COLD PIZZA
LIBBY
“Where did it go?” I look around the alley for the kitten, who is no longer anywhere to be found. I searched for it earlier, when Antonio showed up with the milk for it, but didn’t find it then, either.
“He’s probably hanging with all the other strays—wherever they hang out,” Antonio says from the back door of the pizzeria.
I glare at him over my shoulder, then start down the alley to see if I can spot the kitten hanging out around one of the other dumpsters.
“It’s cold, Libby. You don’t even have a coat on. Get your ass back in here.”
“I know it’s cold, Antonio. That’s why I’m trying to find the kitten. It’s a baby, and it’s freezing. It could die out here.”
“It’s not going to die.” He grabs my hand to prevent me from walking any farther down the dark alley. “We’ll leave the milk out for him. With any luck, it’ll get to it before the rats do.”
“Aren’t you just a ball of positivity?” I sigh.
He laughs as he wraps his arm around my shoulder to lead me back inside. I can’t exactly spend my night tracking down the kitten, so I reluctantly let him lead me back inside the shop.
“You can try to catch your kitten again tomorrow,” he tells me as he grabs the pizza he made for us to take to my place.
I glance at the back door, wondering if I should look one more time before we leave for the night.
“It’ll be all right,” he says, placing his fingers under my chin so I’ll focus on him. “If you don’t catch it by tomorrow, I’ll call a friend of mine who does animal control for the city and have him come out to set a trap for you.”
“Really?” I ask, swaying into him. His face softens.
“Yeah, Princess.”
“Thank you.”
He touches his lips to my forehead, then lets my chin go.
“Come on. Let’s get our coats and go to your place.”
He places a hand on the small of my back and starts leading me toward the office.
Nervous butterflies fill my stomach as I put on my coat and grab my bag. I didn’t really have time to think about being alone with Antonio in my apartment earlier because of the distraction of work, the kitten, and then trying to come up with a way to tell Antonio about the shop. Now, with Antonio putting down the shutters and my place only a couple of blocks away, my mind is suddenly consumed by what could happen—and what I want to happen. I don’t know that I’m ready to have sex, but I’m for sure ready to spend a lot of time making out with him.
“How are your sisters?” he asks, breaking into my thoughts as we walk toward my apartment hand in hand.
“They’re good. Both of them have been pretty busy, so I haven’t seen either of them for a while.” I admit to myself that I’m a little upset about that.
“You guys are close, right?”
“There was a time when we were inseparable, but now I’m lucky to hear from them every other day,” I say, knowing that I probably sound bitter. “Don’t think I’m not happy for them—I am. I wish we could spend some time together.”
“Maybe you should make plans with them,” he says, giving my fingers a squeeze.
I shrug. “Maybe, but now that Fawn is married, I doubt she’ll want to go out at night. And now that Mac is pregnant, I doubt she’d be up to going.”
“What about lunch?”
“Maybe. Between my work most days at the salon, working on Designer Closet, and helping out at the pizzeria, my schedule is also kind of crazy right now.”
“Designer Closet?” he asks.
I pause to glance at him, realizing that I’ve never told him about my side business.
“I rent items from other people’s closets.”
“You rent items out of people’s closets?” he repeats.
I smile. He has the same look on his face that my dad had when I told him about my idea.
“Yeah. A designer dress can go for thousands of dollars, and most people can’t afford to spend that kind of money on a dress they’ll only wear once. That’s where I come in. Let’s say you have a ball to go to. You tell me your size, the kind of dress you’re looking for, and I will hook you up. You pay a fee to me, and I give a percentage to the owner of the dress.”
“Wow.” He looks impressed, and I grin at him. “If you’re too busy, you could always have your sisters stop by the shop. I’ll make you guys a pizza. You can spend some time with them there.”
“If Mac even catches a whiff of pizza, she’ll be ready to puke, so I don’t think that would go over too great with the other customers. But that’s sweet of you to offer,” I tell him as we head upstairs to my apartment. “Maybe I’ll see if they want to catch a movie one day next week.”
I let us into my place and turn on the light.
“My parents and I really appreciate you being at the shop and helping out, Princess, but the place won’t fall apart if you don’t come in every day,” he tells me as he sets down the pizza on the counter in the kitchen.
I take off my coat.
“I know . . . ,” I agree, turning away from him and thinking that this would be the perfect opening conversation for me to tell him why I’ve been working there so much.
“Fuck. If I didn’t have to be there, I wouldn’t be.”
At his words, my stomach knots. I start to open my mouth, but before I can, his big body is in front of mine. When I see the heat in his eyes, that knot in my stomach shifts to tingles dancing between my legs.
“I need to tell you something,” I say as he starts to shuffle me back toward the couch with his hands on my hips.
“Tell me.”
“The pizzeria. I—”
“We’re not talking about the pizzeria.” He cuts me off as my knees hit the couch cushions.
“Antonio.” I try again as he pushes me back.
I go down on the couch with him on top of me.
“We’re not talking about the pizzeria,” he repeats.
