FORTY #2
I let out a sharp laugh, shaking my head. ‘I didn’t know there were options, Vinnie.’
‘Harsh.’ He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offence. ‘But fair. Still, you’d be a lot happier if you were pining over this—’ he gestured to himself with an exaggerated flourish ‘—instead of some broody bastard with control issues.’
‘Yeah?’ I chuckled. ‘And you’d be a lot happier with that girl you hauled the other night instead of running errands for Cain and me.’
Vinnie closed his mouth, but his smile never faltered. ‘Who else is going to take care of you wretches?’
I smirked but didn’t answer.
Nevertheless, the chat with Vinnie helped me forget about the bad things around me. And I so needed that right now.
Something stuck with me, however.
I glanced up at him, catching the slight shift in his demeanour – just a tremor, gone almost as soon as I’d caught it. But I was beginning to get to know Cain’s best friend. I was learning the way he moved, the way he worked around people, and I knew he couldn’t have been all jokes and swagger.
His smile brightened again at the indirect contact, like he’d been waiting for me to look.
‘Go on,’ he said, his voice lower, smooth. ‘Say what’s on your mind.’
I narrowed my eyes again, debating whether or not I wanted to entertain whatever game he was playing. But my gut told me he already had a response lined up.
‘You’ve been acting weird.’ I watched him carefully. ‘Not in a Vinnie-weird way, but like you’re deliberately avoiding something.’
‘Honey Buns,’ he said with a purposeful glint in his eyes, ‘if you think this is me being weird, you should try playing brìscola with me.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m not very good with card games. Can I have the normal-Vinnie answer, please?’
This man must’ve suffered from some sort of chronic flirting syndrome.
He let out a soft hum, considering me for a beat. Then, with the ease of a man who’d never seemed to be rattled by much in his life, he said, ‘Maybe I’m just enjoying the moment.’
I arched a brow, replaying the events since I’d met him, but couldn’t hook onto anything out of the ordinary. ‘The moment?’
‘The rare chance, Honey Buns,’ he put his long arm around me and squeezed playfully, ‘to have you all to myself!’ He winked at me jokingly, his voice warm, teasing, but with just enough weight behind it to make me take a longer look at him. ‘No Cain. No distractions. Just us.’
I scoffed, shrugging out of his embrace, but the easy movement didn’t settle the discomfort sitting in the middle of my gut.
Vinnie was notorious for this, a man who turned everything into a game. Yet it grated that I couldn’t tell if he was playing now or if something real lurked behind the teasing.
‘And here I thought you just liked running my errands,’ I said, aiming for lightness, putting a bit of distance between us.
He grinned, letting me have the space as if he wanted me to take it – as if it were a part of the game.
‘Like I said,’ he drawled, ‘I live to serve.’
I shook my head, pretending not to notice the hitch in his gaze – that razor-thin shift from playful to something sharper, something more calculated.
My instincts stirred. This was Vinnie, always pushing, always toeing the line just to see it move.
But it wasn’t going to move.
‘I’m with Cain,’ I said, clipped, determined. I added a firm smile, let my gaze linger on his for a breath too long – enough to drive it home.
Vinnie let out a low whistle, shaking his head. ‘Damn. Not even a little hesitation, woman.’
I gave him a pointed look. ‘You expected hesitation?’
He sighed dramatically, hand over his heart. ‘A guy can dream.’
I rolled my eyes, but my chest remained tight. Vinnie was too easy-going, too comfortable steering this conversation into murky waters. He was testing something. Not expecting to win.
But the thing about Vinnie? He never played a game he didn’t think he could win eventually. That was why he’d been so good with people and his work.
And that was what stuck with me.
Then, just as I thought we were letting the moment slide, he drew a deep, measured breath. The kind he always took before launching into a sales pitch, before delivering something he knew could change the direction of a conversation.
‘Can I be honest with you, Honey Buns?’
I stopped walking, turned to him slowly, and gave him a look so flat it could have levelled a mountain. ‘Vinnie, call me Honey Buns one more time…’
My voice was light, but the words came out through gritted teeth.
He chuckled, the sound deep and full, utterly unbothered – and far too pleased with himself.
‘I love poking the devil, you know me.’
No. But I was beginning to.
I swept my gaze up the road, spotting the familiar line of pine trees. My uncle’s housing area was just up ahead, the path narrowing into quieter streets.
‘But anyway,’ Vinnie continued, his smirk weakening just slightly, just enough to make me wonder if it was ever real to begin with. He had the kind of face that always looked on the verge of a smile. ‘If I were to be honest…’
Something in the way he said it made me turn fully towards him.
