“Are you moving in with him?” The guy he’d been sleeping with when he was supposedly working.
“Yeah. You can forward my mail.”
And he left.
What had I ever seen in him? A little lost and lonely after my father’s death, I hadn’t dated much in the passing years, so when I met Pete at an industry convention, I’d fallen for his smooth words almost from the first. He didn’t need to coax me into bed, and I thought our sex life was fine. Until I had Frisco in my bed and saw what I’d been missing all along. Passion. Lust. Hunger. This past week I’d woken up from dreams of him touching me…kissing me…the visions in my head so painfully erotic, they found me teetering on the brink of orgasm when I opened my eyes. I’d barely needed to touch myself before I exploded.
And yet he too had left me.
“Fuck him,” I muttered, and determined to ignore the memory of that blowjob I gave him right here in this spot the first night he’d stayed over, I put the entry for the meeting atUltimate NYCin my calendar. The doorbell rang, and I couldn’t help the leap my heart took, hoping it was Frisco.
I opened the door to see my mother waiting, and I schooled my face to hide the disappointment. “Hi, Mom, come on in.”
She took a mug, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat. “So what’s new?”
As if that wasn’t a loaded question…
“I just accepted the offer fromUltimate NYC. Starting this Thursday, I’ll be a part of their magazine.”
“I’m so proud of you, and your father would’ve been over the moon.” She hugged me tight.
“I wish he could be here to see it.” My eyes burned.
“He knows.” She gave a glance upward. “I believe he’s looking down on all of us.” She returned to her seat. “We’ll throw you a big party when the deal is done.”
“I don’t need that. It’s going to mean more work and going into their offices. I’ll have to get some clothes.” I looked at the sweat pants I’d worn for the past three days I’d sat moping in the apartment over Frisco. “This won’t cut it.”
“Well, Val will be happy to go with you. I doubt you want your mother tagging along. When you come upstairs to watch the game later, you guys can talk it out. She and Mike are up there cooking right now, and I have cookies and a tiramisu in the refrigerator.”
Watching basketball games was a Rossi tradition. From when Mike and I were young, people always gathered at my parents’ house to eat and watch the game.
I might not have a boyfriend, but I’d be well fed.
“Good thing I’m wearing stretch pants. I think I’ll be five pounds heavier tonight when I come home.”
“So.” She wrapped her hands around her mug, and I steeled myself for an interrogation. “What else is going on? Whatever happened to that man I met here? I thought you two were getting along? Mike told me he even helped out in the restaurant.”
I shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”
Warm brown eyes met mine. “On his part more than yours? I can see you still have feelings.”
People might think it strange, but my mom and I had the type of relationship where I could tell her almost anything. After Pete left, she sat me down and told me to stop jumping after guys just because they said they liked me. What did they bring to the table for a relationship?
“Not really. I don’t know. I thought there was something, but he disappeared.”
“That one didn’t seem like the others I’ve met.”
“How so?” Not only was I curious to hear my mother’s take on the enigmatic Frisco, I hoped to pick up some clues as to what had gone wrong.
“First of all, he didn’t act like it was a burden to talk to me. When Pete lived here, he tolerated my coming around, I could tell.”
My cheeks burned. “He wasn’t too kind about it, yeah. But,” I added hurriedly, “it had nothing to do with why we broke up.”
“It doesn’t matter. I wanted to treat him as my own; if you loved him, then I would look for something to love. But there wasn’t much there, I hate to admit. He rarely interacted with any of us. I tried to brush it off, but we all noticed.”
“Well, Pete is gone and so is Frisco. Back to the drawing board.” My forced cheeriness didn’t fool her.
“Maybe you could talk to Frisco and see if there was a problem. It could be something completely separate from you.”
