Chapter Twenty-Six #2
But that wasn’t an actual conversation we’d had yet. She just hadn’t left yet. She actually bought some new clothes to keep at my place so she didn’t have an excuse to go home.
The only reason she’d decided to go back today was because of the shrimp and concerns about her bills.
“Well, I, uh, have been staying with—” Hazel started, voice tight.
“She’s not living with me,” I said, hating the way her face fell instantly. “She can’t be until she moves her shit over.”
“About that… is it okay that I brought the shrimp? I know their ecosystem is supposed to support itself, but I’m paranoid about it.”
“How about we rent a truck and move everything over?”
“A truck?” she asked, shaking her head. “I don’t have that much.”
“You have furniture.”
“None of which fits with the rustic decor at your place.”
“So, it’ll be eclectic.”
“No, really. I don’t want to bring it. Most of it were finds from garage sales and secondhand stores because it was all I could afford. I really just want my clothes, bedding, and some of the cooking stuff I have.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Oh, maybe we should take the bed. The guest rooms really need some furniture.”
“Sounds good.” Even if I planned to have cribs and toddler beds in those rooms sooner rather than later.
All the times my brothers and cousins threw around that trite ‘when you know, you know’ phrase, I’d always kind of rolled my eyes at them.
It turns out, they were right.
Because I knew.
Hazel was it.
Rings and dresses and little versions of the both of us.
“Alright. All this heart and flowers shit is making me sick. I’m gonna go get some lunch,” Dom said, sliding out from behind the table and walking away.
Hazel turned, watching him leave, a wicked smile tugging at her lips.
“What kind of punishment have you cooked up?”
Hazel turned back, eyes dancing.
“I’m going to tell your mother that Domenico told me he is ready to settle down and fall in love.”
“Oh, that’s fucking evil,” I said, smiling.
“I know,” she agreed. “It’s going to be so much fun.”
Hazel - 3 months
“Isn’t it a little early for all this?” Dante asked, taking a break from his basement workout to come over to where I had six hard plastic pop-up tables set up underneath long grow lights.
I was busy poking holes in hundreds of little dirt pods with a nifty device meant just for the task that Giulia had given me the last time I’d been at her house for dinner.
“You’d think,” I said. “But a lot of these plants take forever to get going, so if you don’t start early, you’re not going to get anything worth selling in the spring.”
The year before, the garden center had ordered in a lot of the flowers and vegetable starts.
This year, I was giving a pilot program where we grew some of our own a try. But because I wasn’t sure about it yet, I didn’t want to force employees to do the work.
“What ones are you working on now?”
“Bell peppers. All the fun colors too. I think these might need heat mats, though. It’s chillier down here than they usually like.”
“You do realize the garden center doesn’t need to save money, right?” he asked, picking up one of the seed packs for purple peppers.
“I know,” I agreed. “The prices just felt insane when I went to order. Though, with how much extra work this is, it might be worth it.”
“Are these peppers too?” he asked, gesturing behind me.
“No. Those are flowers to try to impress your mom with our gorgeous, overflowing, colorful flowerbeds this summer.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love how you love my family?” he asked, making my heart go melty.
He did mention it. Constantly. And it never failed to give me the gooey feeling.
What’s even more important, they were starting to feel like my family too.
Was it still a little new for that? Yes. But also, we were heading there. At least, it seemed that way.
“Ew, you’re all sweaty,” I grumbled as his arms went around me and his back pressed to mine.
“We can fix that by getting you sweaty too…”
And, well, I was never going to turn down that offer.
“You can have me for half an hour,” I told him as his hand slid down my belly.
“Why do we have a time limit?” he asked as his hand pressed between my thighs, making me immediately start to second-guess giving him one.
“Because you got home late,” I reminded him.
I didn’t bother to ask where he was. Family business was Family business.
Which, in a way, meant it was none of my business.
In a good way. In a way that meant he was protecting me from it, both in a literal way but also in a legal way.
If I didn’t know, I couldn’t be compelled to tell the police.
So when there were meetings with the other men, or when Dante got a call in the middle of dinner and had to leave, or when he was woken up in the middle of the night, I knew not to question him and to trust that he and his Family were doing everything in their power to keep their loved ones safe and provided for.
That was what mattered.
That said, sometimes the Family stuff did put a crimp in our plans.
