Chapter 6 Alessandro #2
In fact, she was. Wouldn’t they be shocked if they knew? At least they would stop giggling and staring at me like brainless morons.
By the time the shower shuts off, there’s bottled water on the nightstand, along with a bottle of ibuprofen. I leave a wastebasket next to the bed in case Giulia hasn’t already emptied her stomach. When I pass the dresser, I avoid looking at my reflection in the mirror.
This is what I’ve allowed the Santoros to turn me into.
Somehow, my resentment softens when Giulia emerges wrapped in one of the towels, while another towel covers her hair. “I feel a lot better,” she murmurs, though she still looks rough and green around the gills.
Which is why I need to ignore the water running in thin trickles over her shoulders and down her chest, where they soak into the towel. Clearing my throat, I gesture toward the bed. “You can wear those pajamas.”
“You really want me to sleep here? Where will you sleep? There’s only one bedroom,” she so helpfully points out, as if I didn’t know.
“I can still drive you home if you think you can get there without ruining the upholstery.” When she winces, I snicker. “Exactly. Pajamas. Then you’re calling your mama to explain that you’re going to spend the night with your friends. The way you were already planning to do, right?”
“What if she knows?” There’s something touching about the fear in her voice when she sits on the bed, looking up at me with wide eyes.
“You’ll be fine. Now get dressed.” Please, because the sight of you is doing things to me. It was bad enough earlier, when she was getting changed on the ride here. Now she’s naked except for a towel and sitting on my bed. She might as well be wearing a bow, like a gift.
A gift that could land me in hotter water than I’ve ever been in. She could make even my worst mistakes pale in comparison. She is that powerful.
And as aware of me as I am of her. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” she points out.
Looking down at myself, I reply, “No shit. I thought it felt drafty in here.”
“But why?”
“Because I have a limited supply of clean clothes here,” I explain with more patience than I knew I possessed. “I gave you the T-shirt for tonight.”
“You have a lot of muscles.” Her bleary-eyed gaze travels over me. “Like, a lot.”
“You’re surprisingly observant when you’re drunk.”
She is unsurprisingly clumsy when she gets to her feet, swaying a little as she takes a few steps my way. “I mean, what do you have to do to maintain a body like this?”
I’m too surprised to do anything at first when she reaches out and touches her fingers to my abs.
It’s the sudden shock of the contact that startles me into falling back a step, chuckling.
“No handling the merchandise.” Because when all else fails, and sudden violence is out of the question, humor is my fallback.
Especially when the simplest touch is closer to a gut punch that almost buckles my knees.
“But seriously,” she says, reaching for me again like she didn’t hear me, “I’ve heard of rippling abs, but I’ve never seen them in person. Do you do a thousand crunches a day or something?”
She might be examining my body, but it’s fire she’s playing with. She’s too close, too nearly naked, too forbidden. This might be innocent on her end, but it is anything but from where I’m standing, as my blood heats with every stroke of her fingertips.
It would be so easy to have her now.
Her bleary eyes lift to meet mine. The unspoken reminder of why she’s here and why giving in to my baser instincts would be a mistake. “Would you rather let me wear the shirt?” I almost croak thanks to my suddenly dry mouth. “Would it be less of a distraction?”
She scowls, and the moment is over, which is a good thing.
I keep myself busy gathering her ruined clothes and tossing them in a trash bag from under the bathroom sink. I keep the place sparsely stocked, but the basics are there. I never know when I’ll need to hole up somewhere for a while.
At least, that was the case before I landed my current job. That life feels light-years away now.
The sound of quiet weeping draws me from the bathroom. She’s dressed when I find her, using one of the towels to squeeze water from her hair while tears soak into my shirt. We’re at the self-pitying stage, I see. “I should’ve known better,” she sniffles, chin quivering.
“You need to shake it off.” It’s coming up on midnight now. The clock is ticking. “We’re going to call the house, and you’re going to explain to whoever answers that you’re spending the night with your friends in their dorm. Don’t give details. Keep it short and sweet.”
Now she notices her phone on the nightstand and dives on it like she’s diving on a live grenade. “They’re all messaging me and calling me like crazy,” she murmurs with relief in her voice.
“Good for them. Maybe they should’ve paid more attention back at the club. Call. Now,” I urge. “It’s always better to make the phone call than force them to track you down.”
“I’m really new at this,” she whispers, like she needs to tell me.
Raising the phone to her ear, she squeezes her eyes shut and chews her lip while I study her wet curls and the gentle curve of her jaw.
This is the most time we’ve spent together when I wasn’t sitting in the front seat with her behind me.
