“I’m serious.”
“Okay. Fine. That’s all it is now. But mark my words, I’m gonna be wearing another fucking hideous bridesmaid’s dress in like eighteen months. I can feel it.”
“We’re not getting married. But, you know, even if in some alternate reality we were, I would never do that to you. I plan parties for a living. I know all the ways bridesmaid dresses can go horribly wrong.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Sofia said as a man I’d never seen before brought more bags in. “Oh, this is my other brother. Aurelio.”
As soon as she said it, I could see it. An older version of Milo. Tall, fit, with warm brown eyes, great lashes, amazing bone structure, black hair. But where Milo was still very young, Aurelio was a little more mature with all the hotness that seemed to come with age for men.
Like Milo and all the other men I’d seen so far that weren’t Matteo, he was in a dark suit that was tailored well with an expensive-looking watch on his wrist and the bulge under his jacket that made it clear he was there as a guard.
“Oh, angel,” Aurelio said, sighing as he looked at me.
“I know,” I said, nodding.
“Don’t look at her like that,” Sofia snapped. “She knows she looks like crap. Stop making it worse by giving her the sad eyes.”
“You’ll excuse Smush. She has no filter.”
Clearly, Aurelio had been warned about using that name.
I saw the regret a second after he finished speaking.
And then Sofia was picking up one of the bags she’d brought in that looked particularly heavy, and threw it over her shoulder as she started to chase a retreating Aurelio.
I couldn’t help but be fascinated by their entire family.
I didn’t have any siblings.
And while there was a set of cousins, I only ever saw them on holidays and we barely managed to make small talk, let alone connect like everyone in the Grassi family did.
As the days stretched on, I only got to see more of them and how they interacted. The guard shifts changed in and out, a rotation of six different guys.
Sofia dropped in and out, doing little errands for Matteo who’d decided to devote his entire life to making sure I didn’t have to do a thing for myself.
On top of them, Adrian came over, bringing dishes of food and lots of motherly love, giving me advice on getting swelling to go down, and how to avoid scars.
“You’ll forgive me, but we’re practically family now, Josie,” Adrian started, wincing at me.
“You can say it, whatever it is,” I assured her as I put a forkful of her penne vodka into my mouth. It was my third plate. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had thirds in my life before. But then again, I’d never had Adrian’s penne vodka before either.
“Okay, well, honey, your hair is greasy,” she said, shaking her head at me.
“Oh,” I said, wincing as I reached up toward my head. “I’ve been… getting by with the shower,” I said, thankful that Matteo had one of the showers with those detachable wands because my ribs were making even a basic task like washing myself difficult. “But I just… I can’t raise my hands above my head to wash my hair,” I admitted.
“Oh, that’s a silly problem to have,” Adrian said, and I was ready for her to offer to help me so I could finally have clean hair. But Adrian, well, I guess Sofia was right about her mom wanting to hook everyone up, because this woman didn’t offer to help me. Oh, no. She called Matteo.
“Yeah?” Matteo asked, looking between the two of us.
“How are you walking around like you weren’t raised without any sense?” she asked, waving a hand at him. Matteo’s confused glance moved between the two of us, but before I could mouth to him the problem, Adrian was charging on. “This girl has bruised ribs. She can’t even wear pants because she can’t bend down, and you are expecting her to be able to wash her own hair? Do better,” she demanded, slapping him with a dishrag before moving to grab her bag that was practically big enough to move into, then making her way toward the door.
“Sorry,” I said, wincing. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“That wasn’t trouble. That was her none-too-subtly telling me I was being stupid. Why didn’t you tell me you needed help with your hair, babe?” he asked, eyes soft.
“You’ve done enough for me already,” I insisted, shaking my head.
“Come on,” he said, holding an arm out.
“No, really. It’s fine. I will figure it out.”
“Come on,” he demanded again, coming up to me and helping me off my chair.
I don’t know what I expected.
But getting into the bathroom, having Matteo close the door, and then start stripping out of his clothes was not it.