“And we don’t want to be late to dinner,” I reminded him as his fingers started to toy with me.
“Fashionably late,” he told me as he yanked down my pants and panties.
Yeah, we ended up being just a little bit more than fashionably late.
But everyone else had been in our shoes before. They understood.
Even the matriarch shot us a knowing smile as the new man in her life patted her hand on the table.
Giulia had found herself some love.
Which in no way impacted her very plans to hook up Domenico, who was just as reluctant as Giulia was relentless.
It was a diabolical plan.
And I was loving every second of it.
Take that for invading my privacy.
And, what’s better, Domenico only respected me more because of it.
Win/win.
“Now that everyone is here, can we order?” Valley asked. “I’m starved.”
“Not everyone is here yet,” Giulia said in a voice that we all immediately knew not to trust.
Since Domenico wasn’t joining us, it was Valley’s face that fell.
“You didn’t,” she groaned.
“Oh, there he is now! Over here, dear!” Giulia called to the man who just entered the restaurant.
We all thought getting Giulia together with a man might have her easing up on the matchmaking. It turned out the exact opposite was true. Now she wanted absolutely everyone to find their own love stories as well.
Dante’s hand squeezed mine under the table.
And, hey, she had a pretty good track record.
Dante - 11 months
“Are the sprinklers really necessary?” Hazel grumbled, wringing the water out of her soaked hair. “They’re supposed to be for skunks, so they don’t dig up the pastures.”
“And this year, we are using them to keep the pain-in-the-ass teens from destroying the place again,” I said, shrugging.
After a lengthy investigation into not only every member of our family and the hacker who’d been in cahoots with two of our men, we’d eventually figured out that while the attacks on Hazel were about the Family, the actual destruction of property had been from some new kids in the area.
Who learned real quick who the Grassi Family was and why they shouldn’t be fucked with.
They were all still alive, of course. And unharmed. But scared shitless.
We thought of it as a bit of a community service, really. If they were willing to destroy my property, who was to say they wouldn’t have just kept on doing so to others? Putting the fear of God (and cement shoes) in them likely set them on the straight-and-narrow.
That said, it was a new year. Kids had aged up. Who knew what kind of trouble they might have in mind.
“Didn’t Domenico offer to sit here at night and watch the place?” Hazel asked.
“He offered to sit in the woods and wait for anyone to show up then chase them with an actual chainsaw,” I reminded her.
“I mean… I’m not seeing the problem.”
A laugh escaped me at that.
Hazel had gotten extremely protective and possessive of the garden center ever since Domenico fully handed the reins over to her. If his P.O. asked, he still worked there. If they showed up, he was just ‘out to lunch’ or ‘out to a meeting with the owner.’
But it was Hazel’s garden center now.
Not only had last Halloween been a smash, but the Christmas season had brought in an almost absurd amount of money.
I thought there was no way of topping it. But then she took control of the planting and ordering in the spring season. And, suddenly, I’d almost doubled sales from the previous year. Even with my ma coming in and stealing whatever she wanted.
Also, with her planting of the ’specialty pumpkins’ in shades of white and green, we were looking at making fall even better than summer sales.
Hazel, it turned out, was a brilliant businesswoman. And DG Greens was her baby. I almost felt guilty having my damn name on it.
“You worked too hard to have this ruined,” I told her.
“Yeah, but the security system and flood lights should do it.”
“But think how fun it would be to watch a bunch of kids get hosed down on the cameras if they try?”
“Okay. You have a point,” she agreed, exhaling hard. “Especially as we get closer to actual Halloween. We might want to take up Domenico on his offer for mischief night.”
“Deal,” I agreed. “You ready to go meet with Matteo?” I asked, taking her hand, my finger tracing the underside of the band of her engagement ring.
I’d asked on opening night of The Hollows. After secretly having Domenico, Ant, my mom, and Valley set up an area in the woods to look all romantic instead of spooky.
It felt fitting.
Asking the woman to give me the rest of her life after she’d already given me the best year of mine.
Luckily, we were both good at planning aesthetics. Matteo and his team over at the wedding venue wouldn’t have to deal with a wedding planner, just us.
Keeping it all in the family.
“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Just let me steal a sweatshirt from the shop first.”
Yeah.
Well.
I offered to help her steal the sweatshirt. One thing led to another. And we were once again late to a function with the family.