La Famiglia Read online

  “Makes sense. The Shelby definitely has a rumble.” Forrester snorted a laugh, tucked his phone away, but it buzzed again. He glanced at it and rolled his eyes. “Joey.”

  “You’re a popular guy,” Kyle observed. “Maybe you should tell them they’re interrupting a first date.”

  “Uh, no,” Forrester laughed. “If I do that, then it’ll be all: Who is she? Do I know her? What’s her name? How did you meet her?”

  Kyle would have laughed at the way Forrester mimicked a variety of voices both male and female if he hadn’t picked up on the key word he’d said.

  “Her?”

  Downing some pop in an awkward gulp, Forrester looked away.

  Kyle pursed his lips. “You’re not out.”

  “Not really.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I haven’t told my family, just my friends.”

  When Kyle had arrived in Shiloh, he’d made the firm decision to be completely open and honest about his sexuality. The only way he had been able to climb out of the depression he’d fallen into after his mother’s death was to be proud of who he was. He wondered what had kept Forrester in the closet so long.

  Forrester must’ve taken his silence as disapproval. “This is how I see it. Everything has its proper place. I like my privacy, so I keep this part of my life separate from the part with my family. It’s just like my bookstore. You don’t go putting romance novels in with the home-and-garden. You don’t put mystery with sci-fi, ya know?”

  “You can’t organize your life like the Dewey Decimal System.”

  Forrester said nothing, and Kyle realized he might have crossed a line. They’d been flirting for a while, but in reality, they didn’t know much about each other. “I know we just started whatever this is between us, but can I say something? One gay man to another?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Being gay is not about who you have sex with. It’s who we are. You can’t expect to be happy if you hide who you are from people you care about. The sneaking, the lying, it all catches up to you. No matter how hard you try, fate eventually outs you. You really think I wanted my high school principal to call my mom and tell her I was giving Samuel a blowie under the bleachers?”

  Forrester’s mouth dropped open. “Shut up.”

  He widened his eyes for emphasis. “Most humiliating moment of my life and not at all how I’d planned to come out. My mom cried at first. Said she worried being gay would just make my life even harder than it already was. I didn’t talk to her for weeks. I was so mad and embarrassed. It’s easy to tune someone out when you can literally turn your ears off. I refused to wear my processor and closed my eyes every time she tried to talk to me.”

  “Wow, that’s harsh.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Guilt twanged his heart, thinking back on what a jerk he’d been. “But I was so hurt. I thought she didn’t love me anymore. That she saw me as one big mistake, broken in every way.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Forrester gripped Kyle’s hand.

  He squeezed it back and forced a smile. “But then one day she wrote me a letter, explaining what she meant. That she didn’t think I was broken, but she worried other people might treat me that way. She just wanted to protect me. We made up, and in the end, we had a few great years of honesty before she died. You owe it to yourself and your family to have that kind of honesty in your life. Every time I remember how embarrassed and mad I was, I’m also grateful. What if I’d never told her? What then?”

  Before Forrester could say anything, Vivian returned with their check. Forrester flinched and snatched his hand back, much to Kyle’s disappointment.

  Vivian didn’t seem to notice. “Just to let you boys know, I’m bartending over at the Six-Shooter.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I’ll be scooting out of here in about five minutes.”

  After a little playful bickering over who would pick up the tab, Kyle gave in and let Forrester pay. It felt nice, being on a date with a guy who had no idea Kyle was worth several million. The sad perk of well-insured, wealthy older parents dying too young.

  “What do you want to do now?” Forrester asked as they waited for Vivian to return with a receipt to sign and his debit card.

  “What were your plans?” Kyle asked awkwardly, not wanting the date to end.

  “I was gonna sleep in my store.”

  “On that futon?” Kyle made a face. Impulsively he added, “You can sleep at my house.”

  Forrester chuckled. “I doubt I’d be getting any sleeping done.”

  “Sure you would. My couch is very comfortable.”

