“Even if he’d said no, I wouldn’t have cared. I was in lust. I was on him like white on rice. He gave me my first blowjob. Do you think a horny as fuck sixteen-year-old is going to turn that down? After that day, we started having sex every time he came over. I was high on having this older guy fuck me. I didn’t care what we did, as long as he wanted me. It was an obsession.”
“And your parents didn’t notice? Weren’t they around?”
“My father split his time between New York and Italy—Florence, to be exact; he taught art at the university. When he came home, he had a studio in Tribeca, where he painted. My mother was also a sometime painter and artist’s model. She wasn’t home much either. They divorced when I was sixteen.”
“So you were alone and carrying on an affair with a teacher.”
“Yeah. Then one night…” I faltered, unable to go on. I hadn’t ever told anyone this story. Even Presley didn’t know my humiliation.
“Hey. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it yet.”
I nodded and drew in a deep breath. “I can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand what it’s like to have love affairs go wrong. Want some water?”
“Yeah, please.” I took the bottle from him, adding, “I’m not playing games, if that’s what you think.”
“I don’t. Well, I did, but now hearing what you told me, not anymore. I’m not rushing you.” He took a drink, and I watched his strong throat move as he swallowed.
“You said you understood. What happened with your first boyfriend? If you don’t mind talking about it.” I might not have a love life to speak of, but I was good at helping others with theirs. I took full responsibility for giving Nate the push to realize he needed Presley. Call me the matchmaking fairy. So to speak.
“Oh.” Torre’s face flooded with heat, his dark hair fell over his eyes, and despite the seriousness of the discussion, my lips twitched. He was adorable. “Well…in high school, I was a computer nerd and an English major. I had a crush on Paul DiRienzo on the football team. He asked if I could help him with his English papers, and by helping—”
“He meant write them for him.”
Surprised eyes met mine. “Yeah.”
“And let me guess.” Despite the twenty-year passage of time, I grew hot and angry for Torre, knowing what was coming. “He blew you. Or you him. You had mutual jerk-offs, and you wrote his papers, but after that semester, he dropped you.”
“Yeah,” Torre said, red-faced. “I was stupid. And I keep making the same mistake. My last relationship ended because Pete thought I could help him further his career, but when I refused, he began cheating and left me to be with someone else after we’d been together two years. So this”—he waved his hand—“whatever happens here between us, needs the brakes. I said I don’t jump into bed with people, and I meant it.”
Recovered now, I set the water bottle on the island. “Lucky for you, I’ve never been interested in a relationship. I don’t believe in them. So you don’t have to worry.”
“I do. I always have.” He set his jaw in charming surliness, and I wanted to taste his skin. “You said your best friend is getting married.”
“I did. I even brought them together. But that’s him. He believes in that happy-ever-after crap. More like happily never after, if you ask me.”
Frowning now, Torre returned to his chair. “It’s not crap. When the right people find each other, it works. My brother and Val are perfect for each other, and so were my parents.”
“Well, bully for them. They’re an anomaly in my world.”
“I’m sorry about your parents. It must’ve been hard on you.”
I pressed my lips together. Wasn’t going there, no matter how much he wanted me to. “I survived.” Sweat rolled down my back.
“Life is more than surviving.”
His quiet assurance in his belief annoyed me. “Is it?” My rancor spilled out, unabated. “We get up, work, eat, fuck, and go to sleep, then do it all over again. Sounds like surviving to me.”
“You’re forgetting something.”
“Yeah, what? You’re going to tell me how love will save me? Make me whole? That’s a bunch of bullshit to sell to the masses.” I wouldn’t know what it meant to be whole; I’d been broken since I was sixteen.
“What about the everyday beauty of a sunrise or sunset? Or flowers opening in the sun? I never knew perfect love until my niece smiled at me for the first time. There’s love and beauty all around us. We just have to be open to recognizing and accepting it.”
“You’re an optimist. I’ve never met anyone with such a positive attitude.”
“It beats the alternative. What would I get by being a negative person except more unhappiness?”
Our eyes met, and I knew he saw right through me. An unfamiliar tightness swelled my throat shut, and I wondered when I’d last seen a sunrise.
