Or possibly knowing that my mother’s sleeping naked in my room right now has already done everything my dick needs it to do.
It’s not that I don’t like my mother. It’s more that I don’t want to think of any of my relatives naked.
Ever.
I blow out another slow breath and sneak a fast glance at Henri again. “You make a living off your books?”
There’s a beat of silence before she answers, and I get the feeling I’m on the receiving end of the look I used to give people when they’d ask if you could make a living playing baseball.
You have to be the best of the best, but I knew I would be the very best of the best.
I’m not—see also, I’ve been traded by half the teams in the league, or so it feels, and I’ve never once made it to the all-star game—but I’m still damn good if I’m playing in the pros.
“I do fine, yes,” she finally says.
“My cousin Alonzo tried self-publishing while he was recovering from being Eyed. Ended up needing therapy and blood pressure medication. Said it’s not as easy as it looks.”
“Recovering from being Eyed?”
“No, writing and publishing.”
“Yes, I got that part. Live it, thanks. I know it’s not as easy as it looks. What I’m curious about is, what kind of recovery did he need after being Eyed?”
Hell. If I explain this to her, it’ll probably end up in a book. Either that, or she’ll double-down on efforts to convince Nonna we’re real, and we’ll probably end up engaged.
“Look at that. Eleven-thirty. Lights out time.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll make up my own version, and it’ll probably be better anyway.”
She stretches out next to me, and I study the outline of her profile. She’s on her back with her face tilted to the sky, where there’s not a star in sight because of all the ambient light from the city. It’s a big blanket of dark gray.
Feels wrong to go to sleep with Henri cranky.
“Probably would,” I agree softly. “Would yours involve a flaming asteroid made of toilets?”
She sniffs. “Amateur.”
Would you look at that?
I’m actually cracking up.
And not thinking about kissing her.
We’re two adults in a crappy situation making the most of it.
“I’ll get my mother a hotel room and change the locks on the house tomorrow,” I tell her.
“I can get a hotel room.”
“Not if you’re going to pretend to be my girlfriend for the rest of the season. Plus, we leave for an away series after the game tomorrow. My house will be empty.”
“Except for your Nonna.”
“I’ll take her with me.”
Fuckity fuckstrings. Where the hell did that come from?
Henri rolls to face me again. “She’ll want to watch us sext.”
“You’d rather she do that from here?”
“My entire career has prepared me for excellent sexting. But you…I know someone who can write you a sexting script, but you can’t use a script if your Nonna’s looking over your shoulder.”
“I can sext absolutely fine on my own.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be weird if I know it’s your own words.”
“It’ll be better if you know it’s my words, because then you have to learn to resist them. You don’t get to cheat, Henri. You can’t learn to not fall in love if you don’t believe it’s genuine.”
Yep.
I’m a masochistic idiot.
I’m asking Henri to sext with me.
It’s The Eye.
It’s Nonna’s Eye.
There’s no other explanation for wanting to kiss Henri and wanting to sext her, except possibly to convince myself that she’s what’s broken with my twig and berries today.
“Jerry was right. You can be a real dick.”
Hell. She probably knows what I was thinking, and she’s right. That was a dick thing to think. “Jerry’s a social-climbing tool who only wanted to be friends with me in grade school because I was the only one of the other outcasts too big for the bullies to pick on.”
She goes still.
Good.
Because I don’t talk about grade school, even if I don’t want to forget where I came from.
It’s complicated.
“How were you an outcast?” she asks softly.
I flip over to my other side, which gives me the perfect view of my shithole of a house.
“Because you were poor?” she persists, and I swear the other question is dangling there in her head. I can feel it. And how was Giovanni Rossi’s son poor? He played professional hockey. You couldn’t have been poor. Or picked on. Your dad was a star!
It’s what they all say if they get close enough.
And they all have no clue.
“Go to sleep, Henri. The world’s problems will still be there for you to solve in the morning.”
“I should know these things about you, Luca. If your grandmother can actually put The Eye on you, then this has to be as real as possible, because you can’t hide from curses.”
My pulse is suddenly soaring like a home run ball, except without the thrill that goes with knocking one out of the park.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “Because I was poor. My sperm donor shit away all of the cash he made before I was born. Everyone thinks you spend a year playing pro, you’re set for life, but you’re not. He wasn’t. And that’s what everyone I grew up with knew.”
She goes silent.
It’s worse than her talking, because silent means pity.
I don’t want pity.
I want to live my own life, on my terms, without making the same mistakes my parents made and without people who claim they only want what’s best pushing me into relationships that won’t work out.
And then I remember who I’m talking to. “Don’t,” I say shortly.
“I’m not feeling sorry for you. I’m admiring how much you’ve done and how you live your life.”
“Don’t go digging into my life. I’m not a research project and I’m not inspiration for one of your books.”
She makes a muffled squeak, and her cat replies with a half-meow from the kitchen window.
The blanket rustles as she twists on it. “Do you know what?”
“Probably not.”
“Mind-reading is a good talent to have when you’re pretending to be someone’s boyfriend. Good job, Luca. We’re going to pull this off. High five.”
I twist to look at her.
She smiles brightly in the darkness, and fuck me if her enthusiasm isn’t a shade of adorable.
“Go to sleep, Henri.”
She settles back down, but I swear I can still hear her thinking.
And I also swear it’s about me.
14
Henri
I sleep like a hunted animal in the jungle. A wounded hunted animal who knows that the next few minutes might be her last.
Or possibly I’m being melodramatic, but that’s what happens when I don’t sleep well and I’m hot and I can’t stop obsessing over Luca being poor as a kid and how it probably ties into him living in a run-down house to save money so he doesn’t end up like his dad, and thinking about his dad makes me think about both his parents, and then his mom with my ex-fiancé, and then Luca’s ex-fiancée, and I want to know why he left her.