Chapter Nineteen
Caitlin
“I need clothes,” I said as Gav grabbed my hips from behind and pulled me flush against him, his lips going to my neck.
“You really don’t.”
“And my laptop charger. Before I get fired.”
“You can work for me.”
My smile was so big my cheeks ached.
The past forty-eight hours were sex-fueled and sleepy. And perfect. Completely and utterly perfect.
I was achy in unmentionable places.
I’d eaten more vegetables in two days than I had in the past two weeks.
And I was pretty sure I was falling in love with a ranking member of a New York mob family.
Who’d have thought I would ever be able to say something like that?
Though the past few weeks had shown me that I was capable of a lot of things I never would have known if desperation hadn’t pushed me to it.
“If you let me go, I can pack enough clothes to stay here for as long as you want.”
Was that too much?
The last thing I wanted was to come off as clingy. Especially when I’d just realized the depth of my feelings toward Gav.
“Uh oh,” Gav said.
“What?”
“Your heart is pounding. What are you worrying about?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t need to tell me,” he said, giving my body a squeeze. “But don’t lie, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed, exhaling hard. “I shouldn’t have said that. You know… about staying.”
“Why not?”
“Because you didn’t invite me.”
“I think the whole trying to prevent you from leaving thing could be considered an invitation. But to put all that shit to rest, I’ll be clear.
I want you here if you want to be here. So, go home.
Do what you need to do. If you want to, come back here.
I’d be happy to have the company. Is that clear enough? ”
“Yes.” Clear enough to make my heart skip around in my chest. “Is there anything I can pick up on my way back?”
“Like you can be trusted in a grocery store.”
“That’s fair,” I agreed, turning in his arms and leaning into a kiss that was meant to just say goodbye but started to get hot and heavy. “Hold that thought,” I demanded, pressing a hand into his chest.
“Fine,” he grumbled, pulling back.
“Don’t drink my coffee creamer.”
“Fat chance of that,” he said, pulling the door open for me. “Eat something that grew out of the ground today.”
“Technically, potato chips are—”
“You’re hopeless,” he said, shooting me a smile.
“Well, fancy seeing you here,” Leo said, coming down the hallway.
“I’m just heading out, actually. Nice seeing you again,” I said, glad for the interruption so I didn’t have to have an awkward goodbye.
I shot Gav a smile before turning and walking away.
Each step felt heavier than the last, like my body was actively rejecting the act of walking away from Gav. My heart felt just as weighted.
For forty-eight hours, I’d managed to let everything else fall away: work, life commitments, my father’s disappearance, the way his secrets kept piling up for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand.
It just made no sense. I could wrap my head around him not telling me about working with the Costa Family. The only people who advertised their connections to organized crime either wanted to be caught or killed.
I could maybe even see keeping his girlfriend from me. Out of respect for my mother, for the many years he told me over and over that no other woman would ever compare, so why would he try?
But the house? The house made zero sense.
The second I stepped into Gavino’s elevator, those were the only thoughts that surfaced.
That ease in my body from the endless sex and comfort of being around Gav disappeared.
Suddenly, I felt the pressure on my shoulders, the familiar tightness in my chest, as my body restored me to my baseline anxiety.
I stopped for coffee and heard Gav’s voice in my head as I considered the sweets before settling on a bagel with egg and cheese.
I sat at the cafe, using the rest of my laptop’s battery charge to catch up on work while I ate—all the while cursing my cast that made my typing slow and clunky.
By the time my food was gone and my coffee was on its too-sweet dregs, I had enough work done for my boss to stay off my case.
I packed up and walked the rest of the way home, passing by the pizza place on the corner, where the man once again spotted me, then dropped—literally dropped—the dough he was throwing and fled into the back of the shop.
I was about to brush that off as weird when the memory surfaced. Of telling the story to Gav, about his anger, about the way he immediately reached for his phone.
Had he… done that?
Had one of his men beaten up the pizza guy because he was creepy? Told him to stay away from me?
Maybe that should have freaked me out. It was presumptuous. It was violent. But underneath that, it was protective. We hadn’t even been involved at that point, and he’d wanted to make sure that the local pizza freak didn’t hurt me.
The warm, gooey feeling moved across my chest as I kept walking to my building.