  “Couch?” He glanced toward Vivian, then back to Kyle, mouthing the words, “If you need to wait and I’m moving too fast, that’s okay. I can just go home.”

  A twinge of happiness tugged at Kyle’s heart at Forrester’s thoughtfulness. Kyle’s past left him guarded, and with good reason, but he refused to let it keep holding him back.

  John would not steal another moment of Kyle’s happiness.

  The connection with Forrester was more than casual chitchat in the bookstore. He was crazy about Forrester, had been for a while. And it had been far too long since Kyle made love. He wanted—no, he needed the touch of a man.

  And he wanted that man to be Forrester.

  Smiling, Kyle reached across the table and stroked Forrester’s hand. “I’d like for you to come over but not to sleep on my couch.”

  “You sure?”

  He sat back and nodded, his breath coming short.

  Forrester licked his lips, and his eyes got heavy with lust. “How about you drop me off at the bookstore first?”

  “What for?”

  “So I can get that book we left behind.”

  Chapter Five

  KEEPING DRY remained hopeless, so Forrester hunched his shoulders and braced himself as he ran from Kyle’s car to the stoop of his bookstore and the shelter of the overhang. After swapping phone numbers, Kyle had given him his address, so they’d decided it would be easier if Forrester just drove himself over so he’d have his truck. Not bothering with the main light, he locked up and headed straight to the register.

  Visitor in the Wood was right where he’d left it.

  Grinning and eager to get over to Kyle’s, he hurried toward the back room to the door that led to the alley where he’d parked. But the pizza he’d left on the counter caught his eye. He grabbed that too, knowing he’d want something to eat after he ravished Kyle all night long. Or maybe Kyle would ravish him.

  Either way, baby, either way.

  They’d had a great time at dinner, no awkwardness or lack of things to talk about. Sadly, Kyle’s disappointment that Forrester wasn’t out to his family was pretty obvious. Forrester hadn’t had a chance to explain, to make him understand it was easier this way.

  Kyle’s words rang in his ears: You owe it to yourself and your family to have that kind of honesty in your life.

  He knew Kyle was right, but he was lost somewhere between regret and relief that he’d never had to come out to Dad. He deeply regretted not telling Gramps, but Dad was a different story. He knew Dad loved him, but he was an old-school blue-collar guy, twenty years older than Ma. He’d never been nasty about gay people, but he’d made jokes and comments, like all straight men did in Forrester’s experience—including his brothers.

  Just the thought of anyone in his family treating Forrester like he was weird or different made his stomach ache. He’d never wanted to face any of it alone. Since he hadn’t had a real boyfriend since college, why bother dealing with the drama if he didn’t even have a man in his life?

  Bang!

  Forrester drew up short.

  Bang! Bang!

  A man’s voice followed the crash.

  His heart skipped as he strained to listen. Was someone breaking into his bookstore?

  Then a van door slammed shut outside. Laughter sounded on the other side of the wall.

  Someone was in the empty shop next door!

  No one had been
there since the weird hippie lady packed up her bead store six months ago. His cousin Otto Jr. owned the building and wanted tenants before the tourist summer season, but who would be there at night?

  A Louisville Slugger sat in the corner with the baseball gear he’d brought to work before the game had been canceled. After setting the book and pizza on the futon, he made his way in the darkness to get the bat. The cold metal was familiar in his grip, an extension of his body.

  It was probably teenagers—this was Gilead, after all. Nothing exciting ever happened here. Forrester slowly unbolted the door. A dumpster sat right outside, concealing his presence. The howl of the wind rushed into the quiet back room. Across the old canal and on the other side of the walking paths, the mighty Shiloh River churned like black satin in the wind. Rain splattered his glasses and sprayed his face, sending a shiver down his spine.

  A nondescript dark van had parked in the alleyway. Yellow light cut across the ground from the open door of the vacant shop. Guys unloaded boxes from the van and carried them inside.

  Definitely not teenagers.

  Confused, Forrester lowered the bat. Otto Jr. would’ve told him if he’d rented the shop. Then again, renters wouldn’t be moving in at this hour—and in the rain.

