I stepped out of the room, my bare feet padding against the cold floor, and stood in front of Mariano. He had been staring at my drink, and when he heard me, his eyes roamed up. His mouth was tight, but it did not seem as if he was holding back a laugh.
“Perfezionare.” He kissed his fingers and then sent his arm out. “We’ll take that one.”
“Aspettare.”Wait.I held a hand up. “Are you being serious?”
Perhaps it was the look on my face that did it. He exploded with laughter, standing to his full height, wrapping his arm around my neck, pulling me in and kissing my temple over and over.
Daisy must have heard him. She practically flew to where we were. She was turning me around andoohingandahhingat me.
“This one is perfect!” She beamed. “I sell atonof these to women who are expecting or who have just given birth!”
“We’ll take it, Daisy,” Mariano said through laughter.
I was still wearing the one she had me try on. She stopped at the rack, plucked another from it, and almost ran to the cash register in her four-inch wedges. I was in shock, unable to say anything until she left to pack up the purchase.
“Mariano!” I slugged him on the arm, and he laughed even harder, the masochist! “I do not want this!” I waved at myself. “I was just coming out to show you how it loo—” It hit me then, when I looked into his eyes. “You brought me here on purpose!” I whispered. “You wanted this—” I motioned to my body “—for me!”
“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “It’s appropriate.”
“Appropriate,” I repeated, still sounding dumfounded, although I had caught up to the culprit and his sneaky, sneaky ways.
“The one you were wearing yesterday will do one of two things. Either get me arrested or get me killed. Your ass was being flossed. Don’t get me started on the fucking top. Those clothes are for me only.”
My mouth popped open before it snapped shut. “You thought this,this—” I did not even have words for what it was “—was a good alternative?!”
“Sì.” He nodded seriously. “It’s very demure. Dizzy even says so.”
“Daisy,” I corrected.
Daisydid not know what to think of me when I chased him out of the store with the box she had packed the swim dress in, bopping him on the head with it while he continued to laugh hisculooff.
There was something about his laughter that was so true. The sound of it echoed inside of my heart, tickling me, and I started laughing too.
The rest of the day seemed to be directed by the start of it. We even came to a cease fire on a bathing suit together, one he did not think would get him incarcerated or murdered. Although he said the swim dress might still get him either, so he might as well get used to his head on a chopping block. I had to remind him he did that all on his own with Iggy.
As far as first date went…it was one that would go down in my heart as the best of all time.
Especially when he took me out to lunch, and after, set me against a brick wall and kissed me until I could not breathe.
“This is the only way to taste the lemon drink with two pumps,” he breathed against my mouth, and I pulled him incloser, needing him to be so deep underneath my skin, he would find himself there.
Perhaps somewhere he had been all along. A part of him that was added to me before I was born.
This was the only way I could describe it when he kissed me. I lost a part of myself to him, but this part had belonged to him all along, so I did not feel vacant. Only when we separated did I feel the loss of a vital part of myself.
It was him.
I could feel myself start to completely surrender to him, and for the time being, I tucked away the fear of what this could mean for my heart made of glass for later.
Chapter 13
Sistine
After our “test date,” what Mariano referred to as the “real dates” began.
Since Angelo and Atta’s wedding on the ranch was soon, we seemed to cram an entire summer into two weeks. The ranch could afford less people working on it since the Fausti family had sent more men to work the property. Mariano had told me they were getting triple the pay because of it.
It felt as if we traveled the entire state of Wyoming in those two weeks. Most times only the two of us, but other times with Atta and Angelo, or Ty and Emma, or Marciano, or all seven of us.
