7. Tee
Tee
BILLIONAIRE MOGUL APPEARS IN COURT ON HIT & RUN CAUSING DEATH CHARGES!
M y grandmother’s nose wrinkles as she scans the newspaper that put the Korhonen household on red alert over breakfast, but it’s Anthony, my brother, who knocks the headline with his knuckle. “Are you safe at the Seven Cs?”
I gape at him all while severely regretting the dumb decision to visit my family for lunch today. “Clyde’s?—”
“Probably posting bail as we speak,” he says dryly.
“You don’t think he’ll return to town, do you?” Mom frets, making me want to flick Tony’s nose so hard it’ll collide with his pea brain.
“Of course he won’t. Colt won’t stand for that, and neither will the rest of them. I’m telling you they hate him more than anyone.”
(Harsh but fair. I don’t even know all the stories, but that Clyde’s a C-U-N-T is a given.)
“Even the husband of the woman he murdered?”
“I hate you,” I hiss.
He taunts, “You could move in with us until you find someplace for yourself in town.”
I should so have stayed at the ranch.
But, there I was, happily about to devour some of Mrs. Abelman’s famous jam and an English muffin as the family dealt with the fallout from Clyde’s hit and run causing death charge, and my conscience struck.
It’s been three weeks since Colton made his offer to let me live on the Korhonen ranch, three weeks since he hired people to pack up my apartment in NYC, and I’d yet to drop by to hang out with the fam.
I knew I should have stuck to my breakfast treat.
“Tony, I knew you were an idiot, but that confirms it. You really did save up all the IQ points for me, huh, Mom?”
“Your ego’s still as big as your head, I see.”
At my brother’s sniff, I hoot. “That’s the crappiest insult I’ve ever heard. And I’m best friends with Zee, who thinks a comeback is a sassy flick of her hair.”
Nonna cackles. “Tell the girl to come visit. She hasn’t been around since she moved back.”
“Tried to get her to come today but she’s still uncomfortable here.”
Mom clucks her tongue as she serves me an extra-large portion of baked ziti. “Who can blame her? It doesn’t compute that we were the only ones who believed in her. There’s always been people who had a bee in their bonnet about the McAllisters.” She tsks. “Small-minded idiots.”
Though I love her for defending my BFF, I eye the crater-sized helping of ziti on a plate I’ve already cleared twice. “Mom, I know you think I lost weight when I was in New York, but I didn’t.”
(A lie, but I’m stuffed.)
It’s telling that my brother’s a jackass but he’s been raised around enough women to know that that is a comment he shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
He’s not always dumb.
Nonna eyes me over her espresso—the only one she’s allowed in a day since the doctors told her it makes her excitable.
They haven’t seen her without caffeine.
See, I’m not dumb either. Not once have I pointed that out today.
“You’ve been eating junk. That’s no substitute for good heart food like this.” Mom dips down to press a kiss to Nonna’s temple. “You need something, Mama?”
“No, piccola ? * .” She pats her hand. “I’m good now my coniglios ? * are back under the same roof.”
“I’m not here forever, Nonna.”
“You’re home. That’s all that matters to me. Why did you have to go so many kilometers away, huh?”
“Because of that fancy school.” Mom tsks again. “Why you couldn’t stay here and teach music like your father and then take over?—”
“Mom, I’ve been back two minutes and you’re already trying to rearrange my life!” I stab the fork in her direction. “One of the reasons, I think you’ll find, that I went to New York instead of Saskatoon, and it had nothing to do with how fancy schmancy Juilliard is.”
You’d think they’d be proud, but nope. Anthony didn’t go into teaching either—he works for the local garage, Ravenly & Daughters—but he still gets less shit than I do.
“You’re home .” Nonna magnanimously decrees, “That’s all that matters.”
I beam at her. “Exactly!”
“What are you going to do with yourself?” Mom pesters.
“Mr. Ravenly needs help with admin in the office,” Anthony inserts, sly as ever. He studies me over his bottle of water, a smug glint in his eyes.
