Chapter Three
Hazel
Okay.
So.
My boss was hot.
That was a somewhat unexpected reality.
I mean, Domenico was handsome in a very rough-around-the-edges kind of way. I was glad I got to know him as my manager because otherwise, he was the kind of man I would make sure I didn’t make eye contact with on the street.
But just because one cousin was attractive didn’t mean the other was.
Dante Grassi, though, he was stunningly gorgeous. In the ‘just my type’ kind of way.
He was six-foot-something. It was hard, being as short as I was, to pin down anyone’s height over six feet.
But he was definitely up there. He was also filling out that suit of his in a way that said he spent a fair amount of time in the gym.
I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering, imagining my hands undoing his buttons and sliding his shirt and jacket off to expose the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his chest, the dips of his abdominal muscles, and the deep cuts of his Adonis belt.
I shook that thought away as I finished shoving straw into one of the mini scarecrows that one of the kids had abandoned to dramatically throw himself backward into the pile of straw like he was going to do snow angels.
I didn’t want any kids crying on the bus because they didn’t have something all the other kids had.
Or, just as bad, have parents angry that their child didn’t come home with something they’d paid for.
That was exactly the kind of thing I needed to be focused on.
All the teeny tiny aspects that really made an event memorable.
The crafts, the activities, the snacks, making sure no one felt left out or behind.
I wanted everyone to be singing the praises of DG Greens.
Because I would know that who they really were praising was me.
Dante Grassi would know that as well. Because it didn’t matter how much vision you had if you didn’t have someone around capable of turning it into reality.
That was what I had to be thinking of. Not how sexy my boss was. My worth. To prove to Dante that I deserved the raise he’d given me. Maybe, if reviews and buzz were strong enough, I could even secure a bigger promotion by the end of the year.
Lord knows I could use the money. I’d been saving for a move to the North for years in hopes of experiencing all four seasons. I simply hadn’t considered how expensive everything here would be. Rent was out of control, and my place wasn’t even anything to write home about.
Extra money would loosen things up a bit.
Maybe I’d have something left over after bills to allow me to experience all the amazing restaurants around.
Or either of the fancy independent coffee shops in town.
So far, all I’d allowed myself to splurge on was the famous Jersey pizza and bagels.
And I had to admit, I was ruined for those two things.
If I ever moved back to Florida, I would miss them like a limb.
I was craving a slice as morning shifted toward afternoon. Our first bus of kids disappeared and was almost immediately replaced by another, so there was no time to order, let alone eat, pizza.
Then, of course, it was time to get everything ready for the after-school crowd. And after that the place was transformed into a creepy delight for older kids, teens, and adults alike.
I mean, the screams that came from the spooky hayride through the haunted woods made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
We’d done a dry run the night before. Even knowing who all the performers were and where they would be hiding, a few little squeals had escaped me. I couldn’t imagine how it felt going in it without knowing where everyone was hidden.
The same cries came from the haunted house. And twice over the shift, an employee tasked with watching the cameras had needed to run inside to do a rescue mission when patrons were clearly in actual distress, having panic attacks and being too frozen to find an exit themselves.
Once they were out, I sat with them until they felt better, got them a little drink on us, then left them with their friends or family once they finished the house.
We didn’t have surveillance in the woods, but we found that most people who were freaking out just ran out of the woods and toward us anyway.
I was standing beneath strung twinkle lights near the corn maze, trying to anticipate anything that might need my attention.
It was exactly then that a flimsy paper plate with an oversized, perfectly greasy slice of pizza on it lowered down over my shoulder.
“Coffee ain’t gonna cut it on an eleven-hour shift,” Dante said from behind me.
“To be fair, I also had three donuts and a slice of pumpkin bread,” I said, but I was already using the plate to fold the pizza, so I could pick it up and shove it in my mouth.
“Sweets aren’t dinner. At least, that’s something my mom would say.”
“My mother would probably say that sweets are only for special occasions.” Dante moved in beside me, brows lowered at my words. “She’s what the internet might call an ‘almond mom.’”
“What’s an almond mom?”
“Basically, a health freak. To the point of it almost being disordered. Both my mom and grandma were in beauty pageants when they were younger, so looks were really important around my house.”
“In my family, food is love. Which is why I needed to start hitting the gym in my teens. I blew up like crazy. Didn’t seem to have the same metabolism my siblings did, so I had to work a lot harder to stay in shape.”
“Just allow me a moment to imagine what Thanksgiving must look like at your family’s house,” I said, sucking in a deep breath.
“Your family didn’t even let up on the holidays.”
“My mother and grandmother would say something about how one day’s worth of indulgence wasn’t worth six months of having to work out to lose it.
Which, obviously, makes no sense. But they believe it.
We used to each get two slices of dry turkey and about four non-starchy vegetable sides. No butter or oil.”
“Jesus.”
“To be fair, my grandma can still rock a bikini, so it works. But, yeah, carbs are too good to go without,” I said, taking another greedy bite of my pizza.
“Don’t gotta ration yourself,” Dante said as if reading my mind. “My cousin dropped off a dozen pizzas for the staff to celebrate opening night. Even if you stuff your face, you’re probably still going to be bringing leftovers home.”