“Mama?” She sounds clear and alert enough. “No, everything is fine. Is Papa still up? Oh, okay. Yeah, it’s late.” She gives me a thumbs-up, and I realize I’m about as relieved as she is.
“Things ran a little later than we expected,” she explains. “The girls were wondering if I could stick around and watch a movie with them in their room and sleep over. Do you think I could? I would come home first thing in the morning, I promise.”
Then she looks at me. “He’s right here.”
I was expecting this. The moment she handed me the phone. “Mrs. Santoro?” I ask.
“Does everything seem all right there?” There is so much concern in her question. What must it be like to have a concerned mother? Mine was never concerned with much more than herself.
“Just fine,” I lie without hesitating. “I swung around to pick Giulia up, and she told me about her change in plans. I can spend the night here in the city at my apartment and have her back early.”
“So long as it’s not too much of an imposition for you.”
As if the entire night hasn’t been an imposition. “Not to worry.” I hand the phone back, and Giulia says her goodbyes before ending the call and dropping straight back on the bed.
“I can’t believe that worked,” she marvels, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m pretty sure you just saved my life again.”
What a departure. I’ve been called a lot of things, but a lifesaver has never been one of them. Getting up from the bed, I mutter, “I don’t know why. I warned you, didn’t I?”
“You don’t need to… oh, shit,” she moans. I turn around to find her swaying again, like she sat up too quickly, and the world is spinning.
“Wastebasket,” I grunt, rushing across the room to hold it in front of her. I am trying not to replace my bed after this.
She shakes her head, breathing hard. “No, I don’t think I have to throw up. But I feel so dizzy. I hate this.”
“I know.” Turning down the bed, I ease her in until she’s lying down. “Get some sleep. Drink some water first and take the ibuprofen. It will help.”
I’m halfway to the door again when she asks in a soft voice, “Will you stay with me? Until I’m asleep, at least? Please?”
I’m being tested. That’s the only explanation for any of this. “Why do you want me to do that?” I ask, slowly turning back toward her.
She looks small, helpless, swallowed up by the bed and my clothes. “In case I feel sick. Just until I’m asleep.”
And there I is, thinking she saw me as the ultimate threat.
She’s not so snide and snotty when she’s been drinking.
“How about I turn on a movie?” Because I need something to distract myself from her.
I wouldn’t try anything when she’s like this.
I’ve done a lot of unsavory shit, I can admit that, but certain lines don’t get crossed. Still, it’s a temptation.
I stay on top of the covers, sitting with my back against the padded headboard, flipping through one streaming service after another while she nurses a bottle of water.
“I can’t believe that happened,” she whispers more than once. I can’t tell if she’s talking to herself or me.
I can relate because I’m having a hard time believing this is happening, myself. Settling on an action movie, I watch in silence and try not to remember what a Friday night used to look like.
* * *
“Oh, fuck me.”
Those are the words that wake me up out of sound sleep somewhere around dawn. I’ve heard them many times at this point in the day while lying in bed. Whispered, moaned, you name it.
But never with the kind of dismay I hear now.
I understand why, as soon as I open my eyes and find myself staring at a head of curly black hair. She’s in my arms. Her head is on my chest, and her leg is draped over mine. Somewhere in the past six hours, we wound up… cuddling.
And now she’s horrified.
It’s a mistake to sit up as fast as she does—she grabs her head with one hand, groaning pitifully. “Did I get hit by a truck? Oh, God, I feel like death.”
“You would feel a lot worse if you hadn’t thrown up so much.” Meanwhile, there’s a crick in my neck from the way my head lolled on my shoulder once I fell asleep.
She cracks one eye open, cringing once she looks my way. “I’m afraid to ask. Why are we in bed together? Everything is so fuzzy. This is your apartment, right? What happened?”
I could fuck with her. Plant all kinds of ideas in her head and let them fester throughout the ride home.
The idea appeals to me for a few seconds, but it fizzles quickly when I remember how sad and lonely she sounded last night when she talked about wanting to feel normal for once.
There was something touching about it, and not much touches me. I make a point of that.
Instead of playing a game, I roll my eyes before swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
“You told your mama you were staying with your friends and promised her to be home first thing this morning, that’s what happened.
Your clothes were ruined, but the clothes you left the house in are still in your backpack in the car.
I’m sure you could pull a quick change on the way home.
” And this time, I’ll keep my eyes to myself.
“You covered for me.” Her mouth hangs open as she watches me round the bed on my way out to the bathroom.
“So you do remember more than you thought you did.” I stop in the doorway to look back at her. “Pull it together. You’re not the first person to ever hide a hangover from their parents.”
That’s right. It’s easier, safer to chuckle at her horror and misery than it is to think about how good it felt, waking up with Giulia head on my chest. How soundly I slept with her in my arms.