The apartment is quiet now and the silence is oddly comforting. Carmelo stands at the window, and stares out, watching them pull away.
"Come here," I say, patting the living room love seat.
He comes. He sits on the couch beside me. I lean into him, my head against his shoulder, his arm around my back.
"I'm going to work at the restaurant tonight," I say.
"Okay."
"I'm going to work the floor alone because Javi isn't there and the backup bartender doesn't know the regulars and Devon can't run the kitchen without Marco and the whole thing is going to be a disaster and I'm going to do it anyway."
"Okay."
"And you're going to sit at table four and order the pork shoulder and tip thirty percent and not say more than five words."
"Yes."
"And when I close, you're going to walk me home. My home. Not yours. Mine."
"Yes."
My finger does circles on his thigh, up, down, around. The rhythm of a woman who knows who she is and where she's staying and what she's building and who she's building it with.
"Carmelo."
"Yes."
"Thank you for finding me."
“Always, princess.” His arm tightens around my shoulders, and his chin rests on the top of my head. He doesn't say you're welcome because that's not what this requires. What this requires is his body next to mine and his arm around me. That’s it.
Stretching up, I kiss the underside of his jaw, his stubble scratching me before I smile.
Then I stand up and get dressed and go to work.
Chapter Nineteen: Carmelo
Therestaurantisfulltonight.
is at table two arguing about the hollandaise with nobody because Helen is still sick. The lawyers are at their usual table splitting the Barolo. The Sunday woman with the paperback is in the corner with the risotto and a new book, thicker than last week's.
Grace is working the floor alone. No Javi. No backup bartender. Danny pulled a guy from his other restaurant to cover the bar, a kid who barely knows the difference between bourbon and rye, and I can see it’s grating on her. She needs a body behind it so she can run the floor, but she's still running it with the same competence she's always had except now there's something different in the way she carries it.
She's not disappearing into the room anymore. She's filling it.
I'm at table four with my usual, about to dig in when my phone buzzes and Leone’s name pops up.
I step outside and through the window I can see Grace at table six taking an order, her notepad on her hip, her weight on her left foot. The posture I've memorized. The woman I've memorized.
"Carmelo."
"Leone."
"Matteo finished the analysis on the Philly infrastructure. Delvecchio's network, Petrone's card game, the contacts you built during collections. You've got a footprint."
"I know."
"I want to formalize it. Philly is open territory. No major family has a claim. You're already operational, you've got local contacts, you've got a reason to stay." He pauses. "I want you to open for us."
