later.” Ares is already walking away, gathering things from the room.
“Does anyone know the number?” Dante’s out of the bathroom now too, and he’s over by the closet getting dressed.
“Got it.” Ollie grabs the phone from my hand, and he punches several buttons before handing it back. “Not the first time I’ve called in sick.” He makes a pouty face, and I roll my eyes. He wasn’t calling in because he was actually sick.
An automated voice directs me through several prompts before I’m leaving a message on the attendance line with my name, grade, and reason for my absence. I hit the red button to end the call, marveling at how easy it was. For my part, I added a little whine in my voice to make it sound good for whoever listens to it.
None of them seems to be in a hurry to leave the room, but I know it’s my reluctance that is keeping us here. After another five minutes passes where the guys are all needlessly busying themselves, I muster up the courage to say, “All right, let’s do this.”
Dante wraps his arm around my side and pulls me in close. “Laura, we’re here, and we aren’t going anywhere.” I sigh, clinging to his words and his body.
Chapter 20
I can smell the kitchen way before we get near it. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee fills the air, but as we get closer, I can also smell something sweet and chocolatey.
“Finalmente. I made marocchino. Your Papas wanted eggs. Come eat.” Rosa is bustling around the kitchen.
Ares and Dante’s fathers are lined up at the island, each with a plate of scrambled eggs and sliced meats. They turn in our direction as we enter the room. “Morning, everyone sleep okay?” My face flames bright red because I wasn’t expecting them to bring up our sleeping arrangements.
“Good, no thanks to Mamma.” Ares’s tone is light, making it clear he knows she was in the room, but also clear he’s not upset.
“I knew you would wake them,” William, the man who looks most like Ares and Dante, mutters as he returns his gaze to his unrepentant wife.
Rosa shrugs a delicate shoulder, her face impassive. She wipes the counter with a washcloth, pushing any stay crumbs into the sink and hanging it over the side after giving it a rinse. She’s fairly tall, taller than me maybe at around five foot nine. Her dark hair falls over her shoulders in soft waves, and she’s curvy—nowhere close to fat, but definitely thicker than what I would call thin. She turns, giving us her full attention. She has Dante’s full expressive lips, but her eye color is all Ares’s tawny brown.
“My boys,” Rosa sighs, her arms stretched out wide as she waits for them. Dante heads over to her first. He wraps his arms around her back after she leans up to kiss his cheek, throwing her arms over his shoulders. The guys all leave me, forming a line so she can greet them, cooing in half Italian, half English. I stand awkwardly near the doorway.
Malcolm pushes back his stool and heads over in my direction. Ares's eyes track his movements, but he stays over with his mom. Malcolm reaches out his hand when he’s standing in front of me. “Hello, Laura.”
Accepting his hand, I return his gaze and shake. “Hello, sir.”
His lip lifts at the corner, but he covers it quickly. “You can call me Mal,” he offers. He doesn’t look like someone you’d call Mal. Ares may get his dark hair from his mother, but he must get his fashion sense from his father. Malcolm, or Mal, is dressed much like his son, only he’s wearing a tie, and he skipped the vest for an unbuttoned suit coat. It’s barely nine o’clock in the morning. Now I really feel underdressed. “It’s a lot to take in, huh?”
I swallow, because it is, more than he probably knows. I didn’t even know what I was a few weeks ago. “Yes, you could say that.”
“I remember meeting Rosa’s parents, and William’s.” He leans in a little closer fighting a small smile. “I assure you, you’re doing just fine.”
I take a peek over at the others, wondering when they’re coming back. “It’s definitely a new experience.”
He chuckles. “I bet it’s a little more unsettling than meeting your boyfriends’ parents.”
I scrunch my face in confusion. “Aren’t you my boyfriends’ parent?”
Mal tilts his head. “I just meant a regular boyfriend, not your pairs.”