Frisk Me(11)

Vin lifted a shoulder. “Whatever works.”

Helen refilled everyone’s coffee and moved on to another table, having assured them individually that they were, in fact, her one and only favorite.

Luc reached for the bill Helen had dropped off, but as usual, Tony was too fast. “Your mother and I have this.”

Luc lifted an eyebrow. “But you’re retired.”

“And I’m your father,” Tony said in his usual no-room-for-argument tone.

Luc and Vincent exchanged a look across the table. Neither of them particularly liked their parents paying for their four grown siblings, but pride was an important element in the Morettis. And nobody had more of it than the patriarch.

“They’re not going to put makeup on you, are they?” Anthony mused.

“What?” Luc asked.

“For this story. Do you have to get all dolled up?”

Luc rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, annoyed that the conversation kept coming back to the damned CBC thing. “No. No makeup. It’s just a reporter following me around for a few weeks…”

“Which reporter?” Elena asked.

Just as Tony broke in, “What do you mean a few weeks?”

“Oh my God,” Luc muttered, taking a drink of his coffee. He looked across the table at his best shot at escape: his mother.

But Maria Moretti looked every bit as dismayed as his father, which was something Luc didn’t fully understand. He knew why he was annoyed about the story, but he didn’t get why his parents were all worked up about it. It didn’t even have anything to do with them.

“Her name is Ava Sims,” Luc said, glancing at his sister as he answered her question.

Elena nodded. “I think I know her. Brunette? Pretty?”

“A pretty brunette on TV?” Vin said. “I’m sure there’s only one of those.”

Elena made a face. “Seriously, I think I just saw one of her stories last week. She did some exposé on this supposed charity that was really a front for drug money, or something like that. Seriously, it was a big deal…she figured it out all on her own, and—”

“Because that’s exactly what the city needs,” Anthony broke in. “Amateurs that don’t have a clue about law enforcement thinking they know the best way to keep order.”

“Oh, come off it,” Elena said in exasperation.

Luc was sitting between the two of them and held up a palm between their two angry faces, hoping to stifle the argument before it heated. Elena was not only the lone sister with four brothers, she was also the lone non-cop of the Moretti siblings.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Elena was an attorney…a defense attorney.

Her commitment to “the wrong side of the law,” as Anthony liked to call it, was a frequent point of contention. And even though Luc was generally on Anthony’s side, today he wasn’t in the mood.

“Can we not do this?” he asked tiredly.

Both Anthony and Elena glanced at him, and then he saw them glimpse at each other, a surprised look on their faces. He knew why. His voice had been irritated, and Luc’s voice was rarely anything other than easygoing.

He was the charming brother. The likable one.

But he didn’t feel charming today. Hadn’t felt charming in a long time.

And lately…lately he’d been tired of pretending.

“I still think you should say no to the story,” Tony broke in.

Luc’s head dropped forward at his father’s stubbornness. “I can’t, Dad. I don’t like it any more than you do, but Captain Brinker made it clear that it wasn’t up for discussion. After what happened with that shooting last month, they’re desperate to get back in the public’s good graces.”

His father’s jaw moved. “You’re sure that’s what this is about? Making amends for that trigger-happy cop who shot the homeless man?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Luc said, taking a sip of coffee as he tossed his napkin onto his plate. “Does it matter?”

His father nodded, looking thoughtful. And worried. Luc’s mother set a hand on his father’s arm, and Tony glanced at her. Luc’s eyes narrowed as he watched something cross between them. A silent communication that he couldn’t translate.

A temper that he very rarely felt started to creep up. “Look, I’ll keep you all out of it, okay? Can we just…drop it?”

“Sure, bambino,” Elena said, her voice easy as she ran a playful hand through his hair.

Vincent reached across the table with a pen and a paper napkin. “Another autograph. For my collection?”

Luc laughed and shoved his brother’s hand aside. “Fu—screw you,” he corrected, after a quick glance at his mother. “Can we go? My shift starts in an hour and I need to change into uniform.”

Outside the restaurant, the family did the usual hugs and kisses exchange as his mother took an inventory of who, if any of them, would be coming to family dinner that evening. Church and Sunday breakfast were mandatory. Sunday dinner had become an “all is welcome, none are required” affair in recent years in deference to the unpredictable schedule of cops, and Elena’s tendency to spend Sunday nights prepping for her Monday cases.

“Not me tonight, Ma,” Luc said, wrapping his mother in a hug and kissing her cheek. “I’m working a double.”