“Why?” I knew, but if she also knew, I could’ve used someone verbalizing my situation aloud. “Tell me.”
Her lips pursed as she pressed a hold on them. “Well,” she said. “I’m sure it’s confidential, but are you—are you sleeping with a man you’re investigating?”
I could’ve folded in two. It wasn’t even an official investigation. It was a means to stay close to home. It was all going wrong. I was supposed to be leaving, and she was supposed to be coming with me—at least after Monday—but I was nervous, anxious, palms sweating. I put the tea on the table. “It’s complicated.”
“Love is complicated,” she said. “And so are whatever feelings you’ve got going on inside. I’m your mom, I know you, Kalen. And I want all the good things for you. So, if those good things are in the arms of someone you’re supposed to be investigating, or analyzing, or—” She sighed, probably giving up on trying to decide what it was I actually did for the FBI.
“It’s just not something I can go for,” I said.
“I think if you find love, you should chase it.”
“Isn’t that how I was born?”
She laughed. “Except, I don’t think you have the same worry. Unless, unless—” She paused, and I thought she was going to keep mentioning someone’s ability to get pregnant. “Unless he’s like an evil person, in which case, I’ll tell you to leave it alone.”
That was the thing. Rocco wasn’t evil. His family weren’t evil.
“What do you know about the Bianchi family?”
She picked up her mug of tea and held it in her lap once more, sipping at it as she stared at the paused TV screen. I must’ve waited minutes for her to respond. Each passing second was heavier on my stomach than the last. I didn’t like it.
“They had a death recently,” she said. “I know of them, obviously. I’m surprised you don’t.”
“I do, I just—wanted to know if you knew anything. You live near them, right?”
“Sure,” she said. “I know they’re quite a big family. Italians. I know they’ve got a reputation for violence, but in town, they do a lot of good. They’re building a community center. I know that, mostly because Lynne, my old neighbor, would get gossip from the butchers. She’s married to one of the men who do all the meat stuff.”
I should’ve asked her sooner. The community center might’ve been a better way of getting in under the radar, but this wasn’t even about an investigation anymore. That was a non-starter, and nobody could know I’d ever tried it. I’d be fired, which was significantly much worse than quitting.
“Is that what work you’re doing?” she asked.
Of course, she didn’t know I was here to make sure she was fine and going to her appointments, she thought I was here for work, and I wanted to keep that ruse up as much as possible. “It’s mostly just observation,” I said.
“Well, they own a lot of places in the neighborhood,” she said. “If you’re looking into them, you should definitely try one of them. Maybe the fancy Italian restaurant they’ve got. I’ve always wanted to go there.”
The place I’d beenworkingat, she’d wanted to visit. “Maybe I can take you one evening,” I said. “My treat.”
“If you insist,” she said with a wry smile. I wished I could’ve had this mom all the time—the smiling one, the aggregable one. She was my favorite of all my mom’s moods, though I’d never fault her for becoming angry or sad, or even just completely despondent. She’d been through a lot. “I won’t ask for a weekend visit. I’d rather not go when the place is busy.”
“Monday, after your doctor’s appointments,” I said.
She scoffed. “You keep going on about that. I might not be feeling well afterwards.”
“But you’ll need to eat,” I reminded her. “You’re getting your blood taken, I think.”
She shuddered. “Enough about me,” she said. “You should go and see if you can make something of thisthingwith the guy you may or may not be seeing.”
“I can’t,” I grumbled. “And—”
“And what?” she asked. “Love doesn’t wait around.”
I knew she was right. I knew love didn’t wait. I knew there was something about Rocco that I wanted to explore—it was the Daddy stuff. I’d played around with it in New York at some of their hidden hole-in-the-wall playrooms for littles and such, but I’d never had a connection like the way I’d formed one with Rocco. Maybe it was my bad taste in men, inherited right from her, but maybe, just maybe, it was something special, something that could last.
“I really shouldn’t,” I said, shaking my head, but there was a contradictory hum, a vibration that seemed to take hold of me, as if saying I was wrong. Again, probably going back to who my mom was and her terrible taste in men. “It might compromise my job.”
She stared at me, her brows raised. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but whenever I need to make a decision about something, I think about whether it’s something I’d want evenif I had to wait. And if it’s something I’d forget about if I had to wait, I know I shouldn’t make a rash decision.”
Somewhere in that, she had a point. If I had to wait, would I still want Rocco? If I was actually just a bartender, would he even be interested in me? I didn’t know, and not knowing sat heavy on my chest. Or maybe she was just telling me this to get me to leave her in peace while she watched her programs.
