Chapter 11
Salvatore
As our visit with Arie’s family drew closer and closer, I was running out of chances to tell him the truth about me.
I’d been right not to tell him last weekend, when we were staying at that vacation home in San Clemente. He’d tried so hard to make everything perfect, and it would have been awful to ruin it.
Then he went home to San Diego and got busy with work, and I’d returned to L.A. It didn’t feel right to drop this bombshell over the phone, so several days passed.
I thought about telling him on Friday night when I drove down for our weekend together, but his cook had to leave early, so he ended up working until closing. He was exhausted after that and fell asleep about ten minutes after he got home.
Now it was Saturday, and we were on a flight to San Francisco.
He’d been a bundle of nerves all morning because he’d never flown before, and it was even worse now that we were on the plane.
Clearly this wasn’t the right time either, but I was determined to come clean before we met his son and son-in-law for dinner this evening.
Even after all this time, Arie hadn’t tried to get me to talk about my past. He’d figured out there was something I was ashamed of, and he waited patiently for me to reveal it when I was ready.
But his family was going to have questions for me, and I couldn’t make all of this worse by lying to them.
I was going to have one more opportunity to talk to Arie, though. After brunch with my relatives, we’d have a few hours to ourselves before dinner. I’d made a reservation at the same hotel where we’d met. It would be the perfect time and place to tell him everything.
I was cutting it close, and I needed to be careful, because Arie had to hear the truth from me.
I’d texted Dante and asked him not to bring up my past when we gathered at his grandmother’s house.
If Arie found out I was a criminal before I had a chance to tell him, it would destroy his trust in me.
There was probably no coming back from that.
But at the moment, my focus was on helping him through his first plane ride. Now that we were making our descent into San Francisco, his nervousness was bordering on panic.
“This is the part I’ve been dreading the most,” he muttered, as one hand clutched mine and the other white-knuckled the armrest.
He pressed his eyes shut as the plane approached the runway. Fortunately, it was a smooth landing. Arie let out the breath he’d been holding and opened his eyes, and I asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because there was no reason to act the way I did,” he said.
“It was all new to you, so I can see why it’d be unnerving.”
Once the plane came to a stop, he grabbed me in a hug. He was shaking, so I rubbed his back and told him, “If you don’t want to fly back, we can always rent a car and drive.”
“No, I want to fly. I think it’ll be easier the second time, now that I know what takeoff and landing are like.”
We grabbed our overnight bags, and as we left the plane I said, “Brunch with my relatives is in a little over two hours. Since you were too nervous to eat breakfast, let’s find a café, so I can get you something to eat.”
“That sounds great. I could use something to settle my stomach.”
There were several cabs waiting in front of the arrivals terminal. We climbed into one, and I asked the driver to take us to North Beach. I couldn’t remember the name of the café where we went the night we met, but I was pretty sure I could find it again.
As we pulled away from the curb, Arie took his phone from his pocket and switched it out of airplane mode. A few text messages popped up right away. He read them and murmured, “Oh, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Kit messaged me. He and Devon are on their way to the airport. Devon’s mom had an accident this morning and broke her leg. The boys are flying to Baltimore, Devon’s hometown, because she’s scheduled to have surgery.”
“So, they won’t be able to meet us for dinner.”
“That’s right.”
I was flooded with relief, followed immediately by guilt for feeling that way. I’d been dreading meeting Arie’s son, both because I was worried about what he might ask me, and because I thought there was a good chance he’d hate me. Now I’d been granted a temporary reprieve.
Even so, I was still going to tell Arie the whole truth this afternoon, when we were alone at the hotel.
I’d kept quiet for too long, and it was time to confess.
I was worried about how he’d react, and I was terrified of losing him.
At the same time though, I knew he cared about me.
I had to believe he’d understand and be willing to forgive me, both for being a criminal and for keeping it from him.
Arie texted back and forth with his son, and after a minute he turned to me and said, “They just arrived at the airport and have a little time before their flight, so I suggested meeting for a quick coffee.”
