I was surprised to discover he actually meant me when he mentioned a new family member. Nana squeezed in between Adriano and me on the couch, pulled some of the shopping bags closer, and began unpacking her finds, which she piled onto my lap. “Thank you,” I said, as she thrust a shoe box into my hands. “Please let me know how much I owe you, and I’ll pay you back.” But I might have to rob a bank first, because the pile on my lap was still growing.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, as she added something small and sheer to the pile. Oh god, she’d actually bought me sexy underwear. “I don’t want you to pay me back! I just want you to enjoy this stuff, as much as I enjoyed shopping for it.”
Josh and Darwin added their bags to the pile as Josh said, “And let me tell you, she enjoyed the hell out of this shopping trip. It was all we could do to get her to stop for lunch.”
“I tell you what though, I’m about done for the day,” she said, as she placed a mesh tank top on my lap. Good lord, Reno’s granny was really trying to tart me up. “Jack and Aidie shouldn’t be going out anyway, what with needing to recover and all, so let’s have dinner delivered tonight.” I grinned at her nickname for Adriano, and I was happy when she turned to Romy and asked, “Can you stay and eat with us, kiddo?”
Romy turned his gaze to the gold shag carpeting as he said, “Thanks, but I have plans.”
I didn’t believe him. He was probably just overwhelmed by all of his brother’s new family members, same as I was. In fact, he made an excuse soon after and said he needed to go.
First though, he pulled aside Adriano and me for a quick medical exam. We moved into the quiet sitting room at the front of the house, and he checked our vital signs and shone a small flashlight in our eyes to see how our pupils responded. Then he turned his attention to my arm. As he changed out the butterfly bandages that had replaced some of my torn stitches, I told him, “The Dombrusos could never take your place in Reno’s life, Romy. You know that, right?”
He nodded embarrassedly and didn’t look at either of us as Adriano asked him, “Were you worried about that?” Romy just shrugged, and his brother said, “Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you, kid. I’ve loved you since the day you were born, and you’re more than my brother. You’re my best friend.”
“I don’t want to make this about me,” Romy muttered. “It’s fantastic that you finally got to meet your dad’s side of the family, and that they’re so eager to bring you into the fold. Your new brothers are great, too, and so much like you. It’s funny, actually—it’s like all three of you were cut from the same cloth. I wonder if the two you haven’t met yet are the same.”
He was right about that. Besides the fact that they all looked so much alike and were close to the same age, it was as if Adriano and his two older brothers were all throwbacks to a bygone era—a time of gangsters, and Sinatra, and swagger.
I would have assumed they were all emulating their father, but Adriano had never met him, and Dante and Vincent had been little kids when he died. Maybe they were just influenced by the idea of him and had modeled themselves after the kind of man they thought he’d been, regardless of who he really was.
After Romy finished wrapping a clean bandage around my arm, he packed up his medical bag and took off. Then Reno moved over so he was sitting beside me on the little, avocado green loveseat and drew me onto his lap.
I kissed him before resting my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair. After a while, he said, “This is such a strange time. There are all these new family members to get to know, and my mom and Romy to worry about, and then there’s you and me. This thing that’s happening between us is amazing. It excites me and makes me feel optimistic, and I haven’t felt like that in a very long time.
“Meanwhile though, the situation with Greco is still hanging over our heads, and I don’t know when or how that’s going to get resolved. I’m terrified you’ll get hurt again, but I’m also so damn grateful you’re here with me. It feels like we’re in the eye of a storm—a place where everything is calm and perfect, even though there’s chaos circling us.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be than right here with you,” I whispered, as I nuzzled his cheek.
“When this is all over, can we go somewhere? Just you and me?”
There was so much longing in his eyes when I sat up and met his gaze. “Of course. Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere. You pick. All I want is a hotel with room service and an uninterrupted week with you.”
I grinned and asked, “Just a week?”
He smiled at me, which made his hazel eyes sparkle. “For starters.”
21
Adriano
The next few days were surprisingly blissful. I retrieved some clothes and a few things from my house, and Jack and I settled into the rental with my new-found family. I figured as long as they were in Vegas, I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to get to know them.
Besides, the house they’d rented was huge, so why not stay with them? It had eight bedrooms, most of which were empty after Vincent, Darwin, and Josh returned to San Francisco. That left Dante and his husband Charlie, and Nana and Ollie. The four of them were treating this like a vacation, and why not? They might as well enjoy themselves while we were all in this holding pattern.
I was trying not to feel guilty about the fact that it felt like a vacation to me, too. Jack and I had both needed these past few days to heal and recover, so I had to accept the fact that I couldn’t actively look for Greco.
It probably wouldn’t have helped much anyway. Despite having a team of almost thirty people—between my crew and Dante’s small army—at work trying to find him, it was as if the man had vanished. If he’d left town, that would explain it. But something in my gut told me he was still around, lurking in the shadows and looking for his next opportunity to lash out at me.
As great as it was to get to know my new relatives, the absolute highlight of that week was Jack. He was just pure joy. I loved the way he got excited about the littlest things, like when I’d surprised him by making his favorite dessert after he mentioned it in passing. You’d have thought I’d bought him a car, given how appreciative he was.
I also loved the fact that he was a voracious reader. He read every chance he got, anything from nonfiction to gay romance to sci fi. Whenever he came across a passage he particularly liked, he just had to share it with me. Each time, it felt like he was giving me a gift.
His eagerness to learn was remarkable, too—whether it was Dante and Charlie teaching him a card game, Ollie showing him how to crochet, or Nana teaching him how to curse in Italian, he soaked it up like a sponge and clamored for more.
My contribution to his ongoing quest for knowledge was to share everything I knew about music from the Rat Pack era, which was one of my only areas of expertise. The rental had a big, kidney-shaped pool in the back yard, and he loved the water, so we’d float for hours and listen to song after song. Then I’d tell him everything I knew about the artists. We spent so much time out there that the blond highlights in his hair intensified, and Jack’s skin turned golden brown—except for a pale band around his right bicep that was covered by the waterproof bandages Romy had brought him. He might have just been humoring me, but he claimed to develop a real appreciation for my favorite music.