Chapter 2
The favorite part of my week is my job. It’s only one hour, but it’s honest work. Only, not really.
Tuesday nights I sling dough, literally and figuratively, at a pizzeria from nine thirty till half past ten when it closes, to cover for the waiters while they are having dinner next door.
It’s a tiny old building next to our family restaurant. Running it is a crash course in laundering money. That’s why we bought it. Training wheels for me and my brothers to learn the ropes one after the other.
It’s an extremely inefficient way to legitimize criminal money, but our father insisted.
I explained all the better, more cost-effective options, like a company in the Caribbean, Delaware, or Liechtenstein, but he was hell-bent on having the two best Italian restaurants in some quaint little college town in Middle America.
What kills me about it is that we already own restaurants in Boston and Jersey, and we’d all much rather be there.
We’re not even Italian. The whole thing makes no sense.
The servers take sales money for their silence and go next door to eat good Russian food with my brothers while I hold down the fort here, and crunch all the numbers.
There are only two small tables and it’s very intimate and candle-lit.
The food is excellent. It’s popular with hipsters, but Tuesdays are usually dead by nine.
After a year, I’ve banged anyone in this town worth banging, and some people that were not.
As a result, I bump into people I’ve slept with EVERY DAY.
Some are obsessed, because I’m unfairly hot for such a small place.
Thank God tonight’s too cold for even the diehard stalkers.
It’s never not awkward. I really need to get out of here.
I am putting in purchases for next week at the counter when the bell at the door chimes. I look up from my order form to see a tall guy with sandy hair and emerald eyes. William Blazey is brushing snow off the hood of his parka.
He inhales sharply when he sees me.
“Oh wow,” he says.
Oh wow what? I think.
Wait a minute, did I just take his breath away?
That’s fine. I have that effect on people.
I’m gorgeous. I’ve been told so a thousand times.
It’s not even the first ‘Oh-wow’ I have had this week and it’s only Tuesday.
I’m tall, muscular, and handsome in the extreme.
Curly black hair and the body of Adonis.
Covered in tattoos but you can’t tell with the waiter’s uniform on.
I’m not arrogant either, just extremely thankful.
My beauty is the reason my father adopted me and my little sister Sofie, but the gun is still to my head, so I work at my looks and body slavishly.
It’s also how I make money to support Sofie, so I thank God every day for giving me the face of an angel, and saving our lives.
No apologies here; everyone can get absolutely cactus-fucked if they try to humble me.
So William Blazey thinks I’m hot? Seeing him now, he’s not so bad either; certified hunk if I’m honest; tall and built, half inch taller than me which is such a rarity, cute too.
More than cute; chiseled, handsome. Really handsome.
Only... that guy is a hateful asshole who usually looks at me like I am dirt under his shoe.
I frown in surprise. He knows I caught his reaction, and he winces, dipping his head before shyly looking up with his big green eyes.
“I mean, hi,” he says and clears his throat. “Hello.”
The sound of his voice, and his adorable British accent hits me like an arrow to the chest and I gasp. The way he talks is usually so contemptuous and now it’s so sweet. Now he’s taking my breath away.
For a split second, his eyebrows flash, and mine do too. What is happening?
Is William Blazey really this gorgeous? How did I never notice this? This cannot be him.
“Wow,” I blink. “Hi. Wow,” I blink again. “Who are you?” I ask, and an involuntary smile breaks out over my face.
The door chimes again and another William Blazey comes inside.
“I’m Austen,” he says.
There’s two of them. The recluse is not just his brother but his fucking identical twin. They are both dressed like rich white boys but Austen wears it better. Cooler. Less uptight.
William definitely has a stick up his ass.
He steps forward, and the clouds come over his double, until he’s surrounded by sadness.
What would have been the start of something special freezes, and Austen steps away from the counter.
But that moment before he arrived is proof that if William wasn’t such a dick, he might actually acknowledge my god-like beauty.
Funny.
William looks at me with a sneer. “Don’t I know you?”
Are you actually kidding me?
We’ve taken the same classes for a fucking year now, and go to the same gym and hangout spots around town. This is not the first introduction we’ve had. Why does he look at everything he sees with contempt? Why is this guy so hateful about everything?
“Yeah, I think so,” I shrug. “You’re at Amherst right? You fight too? Study business... with me.”
“Whatever,” he rolls his eyes.