I stare into his eyes, then I watch his eyes drop to my mouth and darken.
“Okay, we won’t talk about it.”
He grins at me, sliding the back of his fingers along my cheek and into my hair.
“Been dying to get my mouth on yours all evening,” he says right before he crushes his mouth to mine, making me forget about everything but him.
I lose myself in his kiss and his touch. I soak in every single detail in an attempt to memorize it, not wanting to forget any part. When he pulls his mouth away, I keep my eyes closed and pant while he does the same.
“You’re really good at kissing,” I blurt, then groan when I feel his body start to shake on top of mine with silent laughter. “Gahh. I think you short-circuit my brain. I can’t seem to stop myself from telling you things I shouldn’t be telling you.”
“I like it,” he says teasingly.
I open my eyes to look up at him.
“It’s refreshing.”
“It’s also embarrassing.”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Princess. I prefer you being overly honest to keeping shit from me.”
My heart thumps hard. I open my mouth once more to tell him about the shop, then snap it closed when the next words leave his mouth.
“Now tell me—why are you on birth control?”
“I thought you forgot about that.”
“How would I forget about it? We just spoke about it this evening.” He frowns.
“Okay. Well, then, I thought you were going to let it go,” I try.
He shakes his head. “I did let it go while we were at the shop. But we’re not at the shop anymore.”
“I’m hungry,” I try again as I push at his chest to get him to move off me.
“You can eat in a minute.” He denies me.
“I need to pee.”
“You can pee in a minute,” he says, wrapping his hands around my wrists and pulling them away from his chest, where I’m shoving uselessly.
“I can’t wait to pee. I have a weak bladder,” I lie.
He sits back slightly.
“Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
“If this is heading where I know it’s heading, Libby, it’s gonna be my business.”
“Oh my god. You’re so annoying. Get off me.” I buck up against him, but he still doesn’t move.
“Tell me what I want to know, and I will,” he says.
My temper flares. “Fine,” I huff, glaring at him. “My periods make me sick. That is, they used to until I got on birth control to regulate them. I would miss at least one day of work a month because I couldn’t get out of bed the first day of my cycle. Now if I take a couple Advil and have a warm bath, that is usually enough to ease the pain,” I finish. Then I ask snidely, “Are you happy now?”
“I’m not happy that you’re in so much pain that you gotta miss work, but I’m happy to know so that if something like that happens, I can help you out,” he says softly, running his fingers through my hair. “Don’t be pissed at me for asking.”
“I’m not pissed,” I lie.
“I want to know everything about you, Libby. And I mean everything,” he says, his voice tender.
“Do you think maybe we can start talking about that kind of stuff on . . . say . . . date number twelve?”
“No.” He shakes his head, and I return to glaring at him.
“You know, you are seriously annoying.”
“You’ve mentioned that before, Princess.”
“Well, I don’t want you to forget that, so I’ll tell you again. You are annoying—seriously annoying.”
“But you like me.”
“I’m not sure about that anymore.”
“Really?” He raises a brow. “Your tongue in my mouth and those sweet little sounds you were making a few minutes ago say differently.”
“That was a few minutes ago.”
“So if I kiss you now, you won’t kiss me back?”
He grins, then lowers his mouth to mine, nipping my bottom lip.
“Kiss me,” he coaxes, kissing my upper and then bottom lip before nibbling on them.
“No.” I try not to give in. I really, really do. But when his hand moves up my side and his thumb sweeps under my breast, I lose all rational thought, open my mouth, and kiss him back.
“We need to stop,” he says, pulling his mouth from mine sometime later.
Once more, it takes a few seconds for me to get my eyes to open. I shift under him, feeling the hard outline of his cock through his jeans and mine. I shiver.
“Yeah, we really need to stop,” he mutters. But instead of stopping, he kisses me once more. This means by the time we do stop making out on my couch, we end up eating really cold pizza.
Still, I’m pretty sure it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had.
“Libby Reed, answer this door right now.”
I force one eye open, then the other. I look at the clock next to my bed. Eight. Way too early to be up when I didn’t get to sleep until after two, when Antonio left.
“Libby!” Miss Ina shouts once more, knocking—no, not knocking—pounding on the door.
“Go away,” I groan, putting my pillow over my head in an attempt to drown her out.
“Answer this door,” she shouts back, banging even more and using a hard object to do it.
Since I know she won’t go away until I get up, I toss back the covers, roll out of bed, and stomp toward the door.
“Miss Ina, it’s only eight in the morning,” I snap as soon as I swing the door open. I find her with a cane in the air, ready to start pounding again.
“I know what time it is, child.” She shoves past me into my apartment. “I waited until seven fifty-five to come up here because I knew it would take me a good five minutes to make it up the darn stairs to your door.”
“You could have called me. I would have come down to you,” I tell her, scrubbing my hands down my tired face.
“You would have ignored your phone until you finally got your behind out of bed.”
She had me there—I would have.
“Okay, so what’s so urgent?”
She narrows her eyes at me.
