18
Vinnie
“How didyou know Tilly was the one?”
Angelo studies me as he leans against the bar with a toothpick between his lips.“This girl got you questioning your ways?”
The last few days, I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about Bianca.I’ve never been this way with any girl in my entire life, especially not one I haven’t slept with.
“I don’t have any ways.”
Angelo stares at me and raises an eyebrow.
“Okay.Okay.”I throw up my hands because my brother knows everything there is to know about me.“I like this chick.”
There’s a hint of a smile on Angelo’s face.“When was the last time you were with someone else?”
I open my mouth to throw out a date and quickly close it again.I was all ready to fire off an answer, but this is something I really have to think about.“It’s been a while.”I rub the back of my neck and stare down at the bar top.“Shit, it’s been a few months.I’ve been so busy with training camp, I didn’t have time to get laid.”
“But now you have time?”
I shake my head.“Not really, but I make time for Bianca.”
He pulls the toothpick from his lips and smirks.“I think you answered your own question.”
I stare at him for a minute with my mouth hanging open, letting his words sink in before I finally speak.“Just because I drop by her place doesn’t mean I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with her.”
He shakes his head slowly and sighs.“Have you evermadetime for the other women?”
The truth of my words puts shit into perspective.Imaketime for her.I go out of my way to see her on the weekends, even though she isn’t exactly overly thrilled when I don’t give her an option.
“Well.”I pause and swallow down the reality that my brother may, in fact, be right.I was more of an in-the-moment type of guy, and I had never been into seconds either.“No.”
He rests his elbows against the bar and leans forward.“You want her dating other men?”
“Fuck no.”I look at him like he’s insane because he should know me better than that.
“Point made.”He smiles.
I walked right into that one.I never once cared about what happened to the women I slept with after the fact.Hell, I didn’t even care if they left my bed and gave someone else sloppy seconds.But the very thought of any man touching Bianca sets my blood on fire.
“I would break his legs.”
“Did you lock it down?”
I stare at him, and he stares back.
He motions between us.“I remember you being all up in my shit about locking down Tilly, and the same when Lucio was dating Delilah.”
“Yeah, well.You guys are different,” I grumble.
Angelo has always been a relationship kind of guy.He started dating Marissa so long ago, I don’t remember a time in my childhood without her.And although it took him a while to move on after her death, he went right into another lasting relationship.
Lucio is a different beast.He was a mix of Angelo and me.He had been a playboy at his core, but he had way more feelings for the women he slept with than I ever did.His getting caught up on Delilah and Lulu wasn’t surprising, especially with his hero syndrome.
“Grow the fuck up,” Angelo says and points at me.“You either lock it down or move the fuck on.Shit or get off the pot, brother.Stop stringing her along.”
I rock back on my stool.“It’s the other way around.Bianca keeps pushing me away.”I shrug because I can’t figure the girl out.“One minute, we’re bumping and grinding our way to ecstasy.And the next, she’s pushing me out the door.”
