her face. I exhaled slowly and lifted my hand to run it over my jaw, feeling scruff start to scrape along my palm. “I have feelings for Pyper.” I just said it, damn the consequences.
No one said anything for long seconds, but I felt the tension in the room. It was so thick I could’ve cut it with a knife. My mother looked like she hadn’t heard me correctly, like she didn’t understand me.
“Pyper? As in our Pyper?”
I knew how close my mother was with the St. James family. She saw Pyper as a daughter. But still, I was tired of lying and hiding how I felt. What was the point?
I gave a brisk nod and looked away. Still, my father stared at me, his focus intense, unnerving. Him not saying anything at all in response was worse than him telling me I shouldn’t be having any thoughts toward Pyper.
“Just say it, Pops. There’s no point in biting your tongue.”
My father exhaled then and leaned back against his chair, his beer bottle now empty but his hand still wrapped around it. I wish it was easy to read him, as easy as it was to read my mother. She didn’t hide behind a wall. Her emotions were as clear as day. I glanced at her then, but all I saw was her worrying her bottom lip.
“Gio,” she said softly. “You know we don’t mix business with pleasure. We work for the St. James family.”
I hated the way she said that. It had nothing to do with pleasure or business. It had everything to do with my love for Pyper. But I hadn’t told them that yet. Maybe they thought I was just having sex with her. That thought didn’t sit well with me. What I felt for Pyper went well beyond physical intimacy.
I stared at my dad when I said, “I’m in love with Pyper, even though she doesn’t know it, even though I haven’t said more than a handful of things to her over the years.” I inhaled slowly, this dam opening up inside me, spilling out. No one was safe from the flood now. “But I’ve never crossed that line. I’ve never told her, because I didn’t want to ruin… anything.” I ran a hand over my short black hair. “But I’m tired of staying back. I’m tired of pretending she means nothing to me.” My parents were quiet, their gazes heavy on me. I refused to look at them as I told my truth.
“Gio,” my mother said softly, and only then did I look up. She reached her hand out and placed it on my forearm, her skin warm, comforting. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” She was speaking in Italian now.
“It took a long time for me to admit how I felt about her even to myself,” I said low to her in English. My father had yet to say anything, but he’d always been a man of few words, yet I was pretty sure he had plenty to say right now.
I looked at him then, my eyes locked on his, feeling the weight of all this, of never saying how I felt for Pyper, lifting off my shoulders. But I was finally honest with someone about how I felt.
My father’s gaze was steady, even. There was no judgment in his expression. He finally leaned forward and braced his forearms on the table, both his hands now wrapped loosely around the beer bottle.
“You love this girl, Gio?”
I swallowed roughly at the low, deep tone of his voice. I cleared my throat and nodded, and then I said, “I do, Pops. I love her more than anything else.” My muscles felt tight, strained, and I loosened the fist I had, my nails having been digging into the flesh of my palm painfully.
He gave a slow nod then leaned back again. “Then, I say go for it.”
Everything around me stilled at his words. Go for it?
He wasn’t going to try to “talk some sense into me”? He wasn’t going to try to talk me out of my feelings? He wasn’t even going to try to tell me it wasn’t appropriate, that I’d be crossing boundaries?
I was stunned, speechless. I looked at my mother then, this small smile on her lips. She patted my arm in a comforting manner. “All I want is your happiness, my son.”
My heart was thundering. My parents approved of this, encouraged me to be with Pyper? I actually lifted my hand then, rubbing the