Ding-ding. Two bouncer types enter and William nods to them.
Man... He really takes them everywhere now? Bodyguards for pizza? What a coward. I would never. Sooner die than look like a wimp.
“Two pepperonis and four colas,” William says and turns to Austen. “I’m going to the washroom.”
William leaves and his gorgeous brother comes back to the counter.
“You know him?” Austen asks me.
“We totally know each other, we spent all yesterday afternoon in the same room, and he asks me if he knows me every time,” I roll my eyes. “What’s his problem?”
“It’s nothing personal.”
“You know him too then? Tell me he knows your name?”
“Yeah, we’re related,” Austen says quizzically.
“Sorry for you.”
“People say we look alike.”
“No, you’re way cuter,” I smile. “You want to order something else?”
“Yeah, um, do you have anything a little lighter?” he asks. “Like a salad?”
“We have the Al Gore,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“It’s just a regular pepperoni pizza hidden underneath salad greens.”
He throws back his head and laughs, “Okay, but like, anything without cheese?”
“In a pizzeria?” I frown.
He blushes. “Yeah sorry I’m kinda lactose intolerant, but it’s a stupid question. Never mind.”
I nod toward the bathrooms. “Why isn’t Will also lactose intolerant? Doesn’t he have matching DNA?”
“Oh he almost certainly is, but he’s not in tune with himself enough to realize something that simple,” he sighs.
“He doesn’t even know if he should drink milk?” I laugh.
He shakes his head. “No.”
“We have proper food in the restaurant next door. We eat there after it closes. I could grab you something?”
“No, I can’t take your dinner,” he smiles sweetly. “I will survive.”
Then I see his dimples, ugh. Perfectly round. Adorable. He’s completely charmed me. If he was the love of my life, I’d die happy. His brother returns, and a wall comes up between us as they both take their seats.
I get the feeling Austen is scared of William.
I go to the kitchen and feed two pepperonis into the oven, and then dash out the back, and into the back of our restaurant next door where my eight brothers are kicking it with the rest of the staff.
I nod to Yuri, one of the teenage waiters who is on tonight.
“I need you to give the guys next door their colas,” I tell him. “Now.”
He gets up and leaves without question.
“Dinner’s going to be a little late tonight; sorry guys,” I say.
I grab a salad, a plate of chicken Kiev and a clay pot of pelmeni dumplings.
Then just to be cheeky, I grab two large meat shish that had just been perfectly grilled over charcoal.
I know it is Grgor who will protest first. He’s always the one to put a stop to any shenanigans.
That’s how he got the name Green Pepper.
“Lemon,” he says, “you better not be walking out of here with that.”
Ivan is the second oldest, and my most dangerous looking brother, sees the two skewers of meat leaving and bleats like a goat, “I will stab both of those swords through your heart.”
Even in a suit Ivan screams Russian mafia. We call him “Chamomile” because he’s always on edge, and you know, could do with a cup of herbal tea. It’s awkward when he makes death threats like that, because the moment you look at him you think, “Oh man, he looks like he’s killed people.”
People think Russians are cold and hard but they are hopeless romantics when it comes to food. They love it passionately and wash it down with its mistress; alcohol.
“You fuckers are going to have to wait another twenty minutes, you all owe me a bunch of favors.”
I head into the back of the pizzeria and point my face to the pizza oven.
“Yuri,” I say, “give one pizza to each table.”
I follow behind and place the plates of my favorite dishes in front of the boy with the sparkly eyes and he lights up in surprise. William looks confused and his brother tells him he ordered it while he was in the bathroom.
“Jesus, you said you were really hungry,” William tells his twin, “but when was the last time you ate?”
Austen tries the salad and closes his eyes and smiles. He turns to me back at the counter and mouths a silent “thank you,” and I nod.
I return to my paperwork and put my headphones over one ear but leave the other a little open to listen to their conversation.
I have had Kayne West’s new album Graduation on high rotation lately.
He won me over when he got on national television and said the president didn’t care about black people.
That was epic, and he was just saying what everyone was thinking.
At the table, Austen takes a skewer and looks at it like it’s Excalibur.
“How are you going to eat it?” William asks.
Austen shrugs and puts the sword to his mouth and sinks his teeth into the succulent meat.
“Mmm,” he says, as he chews with his eyes closed and his shoulders go up in pure joy at the taste.