“Well, that’s not a hardship. This might be the best pizza I’ve had. And I’ve tried a few places in the area.”
“Yeah, Lucky makes a good pie.”
“Pie?”
“Pizza,” he said, shooting me a smirk. “That’s how you know you’re not from around here. We call it pie.”
“So I’ve been giving myself away as a transplant by ordering a plain pizza?”
“Yeah. It’s a plain pie.”
“Good to know. Any other Jerseyisms I should be aware of?”
“Well, there’s the whole pork roll/ Taylor ham debate. And the sub/hoagie thing. The debate on whether or not central Jersey even exists…”
“But we’re in central Jersey.”
“Exactly,” Dante said. That little smirk of his was stupidly attractive. And it was even sexier in the dim light cast by the twinkle lights above us.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but he didn’t get the chance when a blood-curdling scream broke through the night. A second later, a pretty blonde came barreling out of the woods, her gaze darting over her shoulder again and again, looking very much like a final girl in a horror movie.
“Whoa, you’re okay,” I said, stepping in front of her.
“There’s… there’s a body…”
“If it helps, his name is Cody, and he’s in school to become a vet tech,” I explained, watching the confusion chase the fear off her face.
“Oh,” she said, offering me an embarrassed smile. Her hand lifted to run through her hair. It didn’t escape me that it was shaking. “Yeah. I, uh, forgot for a minute that it wasn’t real.”
“That’s a good fight-or-flight instinct you have,” Dante said, shrugging it off. “Come on. Let’s get you some hot chocolate to calm you down.”
Right.
Of course, he would be into the blonde woman.
And that should have had absolutely no impact on me. What did I care who he found attractive? Or how the woman, once she realized she had his attention, lavished her attention on him, throwing her head back to laugh, touching his arm, moving too close?
Even if I wanted Dante Grassi, he was my boss. That meant off-limits. Because I needed this job more than I needed to get laid.
Well, that was debatable.
But sex was low on the priority list when you’d been busy completely uprooting your life and starting over in an unfamiliar place.
You also had to factor in that my last partner was also the catalyst for moving all the way from Florida to New Jersey.
Who wouldn’t want to burn their whole life down when they found out that the man they’d been in a relationship with—who they were envisioning rings, a dress, a white picket fence, and three kids with—had been cheating through an online dating profile that he’d set up the month after you two became official?
That sure felt like a sign from the universe that it was time to shake things up a bit.
Since I’d been dreaming of a trip to the upper East Coast already, the decision had been an easy one.
New Jersey was a logical choice. It was a solid eighteen-hour drive home, which felt doable but did give me an excuse not to go back for any little family event.
It gave me proximity to a beach, which felt important since I’d grown up near one.
And it was also close to both New York City and Philly, while still feeling removed from the craziness of a big city.
So far, I was tentatively happy about the decision. Though I’d only been in town for about two months, so final decisions likely wouldn’t come until I’d spent one calendar year in the area.
A key part of getting to a year was keeping a steady job. One with potential for upward mobility.
So, yeah, no having the hots for the boss. No matter how hot he was.
Still, that didn’t stop the weird churning in my stomach when I saw him lead the woman to her car.
Hunger forgotten, I tossed my plate and decided to take a walk through the woods instead.
Only to happen upon a couple who’d ventured off the path and seemed to be turned on by fear because they were trying to get busy up against a tree.
Normally, I would really just mind my own business. But there were children around. So I had to embarrass all of us by interrupting and telling them to get back on the path.
“What was that?” Domenico asked when he saw me following the horny couple back to the rest of the crowd.
I waited until the group of guests had moved around the next bend and turned to Domenico. “They were trying to get it on off the path.”
“No shit,” he said, letting out a little chuckle, his smile unexpectedly brilliant.
“I feel like such a wet blanket,” I admitted. “But there are kids. Older kids, but still.”
“Freaky people will find a way,” Domenico said, shrugging.
“Maybe we should add another rope to the path so it’s harder to get off. I mean, it’s not just sex we have to worry about. Anytime you get a bunch of teens together, someone is going to bring beer or weed and sneak off to drink or smoke it.”
“Fair,” he agreed. “Did you sneak off to drink and smoke?”
“I cut school with friends in my sophomore year of high school, drank heavily enough to black out and not know how I got home. I didn’t touch anything again until I was of age.”
“How did you get home?”
“My friends shoved me into a wheelbarrow and rolled me home after dark, then quietly dragged me through the house on a sleeping blanket, and tossed me into my bed.”
“Good friends.”
They had been. Until some silly boy drama rocked our group in our senior year and sent us all splintering off in different directions.
Then again, college would have ripped us apart anyway, since they’d all gone off and I’d stayed local to try out some different passions at the local community college.
“Yeah. Today has been great, lewd sex acts aside.”
“Yeah, guess I got my new operations manager to thank for that,” he said with a wink before walking away.
I stumbled home hours later, every muscle aching, with a pizza in my hand and a sense of pride in my soul.
Which was exactly what I should have been focusing on—a job well done.
So tell me why, instead, all I could focus on was a set of dark eyes and a velvety soft voice?