“If this is your idea of a joke, I’m not laughing.”
Antonio leaned closer to his screen, expression razor-sharp. “Walk it back for us. What did you do exactly?”
He wanted to hang up. Or fake a Wi-Fi outage. Instead, Marcus muttered, “Showed up late, talked about my ex-girlfriend, made her buy her own popcorn—”
“Not the bad boyfriend shit, the bad sex shit,” Antonio cut in.
Marcus gritted his teeth. “Perfunctory thigh kiss. No foreplay. Stiff eye contact. No momentum.” His voice dropped an octave. “She produced a vibrator shaped like municipal equipment and told me to sleep it off.”
Lorenzo pinched the bridge of his nose. “And?”
“And…nothing?” Marcus offered weakly.
“Wait. You didn’t cry or say I love you?” Luca asked, smirk practically audible.
Marcus’s face went hot. “It was bad enough without those caveats.”
“Props, dude, for taking one for the family like that,” Giovanni said.
Marcus cleared his throat, praying for lightning to strike the Wi-Fi router. “Did you hear the part where I said she’s invited me back to her bed for my ‘last chance.’”
“The tears and premature I love you,” Luca said, grinning, “would’ve sealed the deal.”
Giovanni groaned into his spoon. “I don’t know why we thought you could pull off bad boyfriend. Honestly, this one’s on us.”
Marcus threw up his hands. “Of course it’s on you guys. It was your dumbass plan.”
“No sense in pointing fingers,” Lorenzo said, sounding unnervingly like Gi Gi handing down judgment from the grave.
“I’m going to her bed,” Marcus said. “And I’m not failing at sex. Just want you to know that up front.”
“I mean, hey, you’ve come this far,” Giovanni added, “you might as well stay the course, finish the job, be the worst lover in the States.”
“Not happening.”
Luca twirled his hockey stick like it was a pointer. “It just so happens we do have another plan. One I pushed, but these idiots argued that it would be unethical if it didn’t come from a place of authenticity.”
Marcus cocked his head. “I’m listening. It better be—”
“Marcus,” Antonio cut in, “are we all correct in our fear that you’ve fallen hard for Frankie Peterson?”
He thought of Frankie dancing, the sound of her laugh, the crook of her finger pulling him in. His throat tightened. “I don’t hate her.”
“Do you love her?” Giovanni pushed.
“I like her a lot,” Marcus replied.“I say that’s good enough,” Luca said.
“Would someone just tell me what in the hell the plan is, and I can be the one to decide if the trigger’s getting pulled,” Marcus snapped.
“It’s time to turn one-eighty,” Antonio said. “Become the best lover on earth. Ridiculous effort. So good that when she discovers you’re Mr. Uptight, she won’t turn you into content on the nightly news. She’ll crave you so much she’ll refuse to cross the line, because she won’t cancel her subscription to the best booty call man in Manhattan.”
Marcus stared at his reflection in the window. “Why the hell didn’t you lead with this? Do you know how fucking humiliating it was to be an ass?”
“Like we said,” Giovanni shrugged, spoon waving like a gavel. “Not an option unless you care enough about her that your heart is open to falling in love, because what we’re suggesting could result in her declaring love.”
He leaned back, staring at the frozen grid of his brothers’ faces on screen. “Your plan has a major flaw. If Frankie and I are headed toward love, having sex with her before telling her I’m Mr. Uptight will destroy any chance I have with her. She’s not the forgiving type. I have to tell her before we sleep together.”
Silence. Even Luca stopped spinning his hockey stick.
