I waited for Kaitlyn until I couldn’t fight back sleep. I sent her a message before I left for work but it’s almost noon and I haven’t heard from her. She stood me up. The thought of it makes me laugh at first. It’s not like we had a date. Did we? No, of course not. Then why do I feel like shit?

The ring coming from my phone has me bolting to grab it but disappointment takes over when I see my sister’s name on the screen.

“Hey Gabs,” I try to sound cheerful. “What’s up?”

“Hey you, just making sure you’re still breathing. I haven’t heard from you in a while,” she says with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“Come on, Gabriella, it’s been what? Two weeks since we last spoke?” Sometimes big families could be a pain, no, scratch that, make it Italian families.

Since I moved to L.A. two years ago, my family has been relentless on keeping tabs about everything going on in my life. Especially my three sisters. They’re great but I wish they would trust me and let me do my thing for once. It’s not easy being ‘the sandwich’ as I refer to myself. With two older sisters and a baby one, you would think being their only brother would make them have some respect for my privacy.

“Two weeks, three days,” Gabriella rectifies. “You should be thanking me, I managed to keep Teresa from flying over there...barely.” She adds.

“Fuck, please tell her everything’s fine and not to come here.” Teresa, my oldest sister is a pain in the butt. Being like a second mother to all of us, she takes the role pretty seriously, hell, she smothers us worse than our own mother.

“I can’t make any promises, unless you assure me that you’re still coming for our Nonna’s birthday next week.”

“Yes, yes,” I run my hand through my hair in annoyance, “I told you I was going to be there, I’ll have all my things sorted this week. I already talked to Chrissy and she’s going to help me out.” I always hated having to ask Chrissy for help, but if I didn’t make the trip to New York for my Nonna’s birthday, I knew I would have the whole DeLuca clan at my doorstep, and I couldn’t bear that.

“Are you coming alone?” Gabriella asks, curiosity spilling into her tone.

“Yes,” I answer. Knowing where this is going, I continue. “Who would I bring to Nonna’s birthday? Muffin?” Muffin is my labrador puppy, don’t ask.

Gabriella laughs, and I pull the phone away from my ear. I put on the speaker mode before she leaves me deaf.

“I’m sorry,” she says while trying to contain her laughing fit. “It’s just that I can imagine how manly you must look when you take him to the dog park and call after him.”

“Hey, he’s a real chick magnet, puppies and hot guys make panties drop.” I say trying to hide that it’s really fucked up to have a pup named Muffin around my friends.

“Ew, you’re so gross sometimes,” She says with a gagging sound. “I was thinking that maybe you were going to bring a friend, a lady friend, perhaps?”

“Gabs,” I warn, using my work voice.

“Leo,” she returns echoing my tone. Of course my work voice doesn’t affect my baby sister. “You know our parents are worried about you being alone over there. Mamma says you’re getting old and you should think about a family of your own.”

“Christ, thanks Gabs,” I mock.

“Leo, I’m serious,” she sighs. “When was the last time you had a date?”

“Gabs, don’t even go there. I’m perfectly fine, I’m not alone and I already have a family,” I sigh too before finishing, “You know that.”

She goes silent for a few minutes.

“He’d be so proud of you.” I can hear her voice shaking a little so I try to lighten the mood.

“Actually,” I tease, “I met someone a few weeks ago.”

“You did? Tell me all about it,” she says excitedly. Mission accomplished.

“Don’t laugh okay?” I warn before continuing, “I met her on Facebook. Her name is Kaitlyn and she’s gorgeous.”

“Oh. My. God.,” she shrieks, “What does she look like? Have you met her in person yet? Did you go on a date already? Is that the reason why you were MIA?”

“Whoa,” I laugh. “Those are a lot of questions and I really have to get back to work, can we talk about this when I get to New York?”

“Noooo!” she yells, “You can’t leave me like this. I want to know.”

“See you next week, Gabs.” I hear her shouting as I end the call. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I know by now; Teresa and Elisa will be hearing all about Kaitlyn.

* * *

Four o’clock and still no word from Kaitlyn. Needing to clear my head, I put on my workout shorts, grab my iPod and go to the park for a run.

