Attending a college several hours away from home had been a difficult move for him. He’d come to our family because his biological mother, Aunt Rosella, wasn’t mentally stable. Technically, he was my cousin, but in my heart he has always been my brother. I swear he’s never traveled without us because part of him feared we wouldn’t be there when he returned. That was why we’d all gone down to see the school with him—to show him that the distance wouldn’t change his place in our family.
It was also why, since then, we’d rotated visiting him with flying him home to Connecticut every other weekend. In my family, a person could wander as far as they wished as long as their ass made it back home for Sunday meals with our parents.
For Gian, the family dinner traveled.
That level of mutual support was why it was impossible to resent Sebastian for wanting full control of the family company again. He hadn’t so much as said it, yet it was not only obvious but also a good move for him. He needed the win, and despite how we ribbed each other, at the end of the day my brothers and I were all on the same team. It was time for me to bow out gracefully.
“Mom told me to remind you to see Nonna in Montalcino before you come home. Her pasta alone is worth the trip. Careful, though—the cousins will try to marry you off. They introduced me to every single woman in the town. I kept trying to explain about Heather, but my Italian isn’t very good. You’re single, though, so who knows? You might come home with a wife who cooks as good as Mom.”
I laughed at Sebastian’s words. “Tempting as that sounds, I’ll skip that trip. Wouldn’t want to accidentally end up married.”
“You might want to consider settling down. You’re not getting any younger.”
“Oh my God, you’ve been married less than a year and you already sound like Dad. Marriage isn’t for everyone.” Love? My parents, as well as Sebastian and Heather, were living proof that it was real, but I’d never even come close to being in love. I was beginning to doubt I was capable of it. That thought made me a little sad. I loved my family, and it was strange to imagine a future without one of my own—as strange as realizing I didn’t know where I belonged now.
I had been given a chance to start over after my brother’s return. I had the resources to build something on my own. Was that what I wanted? After so many years of knowing exactly what needed to be done and what role I needed to fill . . . I didn’t like how not knowing felt. “I have to go, Sebastian. I’ll text you later with my plans.”
“You haven’t taken a vacation in years, Mauricio. Enjoy Paris.”
“Will do.”
With that, we ended the phone conversation, and I stepped onto a wooden-floored pedestrian bridge, Pont des Arts: the “love lock” bridge. Plexiglass panels flanked either side in a valiant attempt to stop romantics from around the world from burdening the bridge with a metal symbol of their love. I leaned over the railing and saw a few metal locks tied to a rope near the base of the bridge.
People were idiots. How did anyone consider a lock from a hardware store romantic? Okay, I could see why men would go along with the practice, but . . .
My phone rang again.
Felix. “You’re alive,” I said with heavy sarcasm.
“Barely.” His voice was thick and slurred.
Annoyance swept through me. He sounded stoned. “Where are you?”
“At Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Sorry about our meeting, but I had an emergency surgery.”
“Surgery? Are you okay?”
“I’m better than okay. They gave me the best painkillers. I’m feeling good.”
“What the hell happened?”
His voice lowered. “Can’t tell you, but I need you to do me a favor.”
I glanced to my right and realized a backpacker was actively listening to my conversation. I walked away as I said, “Whatever you need, but what do you mean you can’t tell me?”
His voice was a loud whisper. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
I’d probably watched too much CSI, but I instantly imagined him with a bullet wound. What had Felix gotten into this time? As a rule, I stayed on the right side of the law, but for a friend in need, I’d do what had to be done.
Unless he’d done something so fucking stupid that he deserved the consequence.
“I’m not doing shit unless you’re up-front with me, Felix.”
He made a pained sound, and I felt like an ass. For all I knew he’d just received a terminal diagnosis and was fighting to sound brave.
Felix? Brave?
“I broke my dick,” he mumbled.
“You what?”
“It’s called a penile fracture.”
“How the fuck did you break your dick?” As I said the words, maybe a little too loud, I glanced around. An older couple shot each other a look. The man, in his eighties if he was a day old, cringed as his wife graciously looked away.
“How do you think? Remember I said I was working in my father’s office now? Well, a friend came to visit me. I thought I could squeeze a little fun in before my first meeting of the day. I was rushing—”
I lowered my voice. “Okay, too much information. What do you need me to do?”
“Remember I told you about Cecile?”
“The Englishwoman? I didn’t know you were still seeing her.”
“It’s on and off. When she has time off, she comes to see me. Nothing serious. But she’s staying at my apartment right now.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t go to the hospital with you.”
“She wasn’t the friend I fucked at the office.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
“And she can’t know about this. Any of this. I can’t be the man with the broken dick.”
In the scheme of things, that didn’t seem like the most important aspect of this, but no man would want that label. “How broken is it?”
“Bad enough that I had surgery, but if I take a month off from sex, I should be fine. The doctor said he has seen much worse. Sometimes they blow up like eggplants.”
“Stop. I got it.” I did not want to picture that. Ever. And now it was all I could.
“I knew something bad had happened when I heard the pop. It didn’t hurt as much as the doctor said it could have, but it was like a little deflated purple balloon.”
“Oh my God. I’ll do whatever you want if you promise to stop talking about this.”
“I’m just saying it could have been worse.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t. Now what about Cecile?”
“I’m being discharged tomorrow, and I’d like to hide out at my place. You need to get her out of my apartment. Tell her I had to leave town on business. Tell her I’ve been arrested. I don’t give a shit. Just don’t tell her where I am or what happened, and make sure she gets home safely.”
From the stories Felix had shared over the years about Cecile, that might not be easy. She owned a mirror-manufacturing company that she’d started on her own. She was a self-made millionaire and proud of it. Intelligent. Beautiful. What she saw in Felix had always been a mystery to me, but some women enjoyed the challenge of trying to change a man.