When I reach two miles, I slow the machine down and wait until she drops from a plank to speak again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what do you like to eat?”
Marianna’s eyebrows pinch together. “I’m easy. All of the places we’ve gone are great.”
“Yes, but our chef Elise is back from her vacation and wants to know how she can adapt the menu for you.” I’m not entirely used to sayingouranything, not after so long of everything being mine alone.
Elise didn’t ask for Marianna’s food preferences exactly, though she did ask me if my bride had any allergies she should be aware of. She’s been making the same meals for me for the last five years, but I’m ready to shuffle the entire menu if need be.
“Oh.” Marianna stretches her arm across her chest, then behind her head. Her chest glistens with a sheen of sweat. “The usual stuff, what you like is fine.”
I raise my eyebrows and wait for her to give more information, and after one song rolls into the next without budging, she presses her lips together and thinks about it.“Chicken parm,” she pauses, “fish, eggplant dishes. Thai food—curries of all kinds. Soups.”
I retrieve my phone and jot the items into a text message.
“What kinds of soups?”
“Brothy ones with beans. Ones with kale. Zuppa toscana. Normal stuff like pizza, enchiladas, pasta. Salmon and quinoa. Like I said, I’m easy.”
I type the rest of the items into the list then send them off to Elise to incorporate into the upcoming schedules.
“Elise comes Thursday and Sunday and leaves meals for the rest of the days. I’ll let her know what you prefer.”
“Oh, we eat at my sister’s house on Mondays,” she says. “Well, I do. If you’re busy, you don’t have to. But Nate will bother you about it if you’re not there for his pizza dip or whatever abomination he’s testing that week.”
“He always cooks?”
“No, thank God,” she mutters, smirking. “I’m not one to talk though, I’m worse than him. Be glad you didn’t request cooking in this arrangement of ours.”
Marianna’s phone rings, and she picks it up without looking at who’s calling.
“Yeah,” she says. I can’t hear who’s on the other side, but what I can hear is decidedly feminine. One of her sisters, if I had to guess and be nosy about it. “How many?” she asks. “Yeah, be there soon.”
She hangs up and looks up at where I’m staring on my unmoving treadmill. Very cool. Casual.
“Work already?” I ask, because I am nosy.
“It’s always something, I’m sure you know how it is. Plus we’re down a man with Sean out with the baby.”
“I’ll go with you,” I say before I can think better of it. My assistant might develop a permanent eye-twitch when I tell himto move my meetings, but I’m deeply curious about what keeps Marianna busy when we go our separate ways during the day.
“Don’t you have a job?” she asks. “Like, work to do?”
“Sure, but it’s early. Most of my meetings today start after the typical workday ends,” I lie. I have an extremely busy schedule this morning, but Marianna does not need to know that.
“It might get. . .messy.”
I try not to look fazed as I step toward her. “Messy how?”
Marianna squints at me, debating her response if I had to guess. Fine with whatever she sees apparently, she shrugs. “I hope you actually have a strong stomach.”
An hour later,we’ve picked up a box of donuts at the bakery down the street and are driving through morning traffic to the Morelli estate. Sasha drives us, he and Marianna going beat for beat debating about some movie I’ve never seen. After the shooting, Sasha started attending every outing, keeping close watch of our surroundings and looking all-around menacing. Because Marianna is an enigma and he loves to make friends, my half-brother never bothered to keep from asking her lots of questions until she’d finally acquiesce and tell us something new about herself.
He and Marianna like a lot of the same things—they get along. Talking for them is much easier than it is for me, maybe because Sasha is closer to her in age and more social, at large. The guy loves to gossip, which is one reason he’s so good at his job, and even though Marianna doesn’t know about half the people he talks about, she listens intently and says all the right things to egg him on.
“You’re full of shit, theOceansmovies clear those by a mile,” she says, leaning forward in her seat, eyes lit up with amusement.
“I didn’t say they weren’t better, I said they were lessfun, less charming.”
