I give Marissa a starting pot of fifty bucks, too and explain the rules of the game, laying out examples of winning hands. “This is a full house. This is two of a kind. This is-”
“Wait, wait, wait. I need a notepad to write these down. I don’t think I’ll remember.”
“I don’t need a notepad,” Mia declares.
“You think you have it already?” I ask her with a broad smile.
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s show Marissa how it goes. For the first few hands we’ll play without money and cards face up as practice. Then we’ll let the money fly.” I waggle my brows and Mia smiles happily at her stack of money.
“If I win, do I get to keep the money?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. That’s what makes it fun.”
“Even though it was your money to start with?”
“It’s your money now. Yours to lose.”
She grabs the money and stuffs it in a pretend pocket. “Forget it, I’m not playing,” she says.
I laugh-a big, belly laugh that surprises me. I don’t know when I’ve laughed like that before, but humor on an eight-year-old took me by surprise.
Marissa laughs, too, her eyes soft on me.
I fucking love that look. I want to win it every. Fucking. Time.
We play five or six rounds with cards up until I’m sure they both are getting the hang of it and then I teach them how to bet.
Marissa is conservative with her money, but Mia goes right at it, throwing the bills in and holding her cards up close to her face.
She wins the first hand and gets so excited she jumps up and down and then gasps in pain and hobbles back to the couch.
“You okay, baby?” Marissa runs around to help her, even though she’s already sitting. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“I always forget about my bad hip,” Mia says to me with a wry smile. “And then I hurt it again.”
“Well, I hope you’re getting as much mileage out of this situation as you can,” I tell her. “You know, making them bring you chocolate cakes and all that.”
She giggles.
“My ma had a hip replacement surgery last year and she was the most demanding patient ever. We ran through a whole bunch of nurses before my brother finally hired one who stood up to her and didn’t let her push her around.”
“Was that Desiree?” Marissa asks.
I shoot her a smile. “It sure was. That’s how Junior met her. And then she was a nurse for me when I had an accident,” I say to Mia.
“Accident, yes,” Marissa says, her gaze dropping to my scar, the flicker of trauma apparent before she hides it.
“Come on, let’s play another hand,” I say. “Let’s see if we can take some money back from the little card shark over here.”
Mia cackles with joy as she settles back and pops an apple slice in her mouth.
I win the next hand, then Mia takes two more. When Marissa runs out of money, I fish some more out of my pocket.
It makes her a bit uneasy, taking money from me. People have all kinds of hang ups about money. Some get turned on by it. Some hate it. Most have a love-hate relationship with it. That’s Marissa. There’s the quickened breath at the sight of a lot of money, but also a furrow of disapproval between her brows. A wariness, like if she takes it, she’s eaten the fruit that will land her in Hades for the next seven months.
The next hand I win. I lay my cards down. “I got my lucky hand, ladies. Dead Man’s Hand. Two pairs-black aces, black eights. You know why it’s called Dead Man’s Hand?”
“Why?” Mia demands.
“It originated in the Wild West. It was the hand Wild Bill Hickok had when he was murdered. An unlucky event for Wild Bill, but for some reason, it’s always been my lucky hand.”
Marissa sucks in a breath. “Well,” she says, her tone slightly shaky. “Maybe that’s why you were luckier than Wild Bill.”
The images of the dream flash through my mind on super-speed. It’s not the actual event I see now. Just the new, twisted one. The one where the gun’s at Marissa’s head.
I lived. I lived. Sometimes it feels like there has to be a reason I lived.
And that it’s somehow tied up with Marissa.
A chill spins through me. I want it to be a happy reason, like to make Marissa my wife. Run a restaurant with her. But instead it seems like something far darker.
A warning.
I lived to prevent something bad from happening to her.
Marissa
As if I weren’t already falling head over heels in love with Gio, he had to go and be adorable with my cousin.
Mia counts her bills, beaming at her new favorite person on Earth. How quickly I was replaced. “I get to keep this, right?” she asks for the eighth time.
Gio winks at her. “You sure do. Buy yourself something nice with it.”
I elbow him and he tosses an arm around me.
“Maybe don’t tell your mom,” I suggest to Mia.
“Why not?” She gives me her full attention now. Kids are so damn smart. She knows something’s afoot.
I try to shrug casually. “She might tell you it’s too much to accept as a gift and make you give it back.” That’s not a lie, although it’s way more about who the gift came from than how big it is.
“It wasn’t a gift, I won it!” Mia retorts.