  What the hell were these guys up to?

  He ducked back inside to call the sheriff’s office, but a familiar voice stopped him.

  “Put it over here!”

  His second cousin Alfie Parisi stood in the doorway, his slicked-down black hair shining in the light, looking as greasy as always. His shadow darkened the faces of the men with the boxes.

  Forrester shook his head in disgust.

  Uncle Otto Parisi had married Dad’s sister Rosa when she lived in Italy during the seventies. Ma always hinted he’d been in the Sicilian Mob, and Otto called himself a businessman. He owned a lot of real estate, including Forrester’s building in Gilead. His son Otto Jr. ran the business nowadays, and with a family discount on rent, Forrester would forever have a soft spot for them, but Otto Jr.’s kids were spoiled and nothing but trouble. Forrester sometimes saw Donnie and Mark at Smitty’s after a ball game, but he never cared for them because they had a string of fag jokes a mile long. Alfie was running his dad’s club in Shiloh, the Stein. It was the premier place to score whatever kind of drugs tripped your trigger.

  “That’s all of them.”

  Forrester’s head jerked back toward the unexpected voice, and he saw a third guy slide the van door shut.

  No mistaking that linebacker physique.

  He cursed under his breath.

  Joey.

  The baby of the family. The word was a misnomer because, at six foot four and two hundred eighty-five pounds, one could hardly call his brother baby-sized. Though he had eighty pounds of muscle on Forrester, it wouldn’t stop Forrester from kicking his ass if Joey screwed up his plans with Kyle tonight. But he didn’t feel like going outside and talking to Joey in the pouring rain. He hadn’t really dried off since he and Kyle went to dinner. A big gust of wind blew rain into his face, almost yanking the door from his grip as he shut it.

  “That big dummy,” he muttered, fighting a shiver from the cold. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Joey’s number.

  Joey answered on the second ring. “Hey, what’s up?”

  Forrester didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What are you and Alfie doing in the alley outside my store, Giuseppe?”

  “What did you say?” Joey whispered.

  “You heard me.”

  “Hold on a sec,” he muttered, and a scratching sound emanated from the phone as Joey covered his cell. Through the door, Forrester could hear his brother calling out, “I gotta take this call, fellas. It’s a chick I’m trying to get with.”

  Forrester snorted in disgust.

  A van door slammed and the rain on Joey’s end of the phone muffled. “What are you talking about? I’m at home, Frankie.”

  “So if I go down the hall and knock on your door, you’ll be there?”

  “Okay, no, fine, I’m not at home,” he admitted. “I’m at Denny’s having an omelet.”

  “Don’t you lie to me, Giuseppe. I just saw you loading boxes outta that van.”

  “How do you know what I’m doing?”

  “Because I’m in my store, that’s how!”

  “Why are you open so late?” Joey asked seriously. “Who buys books at this hour?”

  “The store isn’t open. I’m just still here. Now tell me what you’re doing before I come out there and slap you upside the head.”

  “No, don’t come out here.” Silence followed while Joey tried to come up with a way to make his actions sound better.

  Forrester could almost hear his wheels turning.

  “I’m doing a favor for Alfie,” he admitted.

  “What?”

  “Be quiet!” Joey snapped. “They’ll hear you.”

  “I don’t give a crap if they hear me. And why are you doing favors for Alfie? You know the kind of shit he’s into. Tony said it could be heroin.”

  “Tony don’t know shit. This is all on the up-and-up, Frankie. I wouldn’t do it if it was illegal. Dino’s getting me into the apprenticeship program. I’m gonna be a plumber. I’ll start at fifteen dollars an hour with bennies and everything. In five years I’ll be making thirty bucks an hour. Way more than I make at the club.”

  Forrester wanted to believe him, but he knew Alfie. More importantly, he knew Joey. His little brother would buy oceanfront property in Arizona if a woman with big tits and a great line sold it. He stopped short of saying as much when his brain registered what else Joey had said. “What do you mean ‘the club’?”

