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I usually did notice the small details like that. But I’d been so overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in and out all day that I was just trying to focus on their orders and remembering to small talk them a little bit that their looks just… weren’t sticking in my mind.
“What do you mean?”
“I think they’re all related to Nino, darling. And they’re likely also who have been dropping off all those wonderful meals at your door.”
As soon as she said it, it all clicked.
I mean, his cousinhadbeen there. And she did have that same dark hair and somewhat olive skin. Different, but similar.
The more I thought about it, the more it was all clicking into place. Even the ones who didn’t have dark hair or olive skin, they all… knew each other.
I guess, at the time, I’d brushed it off at being a tight community or something.
But, no.
It was a family.
An enormous, loud, crazy family.
Like Nino had told me about.
“Oh.”
The sound exhaled out of me, long and weighty.
“My sweet girl,” my mom said, interrupting my swirling thoughts. “I’m afraid that you and Nino are falling into an ugly trap.”
“What?” I asked, actually jolting a bit at her words, at the possibility that I’d somehow screwed things up before they’d even really begun.
“Relationships might be about give-and-take, but they aren’t about a scorecard. I can see you trying to drop things into columns. He paid for the security system, he helped you work yesterday, he brought you gifts and orgasms…”
“Mom,” I grumbled, feeling my cheeks warm.
“Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes with a smile. “The thing is, it isn’t about how much he’s given you, or you’ve given him—“
“I haven’t given him anything,” I said, shaking my head.
“Oh, honey, that’s not how he’s looking at it. He, and his grateful family, think you’ve given him hislife.”
“I don’t want someone who wants to be around only because I maybe shoved them out of the way of a bullet. Out of pure instinct, I might add.”
My mom reached out, stroking a hand down my cheek.
“My sweet girl, no man who has ever seen this beautiful face, or has felt the light of your sunny disposition beaming on them, has ever only wanted you for your human shield potential.”
The snorting laugh that escaped me felt like a balm over fresh, stinging wounds.
I’d never felt so unsure around a man before. I think that was why I was obsessively thinking about Nino. He threw me off balance. He made me rethink things I’d always been so certain of. About men and women. About personal and sexual dynamics between them.
“You’re going to see him again, my darling girl,” my mom said, voice soft.
“You can’t know that.”
“I know you,” she said, getting up. “And that is enough for me to know he will be back.”
“If that were true, then every man I have ever known would have shown up again.”
She turned back at that.
