25. Kristoff
25
Kristoff
W hen Peter bursts into my hospital room, followed closely by Nonna and Eileen, I feel like I can finally breathe. He's here. He came for me. And he brought a girl with him. I'm less pleased about that but I try to not to show it.
"Are you okay, baby?" he asks me.
"Okay, I'm drawing the line. I never asked for Kit, and Kitten is terrible. Baby is absolutely unacceptable."
Peter laughs and it sounds watery.
"Have you been crying?" I ask.
"Of course not."
"He's totally lying," the mystery girl says.
"Who's she?"
"Veronica," Peter says, like it should be self-explanatory.
"I'm his beard," she supplies and I decide that I like her after all.
"What happened? There was a break-in? During the day? How did you get hurt?"
"Here's the condensed version," I say. "When I went to go talk to Nonna, she told me to go to your house. There I met your mom, who is lovely and we need to see about getter her some better treatment for her condition, but we can worry about that when I've got actual clothes on and not a backless nightgown."
"A backless nightgown sounds kinda sexy," Peter says.
Nonna clears her throat meaningfully.
"Anyway. I like your mom. Nonna made us way too much food and then told me who my real parents were."
Peter boggles at me. "Real?"
"We're not stepbrothers!" I tell him happily. "We're stepcousins, and I don't think that's even a thing. Baldwin wasn't my dad. I guess all he can shoot are blanks. And then my mom had an affair with Tio Julian, who is actually my father and not Baldwin. Mom ran away that night with me and my real dad. And then got into an accident. Only it wasn't really an accident. Baldwin arranged to have all of us killed. Only I survived."
Peter's face goes slack with astonishment. "What the fuck?"
"Oh, it gets better. Or worse. More insane, definitely. So Baldwin somehow got wind of Mom running off so he went to one of the Chicago mafia kingpin guys, which apparently still exist, and hired someone through them to off all three of us in one go. Only like I said, I lived. And for years Baldwin has been paying hush money to the mob to keep his secret from the media, and more importantly, the police."
"That makes a stupid amount of sense," Peter says.
"I know, right? Only he started getting kinda irregular on his payments, so he skipped town to hang out with Nonna's side of the family in Sicily. He's been more or less laying low, and the Chicago mobsters started getting antsy, so they chose today to pay a call on your mom to see if they could shake something out of her. They weren't expecting her to have company, though. That threw them off. Then we wouldn't cooperate. They threatened to shoot your mom if she didn't tell them where Baldwin was. I stepped in front of her and I got shot. But it just grazed me," I add at Peter's horrified expression. "I'm here so they could clean it up and give me stitches and antibiotics."
"I feel like the story is missing details," Peter says with a frown. "What happened after you were shot?"
I look at Nonna and she inclines her head slightly. "Nonna shot that guy between the eyes."
Peter's gaze flies to Nonna. "You what?"
"I have a perfectly legal carry conceal license," she says. "I abhor violence, but sometimes it comes around whether you want it there or not."
"I'm not sure I should be hearing this," Veronica says.
"You don't have to stay," Peter tells her. "We'll be okay."
"Are you kidding? The only way I'm leaving is if Kristoff's Nonna pulls her gun on me. Then I'll get the hell out of Dodge like a sensible person. But no guns are pointing my way yet, so go on."
"After Nonna shoots the first guy she has Eileen call 911. Then, at gunpoint she gets the blackmail story out of mobster number two. So Eileen is on the phone with the police dispatcher and meanwhile she's got a bunch of paper towels pressed into my arm where I got shot so I don't bleed out. And the alive mobster at first doesn't want to speak and then she tells the guy that she's Angelica Minola, but before that, she was Angelica Cousino, but most people just knew her as The Angel and her son Andrew is The Saint."
"You're making this up." Peter looks over to his mother, then at Nonna. "He's making this up, right? It's a joke."
Nonna sniffs and looks slightly offended. "I was young once and a very good shot. Very famous. Infamous, really. My father worried about me so he found me an American husband and then got me out of the country. He said I couldn't shoot every single person who got in my way." She sniffs again. "It would have been different had I been born a boy. Bah. But I'm still a very good shot, if no longer the best. And my eldest son, Andrew, is now head of the family in Italy."
It doesn't seem possible but Peter's hazel eyes get even bigger in his surprise. "Is she saying what I think she's saying?"
Part of me wants to laugh but the subject isn't a laughing matter. "Keep two words in your head, Peter: plausible deniability. If no one actually says something, you were never told."
"I like you," Veronica says. "Just so you know, I've been shipping you since the beginning."
