Chapter Three
If it had been a nicer day, she probably would’ve gone over to Stan’s to grab a cup of coffee for the train ride home.
Hell, if it weren’t so damn cold, she’d probably walk.
But since it was frigid on this February morning, Gina made do with shitty coffee from the hospital cafeteria and braced herself for the Arctic blast outside.
“Fuck.” She pulled her scarf tighter.
It was a good thing the Wellington Station was just across the street.
Mindful of the ice, Gina crossed it while fumbling in her bag for her Ventra card.
She tapped it, went through the turnstile, and headed up the stairs to the platform.
If she timed it just right, and she was certain she had, the train would arrive at any moment.
Because it would surely suck to stand in the icy wind, waiting for the next one.
No sooner had she taken a sip of the bitter sludge that passed for coffee, when the clickety-clack sound of the train on the elevated track signaled its approach from Belmont.
Gina took a seat close to the doors. She wouldn’t be on the train for long.
It was only a couple of stops to Fullerton—three if she took it to Armitage.
The old Chicago townhouse where she lived was an equal distance from either.
Most often, she got off at Armitage, for no other reason than to avoid getting caught in the university foot traffic, but this early on a Saturday morning, that shouldn’t be an issue, so she’d get off at Fullerton instead.
A five-minute ride. Walk four blocks. Another five minutes.
Okay, maybe ten. Gina glanced at her watch.
With any luck at all, she’d be curled up in her bed, shades drawn, and fast asleep by eight a.m.
What she wouldn’t give for eight solid hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Working twelve-hour night shifts was sucking the life right out of her.
After nearly nine months of it, Gina felt like a cast member of The Walking Dead most of the time.
If a spot didn’t open up for her on the day shift soon, she might lose it.
Or lapse into an irreversible coma.
Night shift isn’t for the weak.
She got off at Fullerton, thankful the students were still sleeping, and headed toward First Avenue where her family’s pizzeria and bakery were located, but Gina wasn’t going anywhere near Rossi’s. Instead, she left Fullerton at Third and hurried to the house around the corner on Willow.
Her family wasn’t rich even though it might look like it, but they weren’t poor either.
So what if they lived in a lovely home in a sought-after zip code?
It wasn’t always that way. Gina remembered when she was a kid, this neighborhood was shit.
Nobody wanted to live here then. Her mom urged her father to move the family and the business out to the suburbs, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
His grandparents built this house in the 1920s when they were newlyweds, then his father opened the pizzeria in 1958.
“Things are changing, Rosemary,” Anthony Rossi Sr. had said to his wife. “You’ll see.”
And sure as shit, her old man was right.
By the time she graduated from high school, only a millionaire could afford to buy a condo around here, let alone a house.
Real estate investors bought up everything, from six-flats to bungalows, then renovated them, or worse, tore them down to build these modern monstrosities that didn’t quite fit the neighborhood’s aesthetic to take their place.
They tried relentlessly to get her dad to sell, but Anthony Rossi was no dummy.
With the rising value of his property, he took out a small mortgage, redid the house inside and out, and thumbed his nose at them.
Vaffanculo. So now, they lived among the rich in a million-dollar house.
Not to mention, with the influx of affluent people in the area, the pizza and bakery biz was booming.
She went around to the back and carefully opened the door.
After hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes in the mudroom, Gina tiptoed toward the kitchen.
Her parents had likely left for work already, but the last thing she wanted to do was wake up her brother, Matteo, who was no doubt sleeping off a Friday night bar-hopping binge downstairs.
“What in the hell?” Luca sat hunched over the kitchen table in the semi-darkness. “You scared me.”
“Good morning to you, too, Gina Bobina,” he said with a snicker, lifting a cup of coffee to his lips. The youngest of the Rossi brothers, and God help her, there were four, he’d been calling her that since he was little when they played “The Name Game”. “How was work?”
“All right. Same shit, different day.” She tossed her bag down on a chair and dumped the cafeteria sludge in the sink. “What are you doing up this early on a Saturday?”
Unless Luca had class or was working, he usually slept until noon.
“Think I wanna be?” He stretched his arms above his head with a yawn. “Couldn’t sleep, so I thought, fuck it, and came downstairs.”
“Sorry, little bro.” Gina poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“How the fuck can you drink that?” Luca lifted his chin at her. “Shouldn’t you be going to bed?”
“I should, and I’m gonna.” She inhaled the delicious brew, then took a sip. “Coffee won’t keep me from sleeping. God knows I live off the stuff. I think I’ve become immune to the effects of caffeine.”
“Jesus.” He looked at her like she was an alien. “When are you off again?”
“Tonight’s my last night.”
And already exhausted, her shift tonight would be the hardest. Gina opted to work six twelves in a row. Then, she could have eight days off and regain some sense of normalcy before the cycle started all over again.
“You shoulda listened to Mom.”
“And work in the bakery?” A shake of her head, and her ponytail swished. “No, thanks.”
“The hours are better.”
