Chapter Seventeen
Christopher
The silence inside the cab from the pawnshop to Zeno’s building was painful. But I couldn’t seem to come up with anything to say to ease it.
My mind was noisy as fuck to make up for it.
Flashing through memories of her. Not just intimately.
But in my arms, leaning into me, smiling at me from across the kitchen table, hissing at me in the mornings.
And with the kids—teasing Liam about his ‘fake influencer’ career, chatting books or TV shows with Charlotte.
She’d fit in so effortlessly.
She hadn’t felt like a guest at all.
She felt like she belonged.
And that was terrifying in its own way.
Because I had no experience with serious relationships. Because it wasn’t only my needs I could think about anymore.
Yes, Liam had given me his blessing, for all intents and purposes. I knew Charlotte adored Alara.
What I didn’t know was if they were ready for that. If it was okay to bring a woman into my life who would, by her relationship with me, become a bit of a maternal figure to them.
And if it was okay, if Alara had really given that serious thought.
It was all fine and dandy to be interested in me, to interact with the kids, but had she stopped to consider that it would be more than that eventually?
I knew from the stories people had about Alara that she’d been clear about not wanting children. I came with two. They were nonnegotiable. If she couldn’t get on board with eventually being something like a mother to them, then she couldn’t be in my life. No matter how badly I wanted her.
It was a discussion that needed to be had.
But not on the five-minute cab ride to Zeno’s place.
So I let the silence hang as Alara pet a very disinterested Tuna.
Then climbed with her up the stairs toward Zeno’s place.
It took three solid minutes of knocking to hear any kind of movement inside.
“Keep your panties on,” Zeno called, tone light. The door pulled open, and his gaze landed on Alara, making a boyish smile tug at his lips. “Or take them off. Whichever you’d prefer.”
I wasn’t aware any sound escaped me until Zeno’s gaze flicked up, brows raising.
“Wait. Shit,” he said, recognition hitting. “Chris, man! It’s been forever!”
It had been. And when I’d left, he’d been young still.
He’d grown up.
He was just as tall as his brothers, with a slim build, but well-toned. How’d I know that? Because the guy answered the door wearing nothing but fuzzy Santa Claus-patterned pajama pants. And mismatched socks.
The family resemblance to Nico, Leo, Cesare, and Gav was unmistakable.
Same strong bone structure and dark hair.
Though Zeno’s was about two months overdue for a trim, starting to flop into his face.
His brow was pierced over his dark brown eye.
And when he spoke, I spied another piercing in his tongue.
“Come here, man,” he said, grabbing me and pulling me into a bear hug with Alara smushed between us.
“I’m sure this family reunion is sweet and all, but I’m suffocating here,” Alara grumbled.
Zeno patted my shoulder a few more times before pulling away. “Got a two-for-one hug. You’re Alara, right? We met once.”
“We did. You were buying an ungodly amount of caffeine.”
“Me? No. I don’t have any vices,” he said, waving out toward his desk with nails in chipped black paint. It was covered in old take-away coffee cups and energy drinks. At least a dozen of them.
But other than his desk, his apartment was surprisingly tidy. Nothing at all like I’d been told, repeatedly, by people. Certainly not the ‘potential biohazard’ Alara had mentioned.
Maybe he came up with a cleaning schedule.
Or hired someone.
“And who is this?” Zeno asked, dropping down to a deep squat and holding out both hands toward Tuna, who, after a suspicious sniff, walked right over to be petted.
“I’m starting to think he’s sexist,” Alara said, looking over at me. “I saved you from a life of dumpster diving and fighting rats for the last scrap of food, you ingrate.”
Tuna wasn’t listening. He was too busy licking Zeno’s hand and rolling over to beg for belly rubs.
“This is Tuna,” I said.
“He’s amazing,” Zeno said. “I wish I could get a dog.”
“Why can’t you?” I asked.
“I’m not good with the… remembering to feed myself thing. Doubt I’d be able to take good care of a dog. So, no one ventures over here just for a chat. What’s up? Got a job for me?”
Alara pulled out the flash drive.
“This cost a woman her life.”
“And gave you some bruises?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, let’s see if it’s password-protected or not.”
He walked over to his desk, pulling open a drawer, then removed a laptop from a pile of them.
At my scrunched brows, he shrugged. “My setup cost a mint. I don’t want to compromise it if something has a virus.”
Alara absentmindedly stacked empty coffee cups together and tossed them in a nearby trash can as Zeno turned on the laptop and waited for it to load.
