I exhaled a log breath and sucked in another as I rang the bell.Here goes nothing.
The door opened, and my heart skipped a beat before I even saw who opened it. I was too old for this shit.
“Can I help you?” A girl that couldn’t be older than eighteen and looked so much like Fabio asked, and then she recognized the dog. “Tiara! Weren’t you in New York?” The girl looked back at me, the dog squirming to leave my hold and go to her real family. “Are you…Lady Brighton?”
A nervous laugh flew out of my mouth, and I nodded. “You must be Emilia.”
“I am. You’re way…”
Old? Ugly? Stupid?
“…out of my brother’s league.”
I laughed again, and another girl came to the door. She took one glance at me and gasped. “Oh my God. My sister is right. You’re way out of his league. What the heck is a lady like you doing with the frog?”
“And you must be Mattia.”
“I am. Piacere.”
“Piacere. Is…Fabio here?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll…” I threw a thumb back at the cab. “I guess I should have called.”
“Don’t be silly. Come in. He’s just around the corner. He’ll be back in a minute. Mamma! Lady Brighton is here!”
Mamma? No. I was no way near ready to meet his mother without him. “I…I really shouldn’t…”
She dragged me in, like she’d known me forever. I had no choice but to go inside or I’d have fallen down.
“You should tell the cab to go,” Emilia said.
“My bags are still in there. I really should go to the hotel and come back later when he’s here.”
“You want him to kill us?” Emilia chuckled, grabbing her jacket. “We’ll help with the bags.”
Before I could protest, before I could even take a breath to say a single word, the two sisters were taking out my luggage and dragging it inside.
“We’ll put them in Fabio’s room,” Mattia stated, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you wanna see it while we tell you some embarrassing stories about him?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I…I’d love that.” Anything better than meeting the mother.
Carrying one of the bags and Tiara, I followed them upstairs. His room was the last on the left. We huddled my luggage by the bedside. A strange energy engulfed me as I stood in his room. It was an ordinary and rather tiny boy’s room full of Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings posters, yet it had his smell of candy and sex. It went straight to my vagina, clenching it. Not the best feeling when his sisters were around. Not the best feeling when I didn’t even know if I was ever going to talk to him again, let alone have him take care of that clenching.
“Did you know he was fat?” Mattia started.
My eyes fluttered. “What?”
“He was. Mamma still calls him ciccio till today. He always ate tons of candy until he became the chubbiest kid on the block. Then when he shot a foot, he decided to shed the weight. He still ate the candy, but he always hid it so he wouldn’t get caught.”
“That’s why he always smells like candy. I’ve never seen him eat any, though. Where does he hide them?”
“That is a secret he’d never revealed, and we were hoping you’d have discovered it by now. It’s like he’s a magician when it comes to sugary treats.”
“It’s a real mystery. We tried every possible stash and nothing,” Emilia added.
“Okay. That sounds like a challenge.” I sounded like Fabio. “I’m in.”
