Chapter 9
Nicola looked like he was turning nauseous just waiting for me to respond.
I understood what he was trying to say.
He was here.
He could’ve said fuck it, not worth it. He could’ve walked away, just like he had with every woman who had ever wanted something more from him.
Instead… he stayed.
It wasn’t everything I hoped for. But for tonight, it was enough.
To ease the tension, I reached over to my bedside's nightstand and grabbed the remote. I placed it gingerly into his hand before slowly curling his fingers around it.
“Don Moretti, my tribute to you. You can pick what we watch tonight.”
He stared down at the remote like I’d just handed him the deed to my apartment.
“Wow,” he deadpanned as I grinned. “I’m blushing like a teenage girl over here.”
Nicola settled on an old black-and-white Italian film.
“My Nonna loved this one,” he said to me as the orchestra music played through the TV speakers. “My mom, too.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I heard his voice soften like that. It made me smile. I nodded toward the television.
“Turn on the subtitles."
He looked down at me. “Wait, you don’t know Italian? Your mom never taught you? How did I not know this?”
“I know all the important things,” I said. “Like swearing.”
A laugh escaped him. “I bet you know more than you realize. You don’t need subtitles.”
“I really do. I haven’t spoken Italian since Mom died. Dad doesn’t know much. Except, y’know, the swear words.”
“Subtitles ruin the experience,” he insisted, stealing my pillow as he leaned back against the headboard. He patted the space beside him. “Come here.”
I rolled my eyes before climbing up the bed and brought my side to fit in snugly against his. I liked the feeling of my softer curves against his harder form, a hint to the body lay beneath the fabric.
He settled into the pillow for all of thirty seconds. Then he shifted, adjusted the pillow. Shifted again.
A minute later I caught him dragging a hand over his mouth. He'd done that when I walked out of the closet earlier, too. Nicola normally didn’t touch his face like that.
“Are you alright?” I asked. “You look... restless.”
“Just getting comfortable.” He sounded like he was in pain.
I frowned. “Am I bothering you?”
A flash of panic passed through his eyes. “What? No. Of course not.”
I let my head fall onto his shoulder and shamelessly squirmed even closer, greedy for more body contact.
The second I did, Nicola went perfectly still. I felt his chest expand in one slow, measured breath.
Several moments passed before his arm slid around my shoulders. I melted against him with a quiet little 'mmm' of contentment.
Immediately, his free hand reached up and tugged open another button on his shirt.
My happy little bubble kept getting popped and I gave him a dirty look. “You're fidgeting. What’s wrong?”
“Look, I don’t know what this is. I don’t know if I’m supposed to try fucking you or not.”
I looked around the room. “Who are you looking for permission from? I’ve literally been with two guys my entire life. You’ve been with enough women to fill Rhode Island! You should know the mechanics by now.”
When Nicola didn’t reply to my clever quip, nor smile, something dawned on me.
He meant, he didn’t know how these series of events were supposed to go. He had rarely done more than get exactly what he wanted and leave. He didn't stick around and cuddle.
God, that was sad. For both parties.
I patted his thigh. “Earlier today… you really just came here because you knew you wanted to sleep, didn’t you?”
His eyes finally left the television and met mine. “Yeah.”
“And...” I smiled. “You didn’t think about how that was going to happen? You know, the stuff in between point A to point B?”
His gaze lingered on mine long enough for warmth to creep into my cheeks.
“I didn’t think that far ahead.” He shifted again. “And I can’t focus on the movie because you keep distracting me.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
“You’re pressing your tits against me!”
My hand flew up. “They’re attached to my body, Nicola! What am I supposed to do?”
Before I could blink, I was on my back. Nicola hovered over me, his weight settled against mine and drove every coherent thought from my head.
I could see the pulse hammering in his neck.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell if he was furious or aroused. Maybe both.
His mouth crashed into mine.
A soft moan escaped me as I wrapped an arm around his shoulder. His arm banded around my back, pulling me closer as I instinctively arched into him.