“Then she’ll say she doesn’t want you gambling. Just go put it in your treasure box or somewhere safe okay? Or I can keep it for you.”
She yanks the bills against her chest. “No way.”
And that’s when the door opens.
My nonna actually gives a half-shriek, “O-oh-oh!” at seeing Gio.
Gio surges to his feet, ever the gentleman. He greets my grandparents in Italian, as was their custom. “Buon pomeriggio, Beatrice, Luigi.”
Nonno’s upper lip curls slightly as he looks from Gio to me. The betrayal is evident. I brought the enemy into our home. Still, he puts on his act. The one he always puts on for the Tacones when they’re in our shop. “Gio, buon pomeriggio. How are your brothers?”
Okay, so we’re doing chit-chat. Meanwhile, my stomach is a tight twisted ball smashed into my solar plexus.
“Good, good.” Gio squeezes my hand and Nonno’s eagle eye tracks the movement. “Well, I was just going to be on my way.” He turns to Mia. “It was very nice to meet you, young lady.” He holds out his hand and she shakes it with an especially vigorous shake to be silly.
I can hardly get my tongue to untangle to speak. I just stay frozen where I am, not even having the manners to walk Gio to the door. Grateful he didn’t try to stay longer.
He gives me a small lift of the hand before he shuts the door, and for some reason it breaks my heart. I don’t know; there was something stoic and sad about it. Like he was bearing his rejection, but it brought him down.
Dammit.
But I have no time to think about it, because Nonno turns on me immediately. “What was he doing here?”
My instinct is to make something up, to try to minimize this, but there’s no story that would fit or work. I just shrug. “He came with me to hang out with Mia.”
Nonna’s mouth drops open. Nonno’s white brows slam down. “What do you mean? Have you been… seeing this guy? Is he the one you’ve been out with?”
My grandparents have to work hard not to interfere in my dating life. They don’t want me disappearing like my mom did, so they don’t question me too much about where I’ve been spending my nights. You’re an adult, Nonna says out loud when I come home. I’m not going to ask. As if she really is dying to ask and has to say that out loud to keep herself from asking.
“Yes,” I say simply.
More shock and betrayal registers on both their faces, like they were hoping I’d offer some explanation that sat better with them.
“Marissa, after all I’ve told you about the Tacone men-” My grandfather breaks off when he sees me shoot a pointed look at Mia.
“Mia, time for your bath,” my grandmother says, hustling her out of the room. Mia’s eyes are wide, and I’m certain she’ll be straining her ears from the bathroom.
“Nonno, Gio’s not like that. He’s not his dad. Or his brother. Brothers. He’s a really great guy who plays piano and treats me like a princess.”
Nonno rolls his eyes. “For now he does. Just wait until you step out of line or he wants something more than you want to give. Then it will be threats. Violence, even.”
I can’t breathe. My chest feels too tight. My stomach too rock hard to make room for the expansion of my lungs. “No,” I say. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Is it about the money?” Nonno says and I see the exact moment he realizes what I’ve done. He staggers back a little, face going pale. “Mio Dio. You didn’t… No.” He shakes his head in disbelief.
It’s like the shooting all over again, where time seems to slow. I can see the bad coming, but I’m powerless to stop it. “Mia?” His voice cracks.
All I can do is nod. Admit it.
“No… no. How much?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I try to make my voice come out strong and sure, but it wobbles.
“What was the bargain?” It’s barely more than a whisper. “For you?”
“No!” My eyes burn. Of course it seems like I whored myself out. Sold myself to the devil. This was the moment I was trying to avoid. This terrible, crushing feeling of shame. Doubt that I mean anything to him at all, other than as a possession. “No, I’m his personal chef. I deliver his meals once a week, that’s all. And that’s how I found out… I like him.”
“You like him? You like him? You don’t like a Tacone. You watch your back and hedge your bets and make very sure you never cross one. You need to end things with him right away.”
I lift my chin. “I’m not doing that, Nonno. He’s not what you think. And you’ll come to see that.”
I grab my things and stomp out to take the L to Michelangelo’s, even though I have an hour to spare.
I’m shaking all over, sick to my stomach. Totally unnerved.
I’ve never rocked the boat with my grandparents. I’m the overachiever. The one who steps in and takes the burdens. The one who never screws up or causes drama.
Right now I’m imploding. My need to be wanted, to be enough, for all to be right in the world is in conflict with my attraction to Gio.
No, it’s way more than an attraction. I can’t pretend we’re about good sex or even the arrangement I made to borrow that money.
Gio and I have something real.
My grandparents are just going to have to accept that.