“I did.”
“Then why the glum expression? You look like someone melted your Glock and transformed the metal into a knife to stab you with.”
Ah, Sandro. Such a delightfully debauched sense of humor.
“I’m not wearing a glum expression.” Denial didn’t have to just be a river in Egypt.
“Bro,” Gabriel chimed in next, reminding me more of a mother hen than our half-brother. “You hurting again?”
“No. Christ, can’t a man eat in peace around here?”
“But you’re not eating,” Alessandro pointed out.
“Maybe I’m not hungry.”
“You?” Sandro went on, his tone so full of sarcasm I wondered if he was channeling Dr. Perry Cox from Scrubs. “You’ve always eaten more than the three of us. Often combined.”
Yes, but that had been back when I’d been building muscle and lifting weights every day. Which had been nearly a year ago now.
“Something’s not okay with you,” Gabriel continued. “You seem… depressed.”
“He needs a woman,” Alessandro concluded, rolling his last bite of pasta around his fork and tossing it into his mouth.
“I don’t need a woman,” I objected vehemently. My voice must’ve carried further than I realized because everyone paused to gape openly at me. Even Anna’s big blue eyes turned in my direction.
Having had enough of family bonding time, I stood, threw my napkin on my still full plate, and marched out of the room.
An hour later, I’d worked up a nice sweat on the treadmill in the gym. It might not be the exercise I most preferred, but maybe it’d wear me out. I needed to be worn out. I needed to get out of my own damn head.
I felt stressed and all my usual methods of relieving that stress had either become unavailable or no longer appealed to me. I’d been warned that hefting barbells over my head liked it used to would be unwise until my back and shoulders had fully healed, so that was out. In fact, my surgeons had forbidden any type of upper body workouts for now.
Finding some random chick and pounding out my problems doing some bare-assed bedroom gymnastics would’ve been another alternative. But pursuing a flavor of the night would probably mean explaining either why I wasn’t removing my shirt or all about the fire, and I didn’t want to go there. In fact, I was really and truly sick of going there.
It had pretty much taken over my life for months and months.
And even if hooking up with some random woman might not have had so many uncomfortable strings attached, I’d begun to come to a dreadful conclusion. I didn’t want that. Not anymore. What I wanted was Kelly.
Which would be an immensely bad idea in more ways than one.
I increased the incline on the machine to the steepest grade possible and kept running. Sweat poured off me and my breathing had become straight up huffing and puffing, but I didn’t stop. I pushed the muscles of my legs so hard that they were screaming, and only when I couldn’t take a second more did I slow down, fearful my lungs would collapse.
“There are faster and less exhausting ways to kill yourself, you know,” came a voice, and I pivoted around to spot Luca entering through the doorway.
Glancing at my watch so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact, I took a moment to regain my breath. It was late, yet my brother wasn’t with his wife. “Trouble in paradise?”
In the past such a jibe might’ve goaded Luca into some sort of comeback, either verbal or physical, but this time, he simply smiled. “Thankfully, no, knock on wood. They’re all asleep, and I wanted to check on you.”
I scowled at him, so almightily frustrated by his ridiculous solicitousness. His and everyone else’s. “I really wish everybody would start minding their own goddamn business.” Again, he gave me nothing, no biting words, no push, no resistance. And that felt far worse than if he had. “Can’t you leave me alone? Don’t you already have everything you ever wished for?”
His smile vanished, but he didn’t look angry. Instead his next words caught me totally off guard. “You’re doing well with that restaurant venture of yours. It’s been a gigantic help overall.” He was complimenting me? What the hell? “And I do have a lot of what I’ve wished for, thanks to you.” I stared at him, speechless. “You saved my life, Marco, and I appreciate it more than I can say.”
I shook my head dismissively. Of course, I saved him. It was my duty to do so.
“You almost died doing it,” Luca went on, his tone deadly serious. “And you’ve suffered horribly because of it. I’m sorry for that. Very sorry.” His words had grown softer and softer as he spoke, so that by the end, they were almost inaudible. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get my chance to repay the debt, but if you ever need anything of me, anything, it’s yours.”
I could tell he meant it. Every word. But Varassos didn’t do this sort of thing, this sort of heart-to-heart lay-everything-on-the-line conversation. We didn’t get touchy feely. We didn’t get all mushy and hug it out. Generally, we screamed one another stupid and often upped the ante by then kicking each other’s asses.
So this was a new one on me.