My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,38

says as she cackles. I think she might be more intimidating than Mr. Giuliani.

“I’m teasing. Nice to meet you, Nicky’s friends,” she says and shakes our hands. As we sit around the kitchen table to eat, Peyton slides into a chair between Nick and me. She catches Nick staring at her and smiles nervously.

“What’s wrong? Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she asks.

“Like what?”

“Like that. You keep giving me these weird looks. Is my hair messed up or something?”

She reaches up to smooth it. I want to crack up, because in the brief time I’ve known her, I never thought she owned a hairbrush, let alone worried about her appearance.

“No, you look fine,” he assures her. His cheeks start to turn red. “In fact, you look better than fine. You look really nice.”

Her mouth turns up at the corners as she puts her napkin in her lap. “Thanks.”

Nick is right; his mother makes the most kick-ass marinara sauce I’ve ever eaten. I devour three servings of it over the most perfectly cooked rigatoni I’ve ever had, along with garlic bread, antipasti salad, minestrone soup, and for dessert, homemade cheesecake with strawberries and dollops of freshly whipped cream.

Nick is cracking jokes, telling stories, and trading barbs with his dad. Nick is trying so hard, and apparently whatever he’s doing appears to be working, because I’ve never seen Peyton smile so much.

I distract myself by watching Giovanna lick the whipped cream off her strawberry and try to figure out how someone this smoking hot came from the same gene pool as Nick. Mr. Giuliani is telling a long-winded joke that has almost built to its punch line when Giovanna’s phone buzzes loudly. Mr. Giuliani’s cheeks flush and his jaw tenses.

Giovanna sees the expression on her father’s face and says, “What? I’m expecting a call.”

“Who is more important than Sunday night dinner with your family and guests?” he asks as his face begins to redden.

“It’s Bobby,” she says quietly.

The way his face is turning red, Mr. Giuliani looks like he just ate a chili pepper.

“Bobby,” he says calmly. “Is this the same son-of-a-bitch Bobby that decided to dump you two months before the wedding I paid for? That didn’t have the nerve to say it to your face?” Now he’s not quite so calm. He looks like his head is going to pop off.

“Daddy, relax. He just wants to talk.”

“Do you have no self-respect? This stronzo has no further business with you.”

Giovanna pouts. “Daddy, I’d thought you’d be happy for me. Bobby wants to work things out. He knows he made a mistake.”

“His mistake was calling before Dad could finish his joke,” Nick says, trying to lighten the mood. He catches sight of the uncomfortable look on Peyton’s face and reassures her, “Don’t worry. They’re not really fighting. This is just how my family talks.”

Mrs. Giuliani pats Giovanna’s hand and says, “Go talk to Bobby. Relax, Dominic. Every girl should be so lucky to have a father who loves her so much.”

Giovanna gives her father a kiss on the head as she bolts from the room. There is an awkward silence as we all eat our cheesecake, and I try to imagine what it would be like to have my dad care about me that much. I glance at Peyton, and I can tell from the way she’s looking at Mr. Giuliani that she’s probably thinking the same thing. Then she pipes up and asks, “So how did the joke end? What happened to the nun and the fifty-pound canary?” And just like that, she reels Mr. Giuliani back in.

All I can think is how much I wish I had someplace I belonged with people who care about me the way Nick’s family cares about each other. I used to, but that was a long time ago. I wonder if Peyton has ever known what that feels like. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse: to have it and to lose it, or to never know it at all.

Nick turns to me. “Hey, Hank, don’t you have to leave soon? You know, to pick up that thing for your dad before the store closes?” He puts emphasis on the last word and raises his eyebrows as if I may have forgotten the cue.

“Oh, right. That thing for my dad. Yeah, I better get going. Thank you so much for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Giuliani. It was delicious.”

I start to push back my chair when Peyton asks me, “What do you