“That sounds like as good a place as any to start!” Mom takes a small sip of her cappuccino. “Anthony, put in a good word for her?—”
“Uhhh, nope,” I butt in with an attempt at stabbing my fork in my brother’s hand. “I don’t need to get a job. My official job title is Zee’s entertainer.”
Nonna frowns. “Like... a court jester?”
“Christy! You can’t be serious!” Mom cries.
Honestly, you’d think I told her my main source of income was an OnlyFans account!
(Now there’s an idea.)
“Sure, I can. Colt’s clearly deranged because he thinks Pigeon Creek will send our girl running, and it’s my job to superglue her in place.”
“Saw them in town last week.” Nonna knots two gnarled fingers together. “Like that, they were.”
“I told you he was deluded, but I’m not afraid to take his charity,” I say brightly. “I don’t have to pay rent and I don’t have to clean or cook. It’s heaven.”
Nonna leans into the table. “Is it true what they say about the bathrooms?”
“You could fit this kitchen into my connecting bath. And the restrooms they have for visitors belong in five-star hotels. But the toilets aren’t gold like Mrs. Browne said.”
“When was the last time you stayed in a five-star hotel?”
“Then, I don’t blame you for staying with them,” Nonna declares, whacking Anthony’s hand with a spoon.
Cutlery is a weapon in our house.
“Mama!” Mom complains. “Don’t encourage her. She’s bad enough as it is.” Her gaze turns even more disapproving. “I was hoping that all that time in New York would have made you a tad more sensible.”
“Who wants to be sensible?” I huff around a mouthful of ziti that I quickly swallow. “That’s for boring people like my darling brother. How many nieces do I have now, Tony?”
“All those brain cells and you can’t remember how many children I have?”
“They’re boring.” I hide a smile at his scowl. “Tell me when they talk and I’ll teach them the ways of the world.”
“They do talk!”
Nonna snorts. “I always said you should have been born a boy, Tee.”
“Who’d want that? Boys stink.”
“Hey!”
It’s an old argument, so Tony and I both grin at one another, and the conversation is submerged beneath the other myriad matters that families tend to discuss after one of them returns to the fold.
It’s good to be home though. I can’t deny that.
Unlike Zee who never missed the creek of Pigeon, I did. More than I realized.
Tony leaves early for his afternoon shift once the convo turns romantic. Nonna is dating his boss’s dad, Ravenly Sr., and Mom is entirely against the relationship. I don’t blame Tony for making an escape, but Mom helps him out the door once she loads him up with enough leftovers to feed ten kids despite him and Raquel only having two.
Yeah, I know how many nieces I have.
He thinks the worst of me.
That means Nonna and I are all alone in the kitchen that’s seen more drama than an episode of The Young and the Famous .
Still taking thimble-sized sips of coffee to make her daily ration last, she studies me, and because I get my brains from her, I keep my mouth shut.
I can feel her analyzing me like she’s an MRI scanner.
“You come back to us with hurt in your eyes, piccola .”
The declaration has me cringing. “It’s dumb.”
“Heartache is never foolish. Who?”
“A soldier I used to write to.”
“Just the one?”
“You’ve been reading those dirty books again, haven’t you?”
Her eyes twinkle. “You bet your cutie patootie that I have. So, how many?”
“Lots…” I grimace at her knowing look. “One.”
Her brow lifts. “Thought you’d have more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mother might be blind, but I’m not. I saw this interesting thing on Tikatok.”
“TIKtok, Nonna.”
She waves a hand. “This rainbow thing. Fascinating. Knew as soon as I watched it you were one of them. Was the soldier a woman?”
I shake my head, but my cheeks are flushing.
“You sure? You don’t need to lie to me. To your mom either. She’ll get over it once she remembers that IVF exists for a reason.”
“IVF!” Because I can’t stab Tony’s hand anymore, I launch my fork into the pasta on my plate. “I’ve heard enough about that to last a lifetime. What with Zee thinking she was—” I brake to a verbal halt. “Never mind.”