‘I didn’t think Cain would be into you this much.’
He said it offhandedly, almost lazily, but there was something loaded in the notes.
That had my brows arching. I held his gaze, trying to read his face, searching for some sign that he was messing with me. But there was nothing – just plain and unguarded honesty.
That, more than anything, made me wary.
He didn’t say anything else, and suddenly, I needed to know more.
‘Go on,’ I prompted, keeping my voice light, even as something heavier settled in my chest.
His smirk stretched wider.
Vinnie did not blush.
So was this a front?
‘No hard feelings on what I’m about to say? We’re friends, right?’ he asked smoothly but with an edge of hesitation.
That stuck like a splinter.
Friends, to me, weren’t people you met a week ago. Friends were something closer to family, someone you knew down to the bone. They weren’t fleeting, weren’t temporary. They meant something.
And Vinnie, for all his charm, was still a stranger.
‘Right,’ I said, not trusting myself to say more. If I did, I’d start another round of banter.
He hesitated as he started back up the road. Just as we neared my uncle’s black Range, parked beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp, we stopped.
He sighed, dropping his gaze for the briefest second, then lifted it back to mine. Just a stutter, a quick hesitation. But that look – that look – stalled my breath.
For the first time since I’d met him, I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.
‘I thought you’d have fun, and he’d cut you off,’ he admitted.
I exhaled, relieved it wasn’t worse. Because on the surface, that would have been a logical conclusion, wouldn’t it?
Under normal circumstances, Cain and I didn’t fit – not when I looked at us together. He was sex on legs, and I… well, I should have been smarter than to dive into this with him so recklessly.
But Cain and I hadn’t met under normal circumstances, had we?
We’d met as two people too damaged to see a way out. We were chained by pain, bound by pleasure, and wounded by our pasts. And that was what had carved our connection so deep it had grown past the physical.
Cain had become the still point in my chaos.
‘Fair enough,’ I said slowly. ‘I sense a but coming.’
Vinnie wiggled a finger at me, smirk returning like a mask slipping back into place. ‘Don’t tell him this,’ he warned, ‘because I quite like having a spine.’
I arched a brow. ‘All right,’ I said, my interest piqued. And just as the word left my mouth, something about the curiosity and a cat started rolling in the back of my mind.
Vinnie leaned in slightly. Not enough to cross a line, not enough to make me uncomfortable. Just enough to make me uneasy.
‘I had dinner for two booked at Emilio’s,’ he murmured.
I blinked, narrowing my eyes as I replayed those first days at the office in my head.
Had I missed something?
Vinnie had been Vinnie – chirpy, playful, armed with jokes and friendly banter. Had I overlooked something in his ways? Had I been too focused, too locked into business mode to notice?
Or… had I already been subconsciously drawn to Cain? Had my body recognised him before I even knew he was Ghost?
Or – and this was the thought that truly unsettled me – had I looked right past Vinnie because he was bright and inviting, and looked straight into Dark and Forbidden?
My throat worked around a swallow, the realisation settling like a stone in my stomach.
‘I’m sorry,’ Vinnie said, his voice softer, the usual playfulness tempered with something more sincere. ‘It wasn’t my intention to make you feel uncomfortable.’
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Between the mild shock of realising I had never been drawn to the normal good guys, and the fact that Vinnie had just laid this all out like a confession over a shot of whisky, I found myself at a rare loss for words.
‘You didn’t,’ I finally said, offering a small, easy-going smile despite the tempest still rattling inside me. ‘I’m sorry I unknowingly stood you up.’
His face lit up again at my small joke, the shift like a momentary cloud passing over the sun that offered a brief reprieve.
He chuckled.
‘You’re a good guy, Vinnie.’ I felt the need to say it aloud.
‘Oh, Honey Buns…’ he purred dramatically, dragging out the nickname, knowing I’d let it slide this time. ‘It would have been fun for us.’
I ignored it, not because I was warming up to the ridiculous name, but because the moment was too fragile, too carefully balanced, to ruin with another empty threat. Besides, the fact that he had had a girl under his arm a few days later told me he’d got over it quickly enough.
‘No hard feelings,’ I said, shifting my weight to my other foot, already angling towards the house. ‘Talked it out and forgot it, right?’
Vinnie’s response came a beat too late.
‘No, sweetheart. No hard feelings,’ he agreed, but his tone was almost absent, his gaze sharper, as if he was already switching to Plan B.
Then he raised a brow at me. ‘But, just to put it out there…’