Deep (Pagano Family #4)(53)
But she supposed that was true of anyone. No one got a guarantee of a long, safe life. Heartbreak was around every corner.
She got to their floor, and Sam opened Nick’s door for her. He was waiting for her inside.
“I love watching you do that.” He kissed her, and she dropped her mat and hooked her arms around his neck, letting him bend her backward a little. No one had ever kissed her the way Nick did—with his full body, making her full body respond in kind. “Makes me want to f*ck you on the spot.”
She chuckled and sucked lightly on his bottom lip until he groaned and held her even closer, so that their bodies were almost sealed together. “Fine by me. I’m closing tonight, so I have hours before I have to go in.”
With a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth, he set her solidly on the floor again and released her. “I don’t like you closing. I don’t like you working that job at all.”
She smiled and brushed her fingers over his strong, square chin. “We covered this already—a couple times. I need to work. I need to pay my bills. You’ve got David and Goliath following me around everywhere. I’m just as safe at Sal’s as I am anywhere else.”
“That is objectively false. You’re safer tucked in your apartment. Or mine. Mine would be better.”
“No, Nick. My heart is already all tangled up here. I’m trying to do a little bit of thinking with my head.”
“If you were thinking with your head, you’d do what I say.”
In the days since Brian’s funeral, he’d started this topic every time she mentioned her job. He’d said he’d keep her safe. He’d said he would take care of her bills. But they were too new to even contemplate something like that. Part of her wanted it, wanted to be able to say, Yes! Take care of me! But she didn’t like that part. She wanted to be independent. And she needed to be smart. Giving up her job was wrong for a thousand different reasons. “I need to work.”
He stared down at her, the muscles in his jaw twitching, and she knew he was frustrated. She was, too. But she blew that feeling away like a dandelion puff and smiled up at him.
After a beat or two, his expression eased, and he smiled, too. “People don’t tell me no.”
“Obviously.”
“You come straight back, and you come here. Understood?”
“Like Donnie and Smash would let me do anything else.”
“Good. And I’ve got something for you. I’ll give it to you tonight.”
“Something else?” Already he’d given her three expensive gifts, though the first, her necklace, was by far her favorite. He seemed to take great pleasure in giving her gifts, and he understood her taste in ways even she didn’t. Nothing he’d given her would have made her own radar screen—in large part because of the expense—but all of it was beautiful and suited her.
“Yes. You’ll see tonight. But now”—he kissed her nose—“I have to get going. Are you going to stick around here for a while?”
“No. I have things to do at my place.”
He nodded and grabbed his jacket from the back of a chair, then led her out of his apartment.
oOo
Traffic in the diner was a little heavier than usual for a Wednesday, but the spring had been warm, and it was early May. The season wasn’t far off. Skylar worked the swing, so she and Bev worked dinner together. They had a full house, counter, too, and for the first time, Bruce grumbled about Bev’s ‘friends’ in the corner booth. Every time he said ‘friends,’ the quotation marks were obvious. He was, in general, in a foul mood all day.
Bev wasn’t in a great mood herself. She’d been fine, having a day like any other, trying and almost succeeding to nudge Bruce into a better mood, flirting a little with Dink, who always blushed when she did. The dinner rush was harder than usual, though, and badness had almost broken out when some jerk at the counter smacked her ass as she went by. Smash had jumped up so fast he’d almost torn the booth apart, and Bev had found herself holding him off like a rabid bull. The diner had been full of people.
Bev had been more embarrassed by the scene than by the slap, as much as she hated that. She got her ass slapped or pinched fairly often. It came with the job, and she had grown to accept it. So far, Donnie hadn’t noticed, because she didn’t make a fuss. But Smash had seen this one happen.
And then, not long after, while she was cleaning up the mess left behind by a couple and their three out-of-control rugrats, she saw Chris walking by the front window, toward his shop. That itself wasn’t unusual. Though he drove to work and parked in a small lot at the other end of the street, he liked the Indian place a couple of blocks in the other direction, and he had to pass the diner to get there. Always before, though, he looked in and waved. Today, he just walked past.
They hadn’t spoken since he’d called her a twat. She’d left a couple of messages, but she hadn’t gone back. And he hadn’t sought her out at all. More than a week. In all the years of their friendship, they hadn’t gone so long without contact. Even when he’d gone to Greece for two weeks a few years back, he’d checked in regularly. He was breaking her heart.
Bev rubbed her feathers again and again, trying not to let the crap get her down.
Sky clocked out at seven, and Romeo came to pick her up. He’d taken up the offer to work security, but he wasn’t working for the Paganos, exactly. He’d gotten on at Neon, working security. Apparently, the Paganos owned a piece of the club. Bev had had no idea that their reach was like it was. It seemed that they were involved in everything.