He broke away just enough to whisper against my lips. “I bet I could make you come without even taking your shorts off. Then you wouldn’t be grinning like you think you’re some big shot.”
“I’ll—”
My phone vibrated loudly atop the nightstand. We both froze.
“Oh, shit,” I groaned. “It could be Dad.”
Nicola closed his eyes for half a second before slowly lifting himself away. Mentally, I recited every colorful Italian swear word I knew.
I rolled onto my knees and grabbed my phone.
The caller ID lit up: Pierce
My stomach dropped. Before I even realized my thumb had moved, I declined the call.
My finger still hovered over the screen. What the hell would he want?
Almost immediately, two text messages appeared one after another.
Pierce: Call me please.
Pierce: ASAP.
Slowly, I turned the phone face down.
“You okay?” Nicola asked quietly behind me.
I forced a small smile over my shoulder. “Oh, yeah. Just one of those spam calls.”
He studied me for a beat, then crooked a finger. And like a happy idiot, I immediately melted back into his arms.
The old movie flickered across the room while he pointed out vintage cars he liked or translated dialogue I didn’t understand.
Which, truthfully, was most of it. But none of that mattered.
This was paradise to me: Wrapped up in Nicola, resting my ear over the steady beat of his heart.
For one evening, for the first time in years, I felt good. Actually happy. I had a beautiful, ridiculous man whispering pretty Italian words into my ear. My eyes drifted shut while I tried to commit it all to my memory.
I should’ve been thinking about the kiss. About the way he’d come back. About the way he’d said he wasn’t going anywhere.
Instead... All I could focus on was why my ex-husband suddenly wanted to talk.
I heard something buzzing.
A groan escaped me as I lifted my head, squinting into the dark bedroom.
Nicola was behind me, his arm draped securely around my waist. Sometime during the night we managed to cement ourselves together.
For one blissful second, I smiled at that fact.
Then the buzzing started again. I turned toward the opposite nightstand. Nicola's phone lit up, vibrating insistently against the wood.
“Oh...” I whispered. “Nicky.”
I gently shook his arm.
“Mm?”
“You have a phone call.”
He made a sleepy, dismissive grunt against my hair. The room went dark again. A few seconds later, the screen lit up once more.
“Look.” I shook him a little harder. “They’re calling back.”
Still half asleep, Nicola blindly reached behind him until his fingers closed around the phone. He lifted it to his face.
The change was almost immediate. Every trace of sleep vanished. He detached himself from me and sat upright.
“Yeah," he answered. A pause followed.
"How many were there?” His voice was emotionless, which was a little startling considering his voice sounded like honey when he was translating Italian to me. I got goosebumps just thinking about it.
Another pause. “Get Thomas up and find the footage. Load up the cars.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Have Gio pick me up. Yeah. I’ll be ready.”
The call ended and the room suddenly felt far colder than it had a minute ago.
"Can I help?" I asked quietly as I flicked on my bedside lamp. Warm light spilled across the room. “Um... coffee?”
“No.” Nicola was already moving. He stepped into his pants before buttoning his shirt with practiced efficiency. Socks. Jacket. Tie.
He turned toward me while fastening another button.
“You don’t need to wait up.” His voice was still so... flat. “Go back to sleep.”
He disappeared into the bathroom.
Yeah, go back to bed. Easy.
I climbed out of bed and spotted the little plastic bag of rings I had dropped on the living room floor. By the time I turned around, Nicola emerged from the bathroom.
He sat on a chair’s edge to quickly tie the laces of his shoes.
I walked over and gave the bag a little shake. He looked up at me. Then down at the rings.
Without a word, he held out his hand.
I poured them carefully into his palm.
One by one, I watched as he slid them onto his fingers.
It might have been in my head, but by the time the final ring was on, the man who’d spent the evening tangled up with me was completely gone.
The man who watched old Italian movies and who teased me each time I asked for a translation.
The man who hadn’t known what to do with a woman simply wanting to hold him.
