She barked out a laugh, hugging me tight, kissing my forehead. “You know it. I’m your big sister. I’ll always take care of you.”
“By two weeks, Kee!”
“Italy. My Sis is getting married in Italy!”
I got the feeling our wedding was going to be considered big news at this party. That put me on edge. I wasn’t sure how Harrison was going to react. After learning about his feelings for me…I hoped my marrying Capo wouldn’t make things awkward between us.
Capo had agreed that I could tell Keely early, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to react to Harrison. I kept thinking about how he’d said, no one touches my wife but me. It was intense. Possessive. From the tone of his voice alone, he still ran with wolves. It was as clear as the tattoo on his hand.
“You dropped out of college.”
Those five words pulled me out of the nervous fog I was in.
“How—” I went to ask how he knew that, but I stopped myself. When he said he knew everything, he did. “Yeah. It didn’t work out.”
We were still holding hands, and as lost as I was in my thoughts, I realized that he used his thumb to make a soft pattern on my skin. He was making a ‘C.’ He held my hand a lot out in public, the only intimacy between us since our night in The Club, but he only made the ‘C’ pattern while we were in the car. It helped, especially when I realized how close we were to arriving.
“Work got in the way and then you were fired.”
“That about sums it up.”
“You should rethink going back. You’ll have the free time, when you’re not busy with me. Rocco suggested law.”
“Law?” I laughed, but he gave me a serious look, so I changed gears. “Why law?”
“He was impressed with the way you handled yourself during our meeting. You stood up for yourself. You were willing to bend on the terms you didn’t feel were all that important, but the ones you did—” he shrugged “—you took your gloves off and fought barehanded. You’re an excellent negotiator, Mariposa.”
They were impressed that I stood up to them. It didn’t seem like a lot of people did that. Men or women. I had nothing to lose when I went into that office, and once I found out that Capo was interested in me, I had something to bargain with. I think he knew that. I think he wanted that from me. Which made me respect him even more. He knew I was going in with nothing but a bag full of old memories, a journal, and stale bread. He gave me a bargaining chip. Me.
“I’ll consider it.” Law had never even crossed my mind. It seemed too unattainable, something only rich people with connections succeeded at. Maybe I’d ask Harrison about his feelings on the matter… The thought of Harrison made my palms sweat, so I changed the subject. “Were you going to pick Sierra?”
“What made you think of her?”
I shrugged, trying not to fiddle. “Rocco. The arrangement. It popped in my head.”
We drove on for about five minutes before he answered. “She was one of my top choices.”
“Because she was beautiful?”
“No, because she was one of the hungriest.”
Ah. It was like that. She was both literally and figuratively starving. He was looking for the hungriest of the bunch, a woman that would fall into the dizzying spell of his magnetic force. He had everything a girl could ever want. Looks. Charm. Money. And he carried a strong sense of I’ll always take care of you if I call you mine. Throw in a girl like Sierra, like me, and loyalty to someone like him would be high. We rarely got chances like him.
“Did…a connection have anything to do with it?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘connection.’ If you mean sexually compatible, a strong physical attraction, yes.”
My cheeks heated, and not from embarrassment. I was a little jealous that he felt that way about Sierra. Sexually attracted to her. I wondered if they had sex, since she worked at his club, but I didn’t want to bring that up either. “Were you going to give her this ring, if you chose her?” I lifted it up and he gave it a sideways glance.
“No.”
He smoothly changed lanes and left it at that. I stared at him, hoping he would give me a little more, but it seemed like he had closed down. I sighed, turning to face the window. The world passed by in a blur. We were going too fast for me to catch up.
The quiet in the car was suddenly killing me. I leaned forward, and for the first time, fiddled with some buttons. I could tell Capo watched me from the side, underneath his glasses, but he didn’t say anything. Finally, I found the stereo. I grinned when I heard the last music he had been listening to. I kept pressing the forward arrow to see what he had on his playlist.
Bee Gees. 2Pac. Andrea Bocelli. White Snake. Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs. Staind. Seven Mary Three. Frank Sinatra. Nazareth. His fancy car displayed the artist’s names and their songs. I had no idea who most of them were, but they were all so different. His music tastes gave me no further insight into who he was. He is a man of extreme mystery, I thought sarcastically. And the rest of his list continued in this genre mishmash fashion.
“You’re laughing at me,” he said. “At my music.”
I laughed even louder, and then pinched my fingers, leaving a small gap between. “A little.”
“You have a warped sense of humor.” He shook his head. “And a wild laugh to go along with it.”
“What’s a wild laugh?”
“Some people cage it up, train it to be what they want it to be, a quiet animal. Some people fake it, hiding the fact that they have nothing to really laugh about. You do neither.”
I continued to laugh, turning on the radio instead of his old man music. He was going to be forty-years old in August, compared to my twenty-two in October. Even though there was an eighteen-year age gap, my time on the streets had aged me. I felt we were close to even on that.
Then a popular pop song came on and the gap widened some. It made me think of Keely and what she had told me about Capo and his family supplying enough creative inspiration for endless songs.
“You can’t be serious.” He glanced at the radio like it had done something offensive to him. “You’d prefer this chick to Bocelli?”
“Me? Not serious? How could this have happened?” I pretended to pass out against the door, pressing a hand to my forehead. “I’ve got the vapors! Help me, handsome sir!”
“This is what happens when your brain has been on this kind of music for too long. You. You should be the poster child for kids who listen to this.” He switched the music to Bocelli, some real romantic Italian ballad.
I switched it back, feeling lighter than I had all day. Actually, I felt lighter than I had in years. “We’ve listened to your music. Let me listen to mine for a while. And I disagree. I love her music. This is her new stuff. It’s beautiful. Especially this song. Listen.”
My laugh threatened to burst from the cage I’d pushed it into. He was seriously listening to the song, and when he became serious, his thick eyebrows drew down and his lips became severe.
“You have a friend,” he said when the song was close to ending.
“I do,” I said. “But did you really listen? First she mentions a childish kind of love, then a love that takes place while they’re growing up, and then they get married. It is nice to have a best friend, but when your best friend is also your lover, it completes things. I would think, anyway.”