“Did that Antonio fellow come home with you last night and leave early this morning?” she asks.
“Since you know he was here last night and you were obviously spying on us, you know the answer to that question, Miss Ina.” I sigh, moving toward the kitchen. I’ll need coffee if I’m going to deal with her.
“I wasn’t spying. I can hear everything that happens in this building—even the things I don’t want to hear. Now answer my question.”
“If I do, will you go away so I can get back to sleep?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so,” I mutter to myself, filling the coffeepot with water.
“You don’t need to make coffee. We’re going to have breakfast together after you tell me what happened last night.”
“What?” I frown, my brain too tired to deal with her right now.
“I got breakfast in the oven downstairs. I made a casserole.”
Oh lord. Why-oh-why did Mac befriend her, and why-oh-why did I think it was a good idea to do the same?
“Now tell me.”
“Antonio came over last night.”
“I know that part. Now tell me what happened,” she snaps.
“We had pizza and watched a movie,” I say, leaving out the fact that neither of us really watched the movie because our faces were glued together through most of it.
“That’s all you did? Just watched a movie?”
“Yes, it was all very PG. Our clothes even stayed on the entire time.”
It’s a half truth, since I did lose my shirt at some point . . . but I kept my bra on.
“Hmm.” She stares at me, and I stare back into her dark, almost-black eyes. I wonder if she can actually read what’s written on my soul. “Good.” She approves of whatever she sees. “Now put on some clothes and help me down the stairs. And hurry up about it. I’m hungry. I’ve been waiting forever on you to eat.”
“You could have eaten without me,” I inform her, leaving out the fact that since I didn’t know we were going to be eating together this morning, it’s not my fault she had to wait. “Never mind, I’ll hurry.” I hold up my hand when I see her eyes turn squinty; then I let out an exaggerated sigh. I leave the coffeepot as is and head for my bedroom.
I brush my teeth, wash my face, then put on a pair of sweats, a bra, and a hoodie. I shove my feet into a pair of slippers. Once I’m ready, I find Miss Ina sitting on the couch. She looks at me like I’ve made her wait a year rather than the maybe five minutes it took me to get dressed.
“Come on, old woman.” I help her up from the couch, then down the stairs to her apartment. When we get inside, the smell of food makes my stomach growl. I smile at the table. “Did you mistakenly invite me instead of the queen?” I ask as she goes into the kitchen.
“No.” She rolls her eyes at me, and I fight back a laugh. The table is set with fancy silverware, beautiful china, crystal cups filled with orange juice, and a gorgeous teapot with matching teacups.
“Sit down,” she orders, bringing a casserole dish to the table and placing it on a trivet. She lifts the lid on another dish, and I see that she made toast.
“I’m starting to think you might like me, Miss Ina,” I tell her as she takes two pieces of toast and places them on the plate in front of me.
“Don’t get too excited. I promised your mom I’d find out what’s going on with you and that boy. She said you’re not telling her anything.”
“You’re bribing me with breakfast to get information for my mom?”
“She’s worried about you,” she grumbles, dishing out a large spoonful of cheesy potato, egg, and ham casserole onto my plate.
“I’m not telling her what’s going on because, as of right now, there is nothing to tell.”
“That boy leaving your place in the middle of the night says differently.”
“We just watched a movie.” I sigh.
“You said that already. Are you seeing him again?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Today.”
I shrug. We both work tonight, so he’s asked me to come over to his place when we get off. I’m excited to see it—and even more excited to spend more time with him.
“This will be three dates in a row. I think that means you have news for your mom, don’t you?”
“No,” I answer, taking a bite of the casserole. “This is delicious, by the way.”
“I know it is. I made it.”
I smile around another forkful.
“How many times do you need to see this boy before you talk to your mom about him?”
“I don’t know. Probably a million.” I shrug, and she shakes her head. “Miss Ina, we’re just getting to know each other. I don’t want to talk to my mom about him until I feel more solid in what’s happening between him and me.”
“I don’t understand you kids these days.”
“Neither do I,” I agree, picking up the glass of orange juice and taking a sip.
“Do you like him?” she prods after a few minutes of silence.
My stomach drops. I do like him—probably more than I should at this point. I’m also scared out of my mind.
“Well . . . ?” she prompts.
“I do like him.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“I’ve had a crush on him for a long time.”
“Your mom mentioned that.” I’m sure my mom filled Miss Ina in on a lot of stuff when she was here for dinner the other night.
“I’m sure he’s known that . . . Everyone else apparently did,” I tell her, looking at my plate while pushing my food around. “And now, suddenly, he wants to spend time with me and is telling me he likes me. I just don’t know if I’m ready to believe him.”
“That’s probably smart,” she says softly. I lift my eyes to her. “It’s probably smart to take things slow. If he really does like you, he’ll wait for you to figure out your feelings.”
“I hope so.”
“If he doesn’t, it’s his loss. Not yours.”
I’m not sure she’s right. Now that I know how sweet Antonio can be, I’m starting to think it would totally be my loss.