By the time he slipped on the last ring, Don Moretti stood in front of me.
It was like watching Bruce Wayne become Batman-- the transformation was wholly unsettling. He adjusted the cuff of his shirt, smoothed his tie, passed a hand through his hair.
He was fucking immaculate, like he’d never spent the night asleep in my bed at all.
Nicola started toward the front door. Then stopped.
Slowly, he turned back and his fingers wrapped gently around my arm. He leaned down and kissed me once, his thumb brushed across my bottom lip.
He lingered there for just a second longer than necessary, like there was something he wanted to say.
Then he simply left. The apartment door clicked shut.
I stared after him.
I didn’t even get the full Nicola experience and still... it felt like all the warmth of the apartment had left with him.
The microwave clock read 4:35 A.M. Maybe I could get another couple hours of sleep.
I started back toward my bedroom before something hard pressed beneath my bare foot. “Ow.”
I bent down and picked up the offending item. It was one of Nicola’s rings, just a plain silver band.
It must’ve rolled out of the bag when I dropped it last night. I rubbed it thoughtfully between my fingers and a smile tugged at my lips.
“Well...” I closed my hand around it. “I’ll keep it safe until he comes back.”
By seven o’clock, I was fully dressed for work and finished my second cup of coffee. I rinsed my mug out, placing it in the drying rack.
The tiny folded horse sat on the counter where Nicola had left it. He had lined up his donkey next to it, though... honestly, they looked the same to me.
I picked both up and placed them carefully on the lip of a shelf in my bedroom. I stepped back to study them.
It was stupid to keep them. They were literally made out of trash. But it made me smile, anyway.
A wistful sigh escaped me. “What a fucking weird man.”
And I was still ridiculously, insanely in love with him.
Once I parked in the underground garage at work, I glanced at the dashboard clock. I still had a few minutes before I needed to head upstairs.
The phone sat in my lap as I stared at the messages from Pierce.
Call me please. ASAP.
I could not fathom a single reason this man would need anything more from me. I paid alimony on time. He got everything he wanted, including my dignity.
But… if I didn’t find out what he wanted, he would probably keep calling. So I pressed the telephone icon and brought it to my ear. The line barely rang twice.
“Hey, Abby.” His voice was warm, almost startlingly so.
The last time I’d seen Pierce, he’d been sitting across the aisle from me in a courtroom between his father and his lawyer, sneering like I’d personally ruined his life.
“What do you want?”
A small sigh drifted through the speaker. “Hey... hey, I get it. You probably want to throw darts at my head.”
“That's putting it mildly.” I shifted in my seat. “What do you want?”
There was a brief pause. “Well, I... actually have two things I wanted to talk to you about.”
My stomach tightened. “Yeah? I’m listening.”
“I’d rather not do it over the phone.”
Of course you wouldn’t.
“I was hoping maybe we could grab lunch.”
“No.” The answer came immediately.
“...Or coffee?” he tried again. “Whatever works.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Why the fuck would I want to do that, Pierce?”
When he spoke again, his voice sounded smaller. “I’m just… I’m at a pretty bad point in my life right now.”
"And?”
“And...” He let out a tired laugh. “You’re the only person who will talk to me.”
There it was. That familiar tug– the annoying part of me that wanted to fix things.
Be helpful, Abby. You always gotta be helpful.
“You’re not on top of the Chrysler Building about to jump, are you?” I asked. “Because traffic is a nightmare right now.”
He paused, processing that. “Jesus, I forgot about the dark humor.”
Nicola would’ve laughed. “Well?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not like that. I just really need to see you. Please.”
“Alright.” I sighed. “My lunch is at—”
“Noon, I remember. There’s that little café around the corner from your office,” he continued. “The one with the outdoor patio.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Yeah.” The word came out on a long exhale. “Sure. I’ll meet you there.”
“Thanks, Abby.” There was so much relief in his voice that it almost made me feel guilty. Almost. “I’ll see you at noon.”