“Drink,” she told me, motioning to my full glass with her empty one. “You need this too.”
“Why does Maggie need a shot?” Dante asked, moving to stand between us. He glanced at my face, lowering his brows when I kept quiet. “Can’t be because your boy doesn’t have a solid bed. I made sure it was perfect.”
“Yes,” I said, picking up my glass when I caught Toni’s hardening glare. “And I appreciate that.”
“Don’t worry why she needs a shot,” his sister told him, taking an empty glass from the stack and filling it for Dante. “Just drink. We’re celebrating Pop tonight.”
“From where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trying to get shitty to forget whatever has your panties in a knot.” He looked at me, then to his sister, head shaking. “And I know more about Maggie’s reasons for drinking than you think…moony, girly ass woman.”
“Drink, baby brother,” she demanded, ignoring his answer before she knocked her glass with his. Then, the woman moved her chin, squinting at my glass like she wouldn’t rest until I had the tequila down my throat. I wasn’t going to take it.
Mateo was still my responsibility, no matter how many Carelli aunties and cousins looked after him. Besides, I avoided shots at all costs. But when I thought of a good explanation to give Toni not to drink, readying the lame excuse of a sore stomach, Smoke made his entrance into the restaurant. He looked fit, his suit pressed and tailored like it had been sewn right over his beautiful, cut frame and I lost all hold on my good sense. But there was a cut along his chin and a small purple bruise near his cheek that had me staring, had me worried. I dropped my gaze, looking at his hands, spotting his hand, the bandaged knuckles and my stomach curled.
Toni leaned next to me, her attention on my face, then at her brother before she whispered in my ear. “It’s…just business, cara,” she said, shooting back another shot with Dante before refilling their glasses again.
“You have to decide, Maggie, if it’s worth the risk.”
Could I?
“Dios,” I said, not looking away when he walked to his father, kissing the man on the cheek. Then he picked Mateo up, holding my son in his arms.
The baby squealed, his face lit up like he knew exactly who Smoke was.
He patted Mateo’s back, kissing his forehead. His attention moved around the room, looking over the crowd. He nodded and returned smiles when he met welcomes and then his attention stopped right on my face when he found me.
I took three small seconds to look back at him, practically feeling that searing gaze of his, how it dipped to his brother and sister downing shots next to me, then to the full glass in my hand before I curled my fingers around the shot and threw it back, polishing it off in one swallow.
“Excellent,” Toni said, refilling my glass.
Smoke continued to watch me, his mouth twitching, eyes steady, gaze moving up my body, and I slipped my attention to his face, hoping he saw everything I felt in the look I returned.
There was a risk I was willing to take and I was sure I saw something similar in his features—something that looked a lot like intent. Despite my worry and whatever kept him away, I was ready for it. I even took a step forward, but then his attention shifted to Paris as she stood next to him. Smoke gave her a smile, too warm, too friendly for my liking. She whispered something in his ear, touching his chest while she did it. I looked away, not able to stomach seeing them standing so close together.
He glanced back at me and I felt that stare in my peripheral. It was heated, intense, but I couldn’t return it.
“Come on, Maggie,” Dante said when the plates had been cleared from the table and Mateo had given up eating in exchange for snoring right in the middle of Mr. C’s chest.
“Come on what?” I asked when he stood, holding out his hand to me.
Otis Redding sang from Mr. Carelli’s massive jukebox in the center of the dining room’s largest bay window as the youngest Carelli threw his sweetest, most alarming smile down to me. It would work on almost any woman with a pulse. The man, like both his brothers, was very handsome. He had an olive complexion and broad shoulders, having worked the past five years on his uncle’s vineyard in Pistoia. He walked with a swagger that wasn’t forced and when he winked at me, hurrying along my indecision to take him up on his offer, I had to admit to myself that Dante Carelli would likely have no problem seducing any woman in this room that wasn’t blood related to him.
Reluctantly, I let Dante lead me away from the table, not missing how he nodded to his grinning mother as we moved to the makeshift dance floor or how Smoke leaned back against his chair, his arm outstretched, his posture relaxed. But his eyes were still sharp, attentive as Dante curled his large hand against my back and took my fingers as he led us into a slow, sweet one-two-step to that sultry ballad.
The dance worked to distract me.
It helped to stave my irritation at not having a single word exchange with Smoke.
The crowd monopolized him.
His father and mother held his ear all through dinner.
Then his brothers.
Then the line of men, though not the still-recovering Dino, that had been watching the town, his family and our building, one by one, stood at Smoke’s side subtly speaking in his direction as they glanced around the room, keeping their attention alert as he asked one question after another. Occasionally, Smoke would take a drink Paris offered him, then find me in the crowd, or across the table, his stare intense, open. Once, he even stood, excusing himself, and he made his way toward me, but Dario stopped him, nodding at Luca and the three of them moved to the patio for a half an hour conversation.
Then, Mateo got sick, and I had a mess to contend with that took me away from the table, and when I returned, Paris had put herself next to Smoke at the table, despite the frown he wore.
The mood was all wrong. Awkward.
Maybe we’d spent too much time away from each other.
Maybe the long, quiet conversations on the phone gave us too much distance, too much anonymity. Now we were here, staring at each other, letting the distractions of his family and the crowd keep us from each other.
Or maybe, I’d worked up this ridiculous scenario between us in my head.
“Now, see?” Dante started, pulling my thoughts back to the music and the sway of our bodies, his hands above my waist, his voice soft and lulling as he moved us to that raspy song. “It’s not so bad, is it? Letting loose a little.”
“If you say so.” I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t keep my attention away from the table, trying to find Smoke among the crowd, beyond the chatting dancers and townsfolk that congregated over the tables.
But he wasn’t there, pretending to relax against his chair. He wasn’t next to Mrs. Phillips, the diminutive woman who owned the B&B five blocks from the park or near her cute boarder with the wire-rimmed glasses who sat across from me during dinner.
He was three couples next to me dancing with his mother, smiling and laughing as she rested her head on his shoulder. And still, Smoke managed to glance my way, his gaze shifting, dropping when his little brother moved his hand down to rest on my lower back.
“At least the tequila was good, right?” Dante asked, spinning me away from any vantage point I had of his brother, forcing my attention up at his handsome face. Otis sang on, the bridge moving to a climax and his smile broadened, becoming mildly flirty.