who was driving him crazy. Even as a young boy, before he grew hair there, he would tug at his upper lip anxiously. “If the mailman hadn’t found you—”
“But, grazie Dio, he did. And now I am here. I feel as fresh as I did at forty.”
Levi stops fooling around with his mustache. He sighs. The pain he feels is evident. I have seen this man face down thugs twice his size without blinking an eye, but now he can’t sit still. His hands fiddle with each other. He keeps glancing around the room, gaze unwilling to settle.
“You know what I’m going to say, Ma—”
Madolina grips her rosary beads with both hands now, her knuckles turning white. “Don’t mention the nursing home, son,” she hisses.
I’m already standing up. I have no desire to get between these two wolves. And make no mistake: Madolina may be an old woman, but she still has fangs.
“Who wants coffee?” I ask, knowing exactly where this is heading. They will start good-naturedly enough, but soon they’ll be snapping at each other. I have no interest in being involved in a domestic dispute.
“Yes,” Levi mutters.
“Grazie, Angelo,” Madolina says.
I take my time walking down the hallway. They’ll be at it for at least ten minutes, bickering back and forth. Madolina will insist she’s healthy despite her fall. Levi will argue. Madolina will win. That woman would rather die than be put in a home.
My parents will probably be the same way. My mother is every bit as stubborn as Levi’s, and my father is no better. The thought of him re-ignites the fury that had only just begun to cool in my chest. Walking these sterile halls, I realize I’m clenching my fists. My jaw is aching from where I’m biting down in irritation as I remember the dock and how Father blamed the baking powder fiasco on me.
And his plan for me? Marriage? He must see the foolishness in forcing me to do something like that. He must know that I’m not made to give myself to a woman in that way. Maybe when I’m thirty-five, or forty—or one hundred.
I think idly of the girls I’ve had this year alone. Too many to count—faceless club girls, fun in the night and gone in the morning, each as interchangeable as the last. I am Angelo De Maggio. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do wives. And I sure as fuck do not do children.
I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t see the girl until we collide.
Her body bounces off of mine and a soft “Oh!” cascades from her mouth. We separate, startled, and it takes a moment to regain my balance. In shock, we stare at each other for a moment, dumbly silent.
I notice her eyes first, a fierce blue, and then the shape of her face. Her cheekbones are high and regal and yet there’s this twist to her mouth that says something along the lines of, Back off. Her deep brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, but wisps have come loose.
“I think this is the part where you say sorry,” she snaps.
I incline my head. “I have often had strange thoughts, too.”
She almost smiles for just a second, before she reins it in and scowls once more. “So just so I’ve got this straight,” she says. “You’re gonna press me up against the wall like a perv, stare at me like a perv, and then, when you do finally back off, you’re not going to apologize? You must be a perv, then.”
I move an inch closer. She doesn’t try to stop me. Her eyes roam me up and down. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. I sense the lust in her, the same lust running through me. The hallway is quiet now. There are no eyes on us.
“It seems you are as perceptive as you are beautiful, mia signorina,” I say, putting on a purposefully corny voice. I love watching her squirm. She looks like she likes it, but also like she’s trying not to.
She rolls her eyes, but she has to fight to suppress her smile. I’m moving closer. Neither of us acknowledges it. “Gross. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. You’ve got to be kidding, right? You’re gonna try and seduce me here?”
“I have a feeling I wouldn’t have to try very hard.”
“Buddy, you got the wrong girl for lines like that. I’ve got stuff to do today. And, let me assure you, being seduced by a