She cackles. “I heard a rumor that her witch of a grandmother forced her back here. Didn’t believe it though. Not until now.”
I replicate how she twisted her two fingers together. “Like you said, don’t think IVF will be necessary anymore for them, do you?”
“No. Colton always was a handsome boy. Same with that Cody.”
“What do you bring him up for? He’s not handsome.”
(Not much.)
(I mean, he’s only a twenty.)
(Okay, who am I kidding?)
(He’s a hundred.)
“No?” She smirks at me, as knowing as ever. I’d swear she’s a bruja too if our roots weren’t Italian. “I think he belongs on a book cover. What I’d do to him if I were twenty years younger.”
Shocked, I splutter, “Nonna! You’d be sixty-four!”
“And? The body is willing even if the joints aren’t, piccola .”
“Do we have to talk about your sex life?” I whine. “You already chased Anthony out of the house by discussing your relationship with Mr. Ravenly Sr.”
She jabs a finger at me. At least, I think it’s at me. Then, when she arches her brow again, I realize she’s looking behind me.
Twisting in my seat, I find…
The fuck?
Cody standing there.
Hovering outside the house like that’s normal.
But, my god, he’s gorgeous.
Freakin’ gorgeous, to be precise.
So gorgeous it’s obscene to be that beautifully, deliciously gorgeous.
Just glancing at his face makes my fingers twitch.
I don’t know whether I want to stroke him or make music?—
“You sure you don’t think he’s handsome, piccola ? They say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
I’m too used to the outlandish stuff my nonna says to gasp anymore.
Mostly, I’m freaking out about the fact that I want to make music.
I. Want. To. Make. Music.
Slapping a hand to my face, I mutter, “Oh, shit.”
“What is it? Don’t worry, your mom doesn’t know you have a crush on him. If she did, not only would she make your life hell if she thought you were living under the same roof because she wants to believe you’re still a virgin—” She snorts her disbelief of that.
“ Thanks , Nonna.”
“—but she’s moaning about the bikes.”
I frown at her. “What bikes?”
God, does he have to be so beautiful?
He has chestnut-brown hair that I want to run my fingers through. It’s kinda spiky, just long enough that you can yank on it.
His nose is a sharp slash that, at some point, was clearly broken. With three brothers, one guess who the culprit was behind that. As I doubt it happened during his service.
He has a beard too. I don’t normally appreciate beards, but I appreciate this one. Even if I don’t want to. Especially because it kind of shields a mouth that was made to be kissed.
And bitten.
Potentially licked, too.
He’s big and burly and stacked and sexy and?—
I’m so fucked.
She shrugs. “I like them.”
It takes me a couple seconds to remember what we’re talking about.
“What bikes, Nonna?” I repeat.
“My only complaint is they don’t look like that Jax fella.”
“Nonna! Stay on topic!”
“They come through here at eleven o’clock at night and leave at five AM.” She wafts her hand. “I’m not sure how I raised such a boring daughter. God love her, but she puts the Stepford in wife. Me? I love the thrill so I get up to watch them. They’re fascinating. So free.”
A pained frown creases my brow. “Please tell me Mr. Ravenly Sr. doesn’t have a bike?”
“He’s not that interesting.”
“Good to know,” I mumble with relief because Mr. Ravenly Sr. is nine years younger than Nonna, which makes her a cougar.
The last thing any of us need is her getting into a bike crash with her toyboy.
Her head tilts to the side. “Why do you look like someone slapped you in the face with a mackerel, piccola ?”
I could lie, tell her that I didn’t approve of Mr. Ravenly when I’m actually jealous that she’s getting more dick than me, but instead, I bite my lip as a chord strums into being—a direct answer to her question.
(She has me on mind control, I swear. When am I ever direct about anything?)
Because I know she’ll get it, I hum a few notes that mean nothing to anyone but me and my family, who knows how my brain works…
Her eyes widen. “Oh!”
I swallow. “Oh.”
* ? Little one
* ? Rabbits