“Franco!” My mother’s shouts echo through the basement.
I check the door to my old bedroom to make sure Fred and Ginger are secure, but Ma’s already halfway down the stairs. “Honey, no. Let the cats out.” Ma is a blur of tight denim, red hair, and jangling bracelets as she rushes past me.
“Why? I thought you wanted them locked up when Dad’s cooking?” I cock my chin and watch as Ma carries one cat and then the other out from my old room.
“I’m fostering a doggie mama, Franco, and the cats make her nervous.” Ma checks the water and food dishes and strokes the head of the dog who clearly trusts her. “She’s going to be a hard one to give up,” my mom says thoughtfully. She does a quick check of each puppy, six in all, and then stands. “She is very gentle but already very protective of me and your father. Isn’t she gorgeous, honey? Don’t you think you might want a puppy when they’re old enough? You live all by yourself in that house…”
“Ma.” I shake my head. “You know I’m renting, and I’m not home enough to take care of a puppy.” I watch the way the dog tracks my mother’s every move, as if she’d haul herself from a nest of puppies to protect Ma if I made the slightest wrong move. “What are they?” I ask.
My mother shrugs. “Hard to say. She came into the shelter pregnant. Time will tell.” She loops her arm through mine, and we head upstairs. “Think about it. A puppy would be good for you.”
Before I can remind her again why that wouldnotbe good for me, the doorbell rings.
“Oh, that must be Chloe.” Ma hustles the rest of the way upstairs, and I follow, closing the basement door behind me. Dolce and Venus both start barking, and Ma turns her attention to the dogs. “Franco, you get the door.”
While Gracie holds Venus in her arms and shushes her, Ma makes sure Dolce gets off the couch without hurting her aging hips.
I have no clue what my mother told Chloe to entice the woman to come for family dinner, so I sigh and brace myself for the inevitable awkwardness.
When I open the door, the only thing that’s awkward is the little catch in my throat.
The sun is setting, and somehow the light catches on Chloe’s green eyes in a way that takes my breath away.
She looks lost for a moment, shocked or maybe confused that I opened the door and not my mother.
I stare at her without greeting her, licking my lips on instinct as I study her eyes, her hair, the sweet curve of her lips.
She smiles apologetically, ducking her head a little as if she’s embarrassed to be here. “Hi, Franco. I’m Chloe. We met the other day at my aunt’s café.” She says it like a question, as though she doesn’t expect me to remember her.
She’s standing there holding a plate covered with foil and a small bouquet of flowers. She’s wearing something slightly less gigantic than the other day.
“Franco. Let her in.” Mom’s cry from the living room nudges me into movement.
“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head and scowling at the blood that surges through my limbs. I’m thirty-eight, not eighteen. Why the hell does this woman in bag-lady clothes make me feel like a kid? “I remember you,” I say gruffly, covering my confusion. “Come in.”
She steps past me and stops, her eyes on the floor. “Umm,” she mumbles, thrusting the plate in my direction. “Would you mind holding this while I take off my boots?”
I take the plate from her and the flowers. I assume she needs both hands to take off those boots, so I just stand there, like a kid who’s never seen a woman’s behind before, watching her bend over to unlace the boots.
She leans a hip against the wall to balance herself while she slides her feet from the boots, then she smooths her hair and adjusts the sweater so that, if it were actually possible, it covers even more of her. She tugs it past her waist so it covers the fine curve of her ass, and then she slips her hands deep inside the sleeves.
“I brought my aunt’s peanut butter crisp cookies. I hope that’s okay?” She’s looking at me, studying my chin like there’s something stuck there, and very definitely avoiding my eyes.
I self-consciously swipe at my chin with my forearm just in case I have dog hair or something there since I’ve got her plate of cookies in one hand and the flowers in the other. “Yeah,” I say distractedly, “great.”
Being reduced to a babbling idiot by a woman’s halfway-decent backside sends me into an even fouler mood.
I don’t know what it is about Chloe that’s turned me stone stupid, but I’m annoyed with myself. I’m even more annoyed with my mother for bringing a non-family member into our dinner, with my brothers for being idiots, and, if I’m reaching, with my sister just because she’s been so down and won’t let anyone in.
I just want to get through this dinner and get the fuck out of here.
My mother comes to the door to greet Chloe with as much enthusiasm as a one-woman parade. She’s cooing and rushing up to us, all excitement and warmth.
Gracie is holding Venus in her arms, and Dolce slowly plods behind them, her tail slapping the wall as she walks carefully down the hallway on her old dog hips.
“Chloe.” Lucia opens her arms and gives me a look. “I told you not to bring anything. You’re family.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes because, no, this woman is not family. But I instantly feel shitty for the impulse.