  Another awkward pause.

  “Out with it, Giuseppe.”

  Joey took a second longer to answer than Forrester would’ve liked. “I’m bouncing for Alfie at the Stein. I need the money to pay back Tony for all my DUI costs. Plus it’s a great place to meet chicks. This girl tonight….” His voice took on a dreamy quality. “Oh man, Frankie, you shoulda seen her tits.”

  “I don’t care about her tits,” Forrester snapped. “If you needed money, you should’ve come to me.”

  “I don’t want your money,” Joey practically growled. “I’m a grown-ass man, and I’ll earn it myself.”

  His immature twenty-one-year-old brother always had an attitude anytime they implied or outright treated him like the irresponsible galoot he was.

  Forrester sighed. “I meant you could’ve come and worked for me if you needed a job.”

  “Me? In a bookstore? What do you think I am? Some kinda four-eyed geek like you?”

  “Har-de-har-har, Joey.” His brothers all thought he was a nerd, and hell, Forrester knew they were right. One look at his action figure collection proved that. Never mind he could kick their asses ten ways to Sunday on a baseball diamond and had a wicked left hook they never saw coming. Liking “alien stuff” equated to geek in their thick skulls.

  His brother laughed. “You gotta admit that was a good one, Frankie. Sometimes I just crack myself up.”

  “Yeah, real original. Enough joking around. If Ma finds out about this, she’ll kill you.” Outside and over the phone, he heard the van doors slam.

  “Who you talking to?” Alfie asked Joey.

  “Hey, girl, I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Joey said to Forrester in what he assumed was his little brother’s smooth-talking-the-ladies voice. “Yeah, me too. Bye.”

  Forrester cursed when Joey ended the call. Outside he heard the van start up, then pull away. He wrote Joey several texts, deleting them all before deciding to go with a simple: I don’t trust Alfie. You should be careful.

  I got this. Don’t worry!

  Forrester frowned at his brother’s reply.

  Joey had been in high school, running with Alfie and getting into all kinds of trouble after Dad died. Fortunately, all the bikes they nicked, pot they smoked, and mailboxes they had played baseball with, had been done while underage. Whe
n Alfie moved on to a different, more sinister crowd, Ma had said enough and told Joey to stop hanging out with him. As far as Forrester knew, Joey had obeyed his mother like a good little Italian boy.

  Looked like Joey wasn’t a good little Italian boy.

  Thunder rumbled the night and Forrester shivered from his damp clothing. Joey’s expulsion from high school for fighting was one of the reasons Forrester had come home early from college. His brother’s trusting personality, coupled with a bad case of ADD, ensured Joey always took the fall when he and Alfie got caught. And Alfie always let him take the heat too, which never sat well with Forrester and their other brothers.

  Well, Forrester wouldn’t let la famiglia drama ruin his evening tonight. He’d worry about Joey later when he could do something about it.

  Right now all he wanted to do was get out of these wet clothes and get naked with Kyle.

  Chapter Six

  A BUNDLE of excitement and nerves, Kyle paced the foyer barefoot. He’d changed out of his wet clothes and into a black button-down shirt and a pair of dark-wash jeans, strategically worn in places like they’d been around the block a few times. He didn’t want to appear too dressy or too casual.

  His little black-and-white Boston terrier was disemboweling the squeaky toy Kyle bought him yesterday. “I think you’re really going to like him, Jasper.”

  Jasper snorted and blew a piece of nylon fuzz off his face.

  Kyle chuckled and peeked out the window. It was still raining, but thankfully not as heavily as earlier. He’d bought several flats of flowers to plant this weekend—just like he and Mom always used to do—and he didn’t relish the beds being a swampy mess. Since he’d bought the house in the winter, he wasn’t entirely sure what was even growing on the property. Little spots of green had been popping up here and there, and he’d been delighted by the lovely patch of tulips and daffodils in the one corner. Sadly the rain had knocked all the tulip petals off so they were just leaves and stems now. Kyle had been looking forward to getting his hands dirty tomorrow.