposite.
Conor had been just fifteen years old when he’d gotten his first, honest-to-God crush. Falling head over ass.
For a guy.
Luca Moretti.
Jesus, what the hell would his father have said if he’d come out not only as gay but in love with a Moretti?
