their food to arrive. Genna dug in right away, devouring every bite, while Matty picked at his, his attention more on her.
"Not hungry?" she asked, snatching one of his fries and popping it in her mouth.
"Not really," he said, pushing his plate her direction. "Help yourself."
He didn't have to tell her twice.
"Yep. Okay. Uh-huh."
Gabriella nodded, even though nobody was around to see, as she glanced at the cell phone on the kitchen counter. The chipper voice babbled through the speaker about everything imaginable: a new chick-flick was coming out that weekend, a neighbor was pregnant, it was supposed to rain on Tuesday…
Or was it Wednesday?
Gabriella wasn't really listening.
She glanced in the small foggy window on the oven, glaring at the frozen pizza. Was the dang thing even cooking? Six o'clock in the evening on a Friday, Gabriella's first night off after a grueling rotation at the hospital. She had the weekend off and planned to do nothing except sleep and eat… after she got her mother off the phone.
"And your Aunt Lena, oh my goodness, you won't believe this… she called to tell me they were having a potluck this Sunday for Bobby's birthday. She wanted to have it here. Here, at the house! I told her, you know, that was fine, I'd be happy to host, but if he didn't show up because of the location, that wasn't my fault, you know?"
Gabriella sighed. "Please tell me I'm not expected to go to this thing."
"I told her I'd let you know."
"Mom…"
"Don't 'Mom' me, Gabriella Michele. You can show your face for a few minutes."
"But it's my day off."
"Which means you've got plenty of time. Family is family, like it or not."
"Not," Gabriella muttered.
"You come, you eat some food, and you go back home. How hard is that?"
A heck of a lot harder than her mother would understand. "I'll consider it."
"There's nothing to consider. Bring some kind of appetizer. Stuffed mushrooms. Got it?"
"Got it." Gabriella barely got those words out before a loud buzz echoed through her apartment. Her eyes darted to the intercom on the wall by the front door. "Mom, hold on a second."
"Why? What's going on?"
Gabriella ignored those questions as she walked over to the door. The buzzer went off again, so startlingly loud that she flinched. She'd lived there for a year and could count the number of times someone had buzzed her apartment on one hand… and most of those had been accidents.
Needless to say, she didn't get many visitors.
Pressing the 'talk' button, Gabriella mumbled, "Who is it?"
Nothing met her ears for a moment... nothing except the sound of the noisy street below. She was about to chalk it up to a glitch when the voice spoke. "It's Dante."
Dante.
Something stirred inside of Gabriella at the sound of his name. She'd wondered if she'd ever hear from him again. "Dante."
"I know I shouldn't be here," he said, something off about his voice, something that Gabriella couldn't pinpoint. "I just, I need… fuck."
A groan filtered through the intercom, loud enough to be distinguishable. While he didn't elaborate about what he needed, Gabriella could guess what he thought he needed was her. And that went against her better judgment. Heck, part of her screamed in alarm. This wasn't normal. He shouldn't be there. But without giving herself a chance to second-guess it, she pressed the 'door' button, buzzing him in.
"Gabriella, I swear on your father's life, if you don't answer me right now—"
Rolling her eyes, Gabriella headed back into the kitchen. "Sorry, Mom. I'm still here."
"Where'd you go? Is somebody there?"
"Yeah, it's, uh…" Crap, how to explain that? Not even trying. "It was nobody, just someone pressing buttons."
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
God, had she ever lied to her mother before? Maybe as a kid, but she'd never felt the need to keep secrets from her parents. But this was secret-worthy. A lie would go down a lot easier than this truth.
"I need to go, Mom," she said, her heart pounding like crazy when a knock echoed through the apartment, loud enough that she knew her mother heard it. Crap. "I'll see you Sunday."
"Gabriella, don't hang up this—"
Gabriella tapped the button to end the call. Her nerves frayed as anxiety swelled in her gut when he knocked again. Ugh, pull yourself together, nitwit.
Walking over, she fiddled with the locks before pulling the door open a crack, coming face to face with Dante, the chain still latched. His warm brown eyes were dark, so damn dark they appeared black in the