I pushed down my panic and said, “We wouldn’t be able to join them in the terminal. They only let people with boarding passes past the security checkpoint.”
“I know. That’s why they’re going to wait for us in the lobby, or whatever that public part is called before you go through security.”
I nodded, even though my stomach was in knots. This was my fault. I’d put off talking to Arie for too long. Why had I cut it this close?
He gave our cab driver new instructions, and then he turned to me and took my hand. “You look nervous,” he said. So much for my poker face. “But there’s no need to be. Kit and Devon are going to love you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
It took a few minutes to reach the departures terminal, since we had to exit the airport and loop back around to it.
After the cab driver dropped us off, Arie slung his bag over his shoulder and linked his arm with mine.
The terminal was extremely busy, so he kept a tight hold on me.
He probably found this pretty overwhelming, since he hated crowds even more than I did.
He craned his neck and looked for his son once we got inside, but I spotted him first. Besides the fact that I’d seen pictures of him, it would have been easy to recognize Kit Cortez.
He looked a hell of a lot like his dad with his thick, black, slightly overgrown hair and wide-set dark eyes.
The only real difference was that he was several inches shorter.
They even looked like they were close to the same age, much more like brothers than father and son.
When I pointed him out to Arie, he whooped with happiness and ran across the concourse.
As soon as Kit spotted him, he did the same thing.
They met in the middle, grabbing each other in a huge embrace.
I would have thought they hadn’t seen each other in years judging by their reaction, but it had only been two and a half months since Kit’s wedding.
It took Kit’s husband and me a few moments to catch up to them. Devon was a tall, good-looking brunet with a friendly smile. He shook my hand as we introduced ourselves, and I said, “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. Is she alright?”
“She’ll be okay, thanks for asking. She slipped and fell down the brick steps in the backyard and broke her leg in two places.
It was just this freak accident. They need to operate to reset the bones, and my dad is beside himself with worry, because there were complications the last time she had to have surgery.
We want to be there for both of them during the operation, and afterwards while she recovers. ”
Kit eyed me cautiously as we shook hands and exchanged introductions. Then he said, “You’re really tall.” I fought the urge to apologize. I must seem like a giant to him, since he was about five-six or so.
Before I could think of something to say, Armando swayed on his feet. I put my arm around his shoulders and asked, “Are you alright, Arie?”
“I’m fine. I just got light-headed for a second.”
“That might be because you skipped breakfast. Come sit down, and I’ll get you something to eat.”
“You don’t need to fuss over me, Tory.”
“I’m not fussing. I’m just making sure you’re okay.”
“I am.”
I caressed his cheek and said, “I know. But you’ll be even better after you eat something.”
I took his bag from him and guided him to a nearby seating area.
Kit and Devon sat down beside him, and I tucked our bags under his seat as I told him, “I’ll be right back.
You’re not allowed to pass out while I’m gone.
” He smiled at me, and I kissed his forehead before hurrying to a coffee stand across the concourse.
Five minutes later, I returned with a drink carrier loaded with four cups, along with a bulging paper bag.
“I brought coffee and tea, so you can pick whichever sounds better to you. I also got one of every baked good they had, because I wasn’t sure which one you’d want,” I told Arie as I crouched down in front of him.
After he selected the hot tea and a blueberry muffin, I took a cup for myself. Then I passed the other two coffees and the bag to Kit. His expression was still guarded, but there was curiosity there too as he studied me.
“We’re sorry about missing dinner tonight,” Devon said. “We’re probably going to stay in Baltimore for a few weeks, since it sounds like my mom is going to need help for a while. But right after that, we want to visit you in San Diego.”
“That’ll be great,” Arie said. “Wait until you see the diner. The remodel has really come together.”
I’d almost forgotten that his son-in-law had invested in the diner sometime in the last year or so. The two of them started a detailed discussion about kitchen equipment, but it came to an abrupt halt when Kit turned to me and asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute, in private?”
Arie frowned at that. “What don’t you want to say in front of me?”