His toes brushed hers again, only this time she didn’t pull away. It felt nice, being under the covers with a man. Every time she slept with someone, they rarely made it under the covers. Sometimes they didn’t even make it to a bed.
She might have had sex more recently than him, but her sex life was still pretty empty. She’d never been good with intimacy.
Even with Finn, she had struggled with his expectations of her. Too much eye contact and emotion scared her. She didn’t know how to receive such sentiments, nor did she have a clue how to give them back. She faked feelings as much as she faked orgasms. It was a wonder why she had sex at all.
Sometimes, she supposed, it was just nice to be touched softly, to shut her eyes for a moment and pretend someone cared about her.
Maybe the rum was hitting her, or maybe it was the fact that he’d called her hot and pretty all in the last hour. Her fingers brushed across the sheet, coming into contact with Giovanni’s.
One soft swipe and he laced his fingers with hers, holding her hand as if it were something they’d done a hundred times before.
A secret smile hid in the corner of her mouth. This buried side of Giovanni reminded her of a soft teddy bear. There was something caring and gentle about him. She bet he was a total momma’s boy.
She thought about the protective way he talked about Mariella. She’d never known him to be much of a fighter, but he was passionate about those he loved.
“Are you and your sister close?”
Keeping hold of her hand, he rubbed his thumb over her knuckle. “Pretty close. I mean, we don’t see each other as much since I moved away, but we keep in touch. She calls me about twice a week.”
That was really close compared to her and Harrison.
“What about you? Do you keep in touch with your brother?”
She couldn’t recall the last time they spoke on the phone. He never called to check in. And whenever she texted him to complain about Dad, he blew her off, saying something cold that made her feel responsible.
He’s never going to change, Erin.
I thought you moved out…
Why are you still living there?
“We’ve grown apart.”
“So, who do you hang out with?”
No one… She didn’t want to talk about her miserable life because it only made her sad. “Tell me a joke.”
He laughed nervously. “Nothin’ like putting me on the spot.”
“Come on. Make me laugh. Give me some of your best material.”
“So I was with this girl the other night—”
“No, uh-uh. You already told me how long it’s been, so I know you’re making that up. Tell me something real, something funny about your actual life.”
He thought for a moment and then relaxed. “Okay, so you know how my mom’s Irish but my dad’s Italian? Well, my Nona’s right off the boat. I mean, the woman speaks in hand gestures and broken English. She doesn’t understand the concept of feeling full, so when she sees you, the first thing she does is feed you. When you clear your plate, she fills it again. It’s like sitting through an inquisition with no escape. You eventually start to feel your organs shutting down from all the processed meat, but you’re in too much of a food coma to get away. In our family, turning down an Italian woman’s cooking is a greater sin than lying to a priest.”
She giggled, finding something warm and homey about the picture he painted. “She lives with your parents?”
“Oh yeah. My mom’s pretty tough, but she’s no match for Italian Mary. When Mom married Dad, Nona said to her, ‘You might be marrying him, but I loved him first and I’m’a gonna love him last. I plan to cook for him until the day I die.’”
She laughed at the way he imitated her Italian accent. “Does she ever get upset?”
“My mom? Sure!”
“No, Italian Mary.”
“Does she?” He let out a long, low whistle. “One time, my dad told her he was going out. This was back when he was a kid. Nona told him they had plenty of food at home and he wasn’t leaving her house to go snack on some puttana. They had a big blowout on the front lawn and he left anyway, but not before Nona tossed a lit cigarette into the back seat of his 1965, blue Impala. My dad loved that car.”
“Loved?”
“The entire back seat burned to ash. It spent years in our family’s garage waiting to be fixed. It’s still there. My mom hates it, and Nona spits on the hood every time she passes it.”
She loved the dysfunction he spoke of and her stomach hurt from laughing. “Why don’t you talk about them in your standup?”
He shrugged and reached for his soda bottle. “It’s just regular family crap.”