“So, how long have you two been together?” he asked, making a strange, strangled sound escape Alara.
“We’re, ah—” she started, but stopped herself.
Because we weren’t nothing.
But we hadn’t exactly been something yet either.
Zeno leaned over his desk, glancing between us. “Please,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “I can smell the sexual tension between you two.”
“What do you know about sex?” Alara teased. “When’s the last time you left this apartment?”
Zeno glanced up at her, his smile going devilish. He twisted his tongue and bit it for a second before answering. “Who says I need to go out to get laid?”
“Oh, you’re just so attractive that women line up at your door, huh?”
“Something like that,” he agreed. He leaned closer to her. “Want to see why?”
“Hey,” I snapped.
Zeno looked over his shoulder at me.
“Oh, but nothing’s going on here, huh?” he asked.
“That’s Brio’s sister-in-law,” I reminded him.
“And I’m sure that would mean something if she wasn’t a full-grown woman who can decide who she wants to take a ride with.”
Huh.
I would have thought that the other Costa guys who hadn’t been away from the Family as long as I had would have been more protective.
But, I guess, these guys were all around for Isabella and Lore both marrying rival family bosses. So maybe they weren’t as old-school with their thinking as I was.
Or I was trying to come up with a reason not to date Alara because, quite frankly, I hadn’t felt ready; because I wasn’t prepared to care so much so quickly. Because this wasn’t anywhere in my plans.
“Welp,” Zeno said, snapping me out of my thoughts, “it’s password-protected.”
“But you can get in, right?” Alara asked.
“Eventually, sure. It would help to know more about the woman who had it. People are predictably uninventive with their passwords. Most of the time, if I know a little about them, I can just guess it.”
“Her name was Robin Moody. She was recently murdered in her apartment near my shop.”
To that, Zeno nodded as he dropped into his seat and turned toward one of his many monitors, and started typing.
It was only seconds before Robin’s face was half-filling the screen. “This her?”
“Yes,” Alara said, looking suddenly sad. “An Ethan Locke lived at the same address…”
“He got locked up,” I supplied.
“So, this might be more his flash drive than hers. Alright. Well, you guys are free to hang out, but this could take me a few hours. Or a few days. Depends on how smart they were. Judging by this guy’s rap sheet, he’s no genius, though…”
“Alright. We don’t want to get in your way,” I said.
Alara grabbed a pad of sticky notes and a pen and passed them to me. “I’m writing down my number for you to call when you have something.”
But we’d already lost Zeno.
He was scrolling with one hand while using the other to crack open the top of another energy drink.
Alara gave me a shrug, and we both walked toward the door, her needing to tug a reluctant Tuna along with her.
“You’d pick anyone over me, huh?” she chided the dog as she reached down to pick him up. Then, to me, “This felt really anticlimactic.”
“I expected it to be password-protected. What idiot doesn’t lock a drive they’re willing to die for?”
“True,” she agreed, sighing as we got to the steps.
“Foot starting to hurt?”
“I’ve been on it more today than the last few days combined.”
“Let’s get you off it then,” I said, scooping her (and Tuna) up and carrying her down to the street.
It was another uncomfortably quiet cab ride back to my apartment building. By the time we rode the elevator up to my floor, the silence felt suffocating.
Inside, Tuna made a beeline for Liam’s room, likely curling up on his bed to wait for him to get home.
Alara made her way toward my room as I tugged off my tie and tried to talk myself into giving her some peace.
But when there was a stumble, crash, and a curse, I took it as an excuse to move in, finding her stack of books on the floor.
“I tripped again,” she admitted, grabbing the offending pillow and tossing it onto the bed.
I reached for the books as she dropped down off the edge of the bed.
Once the books were back on the nightstand, I pivoted, reaching for her boot and working the Velcro straps free.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice small, as I pulled off the boot.
I glanced up, finding her already watching me with hooded eyes.
“We should probably talk—”
“I don’t want to talk,” she said, reaching for me, pulling me up and over her as she lay flat on the bed.
And, well.
We’d waited this long.
What was another hour?
My lips sealed to hers as my body pressed into her softer one, her arms and legs wrapping around me, holding me to her like I had any plans of moving away.
Here we found the patience neither of us had back at the pawnshop when desire had been too long denied and fiery-hot.
There was desire here too, but it was a slowly lit fuse, a fire that spread slowly, heating more than consuming.
Alara’s hands drifted up and down my back, over my shoulders, as my lips slanted over hers again, turning the kiss deeper.