Just a few hours later, I was jarred awake by my ringing phone. I grabbed it from the nightstand, saw my brother’s name on the screen, and answered with, “You okay, Romy?”
“I’m fine. It’s ten a.m., time for breakfast.”
I sat up and pushed my hair off my face. “Shit, sorry. I overslept. Can I call you back in five minutes?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
My brother and I had a long-standing tradition of getting together every Sunday morning and catching up on our week over a big breakfast. We’d promised to keep it going during my temporary exile in San Francisco, so I was usually sitting in a diner by ten and waiting on his call. Not today, though.
After a quick visit to the bathroom, I went downstairs and got the coffee maker going. Then I sat on the kitchen counter with my tablet and placed a video call.
Romy was all smiles when he popped up on my screen. He was seated in his favorite diner, which was just a few blocks from where we’d grown up. I said, “You changed your hair again.”
“I did. Do you like it?”
He was a handsome kid, no doubt about it. We looked nothing alike since we had different dads, apart from our hazel eyes. That was the only feature I’d inherited from our mom, while he looked a lot like her with his light brown hair, slim build, and fair complexion.
He’d just gotten a haircut, so it was very short on the sides and longer at the top. “It looks great,” I told him. “Very hip. Do the kids still say that? Or has hip gone the way of groovy, keen, and bitchin’?”
Romy laughed at that and shook his head. “Where are you getting those expressions? You’re only ten years older than me, not some old fossil.” I grimaced at that word, and he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“A guy called me that last night. It was surprising to hear it again.”
He asked, a little too hopefully, “Were you on a date?”
“No. I picked him up in a bar.”
“How did it go?”
“Great at first, then absolutely terrible.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed and condensed it down to, “I took him home with me, and after we had sex he stole my dad’s Rolex, jumped off the balcony like Spider-Man, and disappeared into the night.”
My brother’s eyes went wide. “Oh no. That watch means everything to you, Reno.”
“I know, but don’t worry. I have a plan for getting it back. I’m going to spend the day emailing every jewelry broker, pawn shop, auction house, and so on in the Bay Area with a description of the watch. Then I’m going to visit every bar in San Francisco with what basically amounts to a stack of old-timey wanted posters, and I’m going to find this guy.”
Romy asked, “Can I help? Maybe make a few calls?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it. I have pure, unadulterated rage to fuel me.”
“Are you going to file a police report?”
“No, I’m handling it myself.”
He frowned and told me, “I’ll never understand your distrust of law enforcement. I get that you’ve been known to break the rules from time to time, but you’re the victim here. They could help you find this guy and recover your watch.”
Saying I broke the rules occasionally was the nicest possible way to describe me. In reality, I was a criminal who made my living in illegal gambling. Or I used to, until a thug named Mario Greco decided to move in on my territory. When I pushed back, he came after me so hard that I ended up bailing out to San Francisco, just until I could figure out what to do about Greco and his crew of sociopaths.
“You have a point,” I said, “and I’ll think about filing a police report.”
Romy was still frowning. “You won’t do it, but whatever. It’s your choice. And I’m really sorry this happened to you.” He paused before asking, “You’ve hooked up with other guys since you and Ford broke up, right? It’s been six months. Please tell me that wasn’t your first time back out there.”
“Sadly, that was the first guy I’d slept with since my four-year relationship crashed and burned. I think the universe might be trying to tell me something. I know it’s not demented enough to try to get Ford and me back together, so I guess the message I’m meant to take from this is to give up and die alone.”
My brother sat up straighter and shook his head. “No! Absolutely not. You’ve just had a setback, but that’s not enough of a reason to give up on love.”