“So! I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think eight desserts are enough.”
Which, happily, was something else they could all agree on.
Fifty-three
After far too much pasta and wine and sorbet and cookies, they were ready to go their separate ways. Ellen and Teresa handed out hugs all around before taking off, leaving the Tarbells with Delaney.
Lillith cleared her throat. “Will you be okay, Rake?”
“At any other time, that would seem like a condescending question,” he replied. “And I don’t blame you for wondering. I’ll be fine—I’ll be with Delaney.”
“Hmmm.” From the nuclear option.
“Oh, stop it, you’ve got a dirty mind.”
“As do you, dear. But never mind. I’ll take Lillith back to the hotel and get her settled, and we’ll see you in the morning. Do not keep us waiting. This isn’t a flight you want to miss.”
“Noted.” He reached down, his daughter reached up, and they hugged.
“You’ll love America,” Mrs. Tarbell promised, taking Lillith’s hand.
“Grandma, I was born there. I actually live there. For my whole life. This was just a dangerous field trip.”
“Right, right, I keep forgetting—your Italian is so good, dear.” And they were off in a swirl of tweed and Chanel and Lillith’s fake belly, which currently held crackers and Tootsie Roll pops.
Rake spotted what he’d been looking for and tugged Delaney’s elbow. “C’mon, my treat. Well, Lillith’s. She lent me a thousand euros.”
Delaney was already rolling her eyes as they approached the dock. “So corny, Rake, c’mon—really?
“Shut up, darling. I wanna! It’s our first night on the town as a couple, dammit—”
“We’re a couple now?”
“—and we’re being romantic.”
“We are?”
“Oh, yeah. C’mon, here’s a guy ready to make our night unforgettable. O solo mioooooo…”
“Stop. Just stop.”
But he didn’t. And then he and the gondolier sang together. It was the most awful, wonderful thing ever.
* * *
Much later, naked and sweaty
(“Oh my God, how are you doing that?”
“Martial arts and yoga.”
“Liar.”
“You’re right. I’ve never done yoga.”)
she rested her head on his shoulder and tried to slow her breathing.
What is it about love and sex that can make people so completely, dangerously irrational? To take risks they’d never, ever take in their right mind?
Well, now she knew. She’d risk everything for a man she’d known a week. It was insane. Wonderful and insane.
But now what?
“You never told me where you live.” Rake’s voice rumbled out of his chest and through hers, yum. “Just that you roam the world, grabbing random pickpockets and scaring the shit out of scammers and reuniting lost children with their lost fathers.”
Well, there was the hotel in Chicago. And the condo on Cape Cod—not hers, technically, but Mr. Marsh had been in the nursing home for two years, and loved when she stayed there. And sometimes she stayed at Sofia’s apartment. But as far as a home home—
“Because I was thinking, you could move in with Lillith and me. In Vegas.” When she sat up, he added, “If you don’t like Vegas, we could live somewhere else. Anywhere. I don’t give a shit, if you’re there.”
“Live together?” she asked, astonished. “All three of us?”
“Well, yeah.” He blinked up at her. “What’d you think?”
“I haven’t even said I love you! On purpose! It just slipped out earlier.…”
“But you do.”
God, the insufferable confidence. “How do you know?” It was true, but she’d spent a lifetime not letting people see into her. She’d been taking home poker pots since she was eleven.
He sat up, kissed her. Held her hands, turned them over, kissed her palms. “It’s all right. Don’t look so scared. I love that you blurted it in front of everybody.”
“But how d’you know?”
He let go of her hands and lay back down, like he didn’t want to crowd her.
“You put yourself in danger for my sake and, more important, my daughter’s. And you hated keeping your word to my grandma, but you did it anyway, and you still managed to find ways to help me whenever you could without betraying her trust. You went way, way above and beyond the job description. And you don’t fuck for fun.”
“I don’t?”
“No.” He smiled. “And you haven’t been with anybody for a long time, and I’m enough of a pig to be glad.”
True, but…? “All right, you’re correct, you confident schmuck, but how—”
“Because you don’t know you still sleepwalk. If you were boning on the regular—”
“Good God.”
“—whoever you were with would have mentioned it to you before now.”
“I—” Sleepwalk? No. Not for years. Not since she was a little girl. Except … Rake wouldn’t lie. Not about this. “I do?”
“When you’re upset about something, you sleepwalk that night.”
“What do I do?” She was fascinated and mortified. The fact that he was acting like her nocturnal rambling was no biggie was the only thing keeping her from leaping from the bed. And possibly the window. He never said a word. Not once. He was fine with my being a freak. He likes when I’m a freak.
“You go to the window.” His hand was stroking her naked back. “You’re upset until I tell you that you’re an adult and can go wherever you want. Then you’re happy and go back to bed.”
She stared at him. “You never…”
“No.”
“But now? You’re telling me now?”
“No more secrets.”
“No more secrets,” she repeated like an idiot, and God, if that were true? That would mean everything. That would be too good to be true. But it seemed that was a Tarbell specialty: things that were too good to be true.
“So, back to why you love me,” he said calmly, like he hadn’t just blown her mind, “You did all that, why? Because you felt sorry for me? You hate pity. You went to all that trouble for a job? No. You love me. Which works out nicely,” he sighed, snuggling into her, “because I love you.”
She laid back down and put her head on his chest. Her head was spinning, and she’d think about what had just happened for a long time. Years. But for now … right now this very minute … “Say that again. I want to feel it and hear it.”
“I love you, I love you, I love you. I love Claire Delaney, I love you more than I love Peeps— Ow!” It all rumbled through him—and her!—and that wonderful deep voice filled the room. Guy could’ve been in radio, if radio were still a thing.
She rested her chin on his chest so she could look up at him. “I’ve never been to Vegas.”
“Oh, good. You’ll hate it.”