Is sweating in a kitchen from sunup to sundown seven days a week better?
She didn’t think so. Gina was well aware she’d disappointed Nonna and her parents when she went to nursing school.
And how messed up was that? As the only daughter, it was their dream for her to follow in their footsteps, marry a nice Italian boy, and make babies.
Too bad it wasn’t what she wanted anymore.
There was a time Gina might’ve settled for it, though.
“Baking is supposed to be a joy, not a job.” Dunking a cookie in her coffee, she expelled a breath. “Besides, I always wanted to be a nurse, and so I am.”
“You’re good at it, though. Better than Mom is, but don’t you dare tell her I said that.”
“See? That’s what makes all the difference. She’s lost the joy in it. It’s just work for her, now.” With a shrug, Gina popped the cookie into her mouth before it fell apart. “And I’m an excellent nurse because I love what I do.”
“So that’s the trick, eh?” Holding back a smirk, Luca pushed his fingers through his shaggy, dark hair.
“What?”
“You gotta love what you do to be good at it?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Her head tipping to the side, she smiled at him. Of all her brothers, she was closest to Luca. Maybe because, being three years younger, she always thought of him as hers. “Your life will be miserable if you don’t.”
“I don’t know what I wanna do after I’m finished with school,” he admitted.
“You’re not gonna run Rossi’s with Daddy?”
“Nah, don’t think so.” Luca stared into his cup. “He’s got Tony and Nick. Doubt he needs me and Teo, too.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Gina took ahold of her brother’s hand and squeezed it. “If Tony has his way, they’re gonna open up a place in Wrigleyville.”
“Let them,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “Tony and Lina can run it, too.”
Where the fuck was this anger coming from?
Did their eldest brother piss him off somehow?
Twelve years her senior, Tony could be bossy.
Hell, he acted like he was their dad half the time.
And his wife? Gina didn’t pay her any mind.
Nineteen and pregnant when she married her brother, Lina wasn’t much older than she was.
“Lina’s too busy popping out Tony’s babies to do anything else. You’ve got time to figure out what you want, babes, and you will.” She kissed his cheek. “Okay, Luca Bobuca, I gotta crash.”
“I’ll try to keep Teo quiet when he gets up.”
“Knowing him, he won’t wake up until after I do.” Gina drained her cup and giggled.
“I’d say you’re right, except he’s on delivery duty at noon.” Luca grabbed her hand. “Hey, that reminds me. Someone was asking about you last night.”
“Who?” she asked, curious.
“Matt McCready.”
Oh?
“Do I know him?”
“You’re shittin’ me, right?” His mouth hung open. “Tony’s friend from high school. He’s in Venery. You delivered a pizza to his house, for fuck’s sake.”
“You think I remember all of Tony’s friends?” But she remembered him. “I was like six when he graduated.”
“So? I know you know who he is.”
Of course, she did. Gina knew who he was when she delivered his pizza, too.
But everybody knew who he was. Even if they didn’t grow up living a block away from him.
She vaguely remembered Matt McCready, along with Taylor Kerrigan, Kit King, Bo Robertson, and Sloan Michaels hanging out at her house with Tony after school, but she was only four or five back then.
“What did he say?” She was more than curious now, because why the fuck would he ask about her?
“I think he likes you or something.”
And she laughed. “I think you’re delusional.”
“He wanted to know if you were single.” Lifting his hands, her brother shrugged. And then he grinned. “I told him you were.”
The fuck?
“Jesus, Luca.” She wanted to smack that smug look right off his face.
“You’re welcome.”
Gina wrenched her bag out of the chair, and cocking her hip, she pulled the hair on her brother’s chest. “I wouldn’t get involved with someone like him if he were the last guy on Earth.”
“Ow.” With a smack to her hand, Luca looked at her like she was crazy. “Someone like him? Matt’s a good dude.”
“Maybe so. Still, not interested.”
His lip curling, he leaned in the chair and nodded. “Vinny fucked you up good, huh?”
Gina turned her back on him without an answer. The question didn’t deserve one.
“Go out with him, Gina. Get yourself a little. You probably got cobwebs growing in there.”
“God, you’re disgusting.” And she started down the hall.
He chuckled. “It’s the truth and you know it.”
Without breaking her stride, Gina flipped him off.
Luca hit the nail on the proverbial head, though, didn’t he?
Because she hadn’t so much as kissed anyone since Vinny Passarelli, and that was three years ago.
At first, Gina told herself she needed to focus on her classes and getting clinical hours at the hospital.
Besides, as it turned out, he wasn’t worth it, and sex was overrated, anyway. She’d never had an orgasm with him.
Gina was happy working in labor and delivery.
She was going to take classes toward her master’s degree in the fall.
Her life was full. The last thing she needed was some guy fucking it all up—even if he was hot as hell.
Not that she believed Matt McCready was interested in her, anyway.
Because now, she knew better than to believe anything that came out of a guy’s mouth.
Especially not someone like him.