“That she is.” Elio still sounded annoyed, so I quickly stood and headed for the door.
“Hey.” Elio came up behind me and snagged my arm. “Where are you going now?”
I glanced at Nonna’s tilted head and could see she was interested in my answer, so I closed my mouth to rethink my words. “I think it’s best if I leave.”
“What?” He pinched his nose in frustration. “No, we have to talk.”
“If the young lady wishes to leave, Elio, let her leave.”
He shook his head at Nonna’s words, and I stepped toward the door, only to have him stop me again. Mariano’s voice echoed down the hallway, and I wanted to disappear. Elio took my hand and marched us outside. I glanced back at a very pissy Nonna glaring at me.
“I don’t have the mind space for whatever is going on, but you are not to be alone with him.”
“I’m sorry. At what point did I say I wanted to be?” I pushed him away and walked a few feet in order to take a breath. There was so much happening right now, and from all different directions, and I was having trouble sorting through it all. My nerves were on their final edge.
“Hey.” Mariano came down the stairs and slowly eyed both of us. “What’s going on?”
“Sienna has a friend in town wanting to meet her,” Elio said. “I called Vinni to pick her up.”
“But we have plans.” He directed his confusion to me.
“I tried to tell you there was a possibility, but…” I trailed off.
“Can’t he reschedule?”
“She’sonly in town for one day.” I wanted to correct the gender, so he didn’t flip out.
“Oh, I see.” Then he looked at Elio. “How did you know about it?” One look at Elio’s face and he held up his hands and backed off
“Fine. Then we’ll meet up tonight.” He took out his phone as Vinni pulled in the driveway.
“Okay.” I gritted my teeth, avoiding Elio’s stare. “I’ll see you both later.”
Vinni had barely come to a complete stop when I jumped inside and covered my face with my hands and loudly growled into them.
“Wow, you don’t sound happy.” I heard Vinni twist in his seat. “Are you okay?”
“Would you mind taking me to the market? Or maybe a gun range? Is that okay?”
He thought for a moment. “Gun range. Ahh, no, but the market, yeah, I think I can do that. Do you need to go back to the house first?”
“No, I’m good.”
As we pulled away, I caught sight of Nonna in the doorway and closed my eyes in confusion at just how I could have so upset a woman I had never even met.
“Vinni? Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask.” He grinned playfully.
“Your nonna, she seems pretty sharp. She doesn’t suffer from any kind of dementia, does she?” I hoped the fact I had my fingers crossed would give me a pass on my one-way ticket to hell.
He laughed as he made a wide turn. “Nonna is one of the sharpest tools in the entire family. People might underestimate her because she doesn’t leave the property often, but trust me, she knows everything that goes on and then some.”
Great.
“That’s pretty impressive.”
“She really is. Let me guess, you met her?”