It was hard to believe my mind was on those things.
Marriage.
Decorating a new home.
When less than a year before, I was killing myself at a job I hated to try to help my sister hide away from the man who was bent on destroying her life.
I tried not to think about Josh much. There wasn’t exactly anything good to harp on there. Not the years that Wren was with him. Not the night in that house where I’d made sure he would never be a problem again. Not even the months surrounding the news of his disappearance, living with a constant knot in my stomach, worried about someone finding a hair or fingerprint that would implicate one of us.
But, true to his reputation, Silvano was good at his job.
No one ever found anything.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Josh’s mother’s rival for her office eventuallydid“find” some things about her thatoh-so-convenientlyfound its way into his hands.
She never got charged for that murder all those years before, but there had been enough speculation and outrage that she’d been forced to drop out of the race. And, eventually, sell the house, and move across the country where no one had ever heard of her before.
It was like a horrible chapter got closed.
And it was finally time to move forward.
“And the dining table, theactualdining table, not the poker table,” I said, giving him a smirk. “Can go here. Which leaves room for the pool table over there,” I went on, already seeing it all in my head. The colors, the textures, the combination of his things and mine. But spread apart more than in his cramped apartment we’d been sharing for a while already. “Then… who is that?” I asked when there was a knock at the apartment door.
Sure, everyone knew we were planning on moving into the place, but everyone also knew we were decorating first.
“Dunno,” Salvatore said, walking toward the door, opening it to reveal Brio. Of all people.
“Heard you two got a new place,” he said, oddly standing in the doorway, refusing to come in. “I got a reputation for new home presents. Usually give everyone an animal. Ezmeray said that a plant is a more appropriate gift, though. So, here’s this spiky fucker,” he said, handing a Mother-In-Law’s Tongue plant to Salvatore. “And a puppy,” he added, suddenly shoving a ball of fluff at me. “Aight. That’s it. Nice place,” he said, then turned and walked away.
“What if we didn’t want a dog?” I asked as the puppy licked my neck with gusto.
“You know that trope in movies and TV where you go to the restaurant and you don’t order because the chef knows better than you do what you should have?” Salvatore asked.
“Yeah…”
“Brio is like that, but with animals,” Salvatore said, putting the plant down, then reaching out to pet the puppy’s head. “He’s got big paws,” he declared, pulling one up to look at it. “Got any name ideas?” he asked.
It didn’t take me long to come up with one.
“Dolin,” I decided.
Sure, I freaking hated working at Dolin’s diner. I despised my boss. I didn’t like losing all of my free time.
But Dolin’s was where Salvatore had first kissed me, first been intimate with me. It was where he’d gone all possessive and protective on me when he’d seen me bruised, where he’d assaulted a rude customer for me.
Sure, that chapter of my book was closed as well, thanks to the fact that money wasn’t an issue anymore with Salvatore as a partner, allowing me just to focus on teaching, since I loved it, then reading and spending time with him after, because I loved those things as well.
I wasn’t entirely sure I truly understood how much weight was on my shoulders until there was someone there to help ease the burden, to take some of the weight on themselves.
I never saw that as possible for me. For a long time, it seemed like the only possible future for me was similar to the past. A lot of stress, of responsibility, of work. And little else.
So much had changed in so short a time.
And all of it because of Salvatore “the Surgeon” Costa.
The last man in the world I’d ever thought I’d settle down with.
Now, the only one I could ever see a future with.
Just the two of us.
And the occasional injured patient in the guest room.
And whatever critters Brio dropped at our door.