"So her son, your uncle, is the head of a five letter organization out of Sicily? Shut the fuck up."
"Language," Eileen says.
"Um… more or less? It's more complicated than that. You're getting the super simplified version. But Nonna has disavowed Baldwin as her son. He gets no money, aid, or protection from being her son and Tio Andrew's brother. He's all on his own."
"I should probably feel bad for Baldwin," Peter says. "But I really, really don't.
I get to go home from the hospital the next day. Peter's there to drive me home.
After he gets me buckled in, he says, "Mom is going to live with your grandmother. There's a mortgage on the house and she doesn't have access to a bank account with enough money in it to keep paying it. Besides, it's too big for her to take care of. At your Nonna's place she won't have to do anything but rest and eat and try to get better."
Nonna had already told me this but I let Peter gush happily about how he knew things were going to be so much better for his mother from now on.
"Where will you live?" I ask him.
Peter keeps his eyes fixed on the road. "I'll look for something. Rent prices in Chicago are high, so I think I'll look for a roommate situation. Sharing rent would be a lot less expensive."
"I know someone who needs a roommate," I say. "He's got an extra bedroom and is willing to share the rest of the apartment. He'll split the cost of utilities with you."
"Is this friend you, Kit?"
"Maybe," I say. "My place is very large. Company would be nice. You'd have your own space, too."
Peter glances at me while we're stopped at a red light. "I don't think I can afford half of your rent, Kit. Especially not while I'm out of work and looking for a job."
"As to that. You still have a job. There's no one to fire you with Baldwin absent. I, as your assistant, certainly don't have the power to fire you. The board of directors may hire an interim CEO, but everybody knows I'll be in charge once I'm thirty-five and get my shares."
"Will you fire me then?" Peter asks.
"Only if you really piss me off. You don't suck at your job. You've still got a lot of things to learn, but with some help, I think you'll make a fine COO. It helps that you have an amazing assistant who can work miracles."
Peter puts his hand on my thigh and squeezes it. "Truth."
"So what do you think?"
"About what?" Peter asks, but I can hear the humor in his voice.
"About being my roommate! And staying on at Minola as COO. What else would I be asking?"
"I don't know," Peter says, the light tone vanished from his tone.
"I like you," I say. "I like almost everything about you, except for your terrible taste in ties and nicknames."
"I like you, too," Peter says, his voice low and soft.
"I've never liked anyone as much as I like you," I venture.
"Ditto."
I take a deep breath then say in a rush, "And I think that I'd like to spend as much time with you as I can. For as long as I can. I like you a whole lot. More than I can say."
Peter sniffs. "Fuck you," he says.
"Are you crying again?" I ask him.
"No. I never cry. And I like you a whole lot, too. More than anyone else. More even than Veronica, and I didn't think that was possible. You're perfect."
I snort. "Hardly."
"Perfect for me, then. Who else am I going to find who will like me as much as you do?"
That makes me laugh. "Excellent question, but I think the answer is that you couldn't."
Peter pulls into my building's garage and puts the car in park. He gets out, throws the keys at the valet, and then opens my door and helps me out of the car. It hurts to put any kind of pressure on my arm and probably will for several weeks.
In quiet companionship, we walk to the elevator and have it carry us up to the top floor. When I open the door to my home, I block any potential kitty cat escape artists then say, "Lights," to brighten the place up.
"Nobody would have bet on us," I say. "Not in a million years."
"Bet on what?" Peter asks. He hangs up his jacket then helps me take off mine. Then we both toe off our shoes.
"On us. As an us. That we would like each other so much. It was a million to one shot."
Peter bends down to pick up Falstaff while I pet first Polonius and then Laertes. "Veronica voted for us from the beginning," Peter reminds me. "But I like the sentiment."
The most strenuous thing Peter lets me do after we go to bed together is have me lie on my back while he sucks me to the edge of completion enough times that I lose count and threaten to sic my Nonna on him for causing me cruel and unusual distress.
"That's not a thing, Kitten," he says, then edges me twice more before finally allowing me to come.
Afterward I'm as limp as a noodle and drunk on pleasure and endorphins. "I'm pretty sure I love you," I say.
"I know," Peter says.
"That's it? That's all I get?"
"You already know I really, really like you, kitten. I like like you, even." Peter kisses my temple sweetly.
That's not so bad, I think. There are worse things than being liked intensely by another person. "I know," I echo softly.
"But if you give me a kiss, I might love you back."
"Really?" I ask. And no, I am not crying. Not even a little.
"Kiss me, Kit, and find out."
So I do.