As the elevator doors slid open onto my floor, I expected to feel the familiar wave of relief. Like just the promise of my home soothed the overwrought nerves—the loud, busy, sensory nightmare that was the city.
But all I felt as I slid my key into the lock was a sinking feeling in my gut that I could only label disappointment.
I tried to shake it off, roll my shoulders, remind myself that I had an open invitation to return.
And while every bit of me wanted to run right back now, I knew I had to gather some of my things.
As much as I liked being in Gav’s clothes, there were only so many times a girl could wash her panties in the sink and set them in front of a fan to dry before she had to get some fresh underwear.
So I would putz around my apartment for a bit, get my charger, pack a respectable amount of clothes—and a borderline unhinged amount of panties—and head back over.
I flicked on the light since I’d drawn all my curtains the last time I’d been home, then locked the door.
Then I fell back against the door with a shriek as a figure moved out of my bedroom.
“Don’t scream, Nugget.”
“Dad?”
He flicked on another light, his head cocked to the side, giving me a look I could only describe as ‘bashful.’
Bashful.
While I’d been worrying myself sick about what happened to him. Had been risking my own life by holding a made man in the mob captive.
He looked the same as ever—a gentle giant with hair he kept a little too long that was more gray than blond anymore and smushed down with a ratty old red baseball cap.
His shirt was a little looser than usual—thanks to his new diet changes—but was the same faded national park tee I’d seen him wear since I was a child.
His jeans were worn to the point of being buttery soft.
And his boots were all but falling apart.
It was no wonder I never suspected that this man was sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars in storage units all around the country.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, giving me a careful smile.
“Hey, kiddo?” I scoffed. Then, louder, as anger replaced the fear I’d been clinging to for weeks. “Hey, kiddo? You show up here after being missing for weeks and all you can say is ‘hey, kiddo’?”
He opened his mouth to speak but I was on a roll. I didn’t get angry—at least at anyone other than myself—often. And I damn sure never yelled at anyone. But there was no denying that I was yelling right then.
“I thought you were dead! I thought you’d wandered into the woods and had some kind of episode!
I’ve been worried sick for weeks. And you just show up here with a fucking ‘hey, kiddo’?
” His brows shot up at the curse but he said nothing.
“I’m going to need an explanation. And it better be a good one. ”
It wasn’t that I wasn’t relieved to see him.
But now that I knew he was alive, I was pissed for what he’d put me through.
“Okay,” he said, holding up his hands. “I know you probably have a million questions for me. Let’s sit down. Talk it out.”
He moved over to my table, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
“You have a nice little place here, Nugget,” he said as I glared at him from the door.
Right.
He hadn’t even seen this apartment.
I’d shown him listing pictures when I’d been ready to pounce on it. But he hadn’t even seen pictures of the interior once I’d stamped my mark all over it.
“You’d have known that already if you had visited.”
Okay.
Maybe I had a little more resentment toward my father than I’d realized.
But it would have been one thing if I’d moved across the world and he was afraid to fly.
But he lived in Jersey now, apparently. He could take the train or ferry in.
And I would have been so happy to see him that I wouldn’t have even questioned it.
“You’re right,” he agreed, nodding.
“I feel like it says something that you’re only here now because something is wrong with you.” And not the hundred or so times I needed him.
Were my insides shaking around like little plastic skeletons on Halloween? Yep. But I was proud that I was standing up for myself. And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe some of that had to do with Gav’s influence.
I folded my arms over my chest, making his gaze go to my cast.
“What happened to your hand?” he asked. And there was no faking the genuine concern in his voice.
“My wrist,” I clarified. “I broke it.”
“How? When?”
“A few days ago. Punching someone with the wrong form.”
“What? You punched someone? Who? Why?”
Don’t ask me why I only chose to answer one of those questions right then.
“He said something that made me angry.” I shrugged it off.
“A boyfriend?” he asked.
“No.” It wasn’t a lie. We hadn’t labeled anything yet.
“Then I don’t understand. You’ve never been someone who settled things with your fists.”
“I’ve never been a lot of things I’ve become the past couple of weeks,” I said, chin lifting.
I didn’t offer more information.
I wasn’t the one who owed the other an explanation.
My father watched me for a long moment—a parent seeing his child as an adult for perhaps the first time.