“Anything,” he said immediately.
“Turn around?”
He hesitated but gradually relinquished his hold on me. When he rolled over, I slid my arm around his waist and tucked my legs against him, slotting into the nook his knees made. He released a surprised shudder but then sank into the covers as I pressed my face into his back.
It was the first night where he didn’t hug and cosset and croon to me, the first nightIshelteredhim. And, in the depths of dawn, no matter what I flung at him, the accusations and thefear and the hurt, I knew that my life would have been a darker, sadder, emptier place without this bewildering man in it.
I accepted that this was worth fighting for.
I embraced that I'd have to overcome our beginnings because what we could have together held so much promise I could never let go of it.
Hours later, when I woke up, our bodies still plastered together, my arm a rigid band over his waist, I realized two things.
One: Stan, the chronic insomniac, was fast asleep.
Two: Dante Graziola hadn't revisited me in my dreams…
TWENTY-FOUR
STAN
“Mrs. Frasier?” I knocked on her front door, then stared at my watch when she didn’t answer.
“Oh, it’s you,” she greeted as she opened up to me. “What’s wrong? Is Kitty okay?”
I graced her with a tight smile. “She’s fine.”
“Cade’s wrist’s broken.”
Because this was the fourth time she’d brought it up, I answered for the fourth time, “Sorry. He attacked me first.”
Her lips pursed.
“I wondered if you could help me with something.”
“Come inside. You want a sandwich?”
My lips parted as I started to refuse—Ihadjust eaten three ham and cheese croissants… “If you’re making one.”
She clucked her tongue. “I’m always making sandwiches. My kids think I came onto this planet with a loaf of bread in my left hand and a block of government cheese in the right. Sit with me in the kitchen.”
Recognizing the order for what it was, I took a seat at the counter when she wafted me in that general direction and found a dubious refuge between two large plant pots housing orchidsthat loomed over me like a couple KGB operatives putting on the pressure.
Which, considering the start of our conversation, seemed pretty apt.
“Now, what do you need, Custanzu?”
“I need for you to call me Stan, first.”
“Fine.” She didn’t offer me the same courtesy, but considering the state I’d brought her daughter home inandCade’s broken wrist, I couldn’t blame her. “So,Stan, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I corrected, watching as she sliced into a large sourdough loaf while batting the leaf from the plant out of the way. Come to think of it—I should have brought flowers. If her kitchen was anything to go by, she loved them, and Rory had a green thumb. She’d have told me to pick up ones that meant ‘apology’ or something.Shit, what a wasted opportunity.“Tonight, the Stars are playing the first game of round two?—”
“You’re a fan?” she interrupted.
“Not particularly. Soccer’s my thing.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Knew you had taste, boy. I don’t take for none of this North American stuff. You know, we bat a ball around a field too and it’s called rounders. Mostly, little girls play it. We don’t make men millionaires hundreds of times over for it.”