With Kings of Leon blasting through my headphones, I push harder to beat my record time. The ache in my muscles feels fucking great, but my mind keeps going over the last conversation with Kaitlyn. She seemed okay and eager to talk to me. I can’t put my finger on what went wrong and it’s fucking with my head.

Then the thought hits me like a wrecking ball. What if she got hurt? What if she was in an accident? What if she ended up in the hospital and she’s on life support? Fuck. Hey, it could happen and I would never know.

As Kings of Leon finishes and ‘Goodbyes’ by 3 Doors Down starts, I stop on my tracks. Is this a sign, God?

I try to shake the thought from my mind. It’s funny how in such short span of time I’ve grown to care for Kaitlyn. We’ve never seen each other, fuck, I haven’t even heard her voice yet, but here I am worried sick about her.

I decide to end my workout early and head home. I still need to prepare dinner and maybe I could message Brooke and find out if Kaitlyn needs an organ donor.

* * *

My phone buzzes and I smile at the sight of Kaitlyn’s name on my screen. She wasn’t on life support after all and she just PMed me.

Kaitlyn: Hey Leo, I’m sorry for not messaging sooner, I had some things to sort out.

She sounds so serious, not her usual self. Shit, maybe I should ask her if she had an accident.

Leo: Hey, I was worried. Everything okay?

Kaitlyn: Everything is good now, you shouldn’t be worrying about me.

Leo: Well, we’ve become friends, haven’t we? And that’s what friends do.

She reads the message but doesn’t reply. Something is off. I’m about to type when my phone starts to ring indicating a messenger call. I hesitate for a second but then snap out of it and answer.

“Hi.” Kaitlyn says in a soft voice. “I hope you don’t mind but I wanted to hear your voice.”

I’m speechless. Her voice is sexy as hell.

“Leo, you there?” Shit. pull it together, man.

“Hey,” trying to play it cool, I drop my voice an octave, “It’s so nice to finally hear your voice.”

Kaitlyn starts to laugh and my cock goes rock hard in a heartbeat. Fuuuck, her laugh does crazy things to my body.

“Are you trying to seduce me with your voice?” she asks, and I laugh because I’m so busted.

“Is it working?” I ask.

“Nope,” she giggles.

“Well, damn. I’m losing my touch.”

“You do have a hot voice, though,” she says a little breathless.

“And yours is sexy as fuck.”

“Thank you.” Kaitlyn whispers and I picture her blushing.

“I’m sorry, it just took me by surprise. I didn’t imagine that you’d sound like you do.”

She laughs, “Well, what were you expecting? That I was actually a man?”

“Well, these days, you never know,” I reply and join in with her laughing.

“So, now that we both confirmed each other’s gender, what’s next?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“Maybe we can play the 20 questions game,” I offer.

“Sounds good to me. You first.”

“What are you wearing?” I ask and smile as I get rewarded by her sweet laughter.

An hour later we’re still talking and I’m feeling great. After the first round of questions, the conversation flowed with ease allowing us to get to know each other a little more. Now I know her favorite food is cereal, purple is her favorite color and that she hates spiders.

“Kaitlyn, I have to go. I don’t want to but I have some things to take care of before going to bed.”

“Oh shite, I didn’t notice it was so late for you. I’m sorry for keeping you..”

“Don’t,” I cut her mid sentence, “This has been great, I love talking to you and if I didn’t have to go, I would keep going all night.”

She laughs, “I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

“Maybe we should find out,” I flirt.

“Maybe,” she giggles.

I really don’t want to hang up, I want to talk more, get to know her more. “Listen, I have a really busy week and I won’t be able to get online much.”

“Oh,” she says softly.

“But, what do you say if we chat on Thursday?” I ask eagerly for her to say yes.

She sighs, “Well well, Mr. DeLuca. Are you asking me on a cyber date?”

I laugh at the term, but fuck it, it is what it is. “Yes, are you game?”

“It’s a date,” she answers quickly.

“Until Thursday then. Good luck at work,” I hesitate before saying what I really want to say. Fuck it. “Think of me, Tesoro.”

“And don’t you forget about me.”

“After hearing your voice,” I answer almost breathless, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.”