Wild and Wicked, page 16
“I’ll follow you off the mountain,” Elio said. “Make sure you get to the highway alright.”
“Okay. I’ll grab a pregnancy test on my way back to Philly,” she promised. “And I’ll call you either way.”
“Thanks,” he said, glancing back toward the cabin almost wistfully. “I hate to leave.”
“Me too. This week was…” There wasn’t a word big enough, so she didn’t try. Didn’t have to.
“Yeah,” he agreed, grasping her waist. His head lowered as he stole one last glorious, amazing kiss. Their tongues took their last tastes, and she drew in a deep breath through her nose, trying to memorize the smell of him, woodsmoke and his Old Spice bodywash.
When they parted, she gave him a smile.
“I guess I’ll see you around. Sometime.”
Fuck.
That was the lamest farewell in history.
Elio scowled, though it was one of those blink-and-you-missed-it looks. His expression cleared quickly. “Goodbye, Freckles.”
He released her and she missed his touch in an instant. Then, he walked to his truck, waiting until she got in her car and turned it around in the driveway before starting his own vehicle.
True to his word, he followed her down the winding roads until they hit the highway. He honked the horn, and she returned his wave, watching him in the rearview mirror. Then, he turned left as she turned right.
And that was that.
What a week. Despite the sadness of leaving him, Gianna was surprised to realize the stronger emotion right now was happiness.
The loneliness that had lingered for too long seemed to be gone. She hoped for good.
After what felt like a lifetime of Gianna wandering around in shadowed rooms, Elio had turned on the lights, and she vowed to herself that she was never going back into the dark.
Turning on the radio, she shuffled through the stations until she found Neil Diamond, singing along to “Sweet Caroline” loudly and off-key, as she grinned like a fool.
It was late afternoon when Gianna dragged her suitcase to the fourth floor of her apartment building. The damn elevator was on the fritz again. The trip from the Poconos to Philadelphia shouldn’t have taken more than a couple of hours, but she’d hit traffic, due to the fact the roads were still slick. Plus, she’d treated herself to a long lunch at a restaurant Liza had suggested, and then, she’d lost a couple more hours wandering around an indoor flea market.
She’d skipped the grocery store upon pulling into town, deciding to put it off until tomorrow. All she wanted to do tonight was unpack, start some laundry, and veg in front of the television. She planned to throw the frozen pepperoni pizza in her freezer in the oven for dinner.
Unlocking the door to her apartment, she’d only taken a few steps inside before getting the sense that she wasn’t alone.
She started to back toward the hall, reaching for her phone to call 9-1-1, when Sam stepped out of her kitchen.
“I thought I heard the door open,” he said.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, having enough sense to feel guilty for being in her apartment without permission.
Then she changed her question. “How did you get in? You don’t have a key anymore.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Mrs. Pasquet.”
Gianna glanced over her shoulder at her neighbor’s closed door. “She let you in here?”
“She has the spare key.”
“And you asked for it?” She couldn’t keep from raising her voice, her ire growing more with each passing second.
“No, no,” Sam quickly replied, waving his hands as if to erase that thought from her mind. “I was waiting for you, out in the hallway. I’d been there about an hour when Mrs. Pasquet opened the door and saw me. We chatted for a few minutes.”
Mrs. Pasquet had adored Sam, and in some ways, it felt like her elderly neighbor had taken their break-up harder than Gianna had, always asking her if she’d seen Sam lately.
“I told her I was hoping to talk to you. She told me you’d gone on vacation, but she seemed confused about when you were getting home.”
Gianna had told Mrs. Pasquet she’d be back on Saturday, but her neighbor was getting more and more forgetful, something that had been worrying Gianna lately.
Which made the fact that Sam took advantage of the beloved woman even more infuriating.
“So you somehow convinced my ninety-two-year-old neighbor to give you the spare key?”
Sam shook his head. “She offered it. Said she didn’t think you’d mind if I waited for you inside the apartment rather than hanging out in the hallway.”
Gianna lifted her hand. “Give me the key back, then get out. And don’t bother trying to get it from Mrs. Pasquet again. She won’t have it.”
Sam dug into his jean’s pocket and handed it to her. “Gianna, please. I…can we talk for a minute?”
She snorted derisively. “We already had that talk. Back in September, remember? I think it started with ‘this isn’t working for me’ and ended with ‘I don’t love you anymore.’ Of course, you somehow missed the part about Emma, which was probably the most import—”
She stopped mid-rant when she caught a whiff of something. “Are you cooking something?”
This time, Sam’s guilt was nearly palpable. “I brought food. Thought I’d make your favorite dinner. Lasagna and garlic bread.”
Her temper flared hot and fast. “Are you fucking serious right now?! You have five seconds to get the hell out of here or I swear to God, I’m calling the cops.”
“No!” Sam said hastily. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll leave. I just…” He ran his hand through his hair. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Okay? I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. For all of it. I was a grade-A douchebag, an asshole, a gigantic dick.”
“Keep going,” she said, crossing her arms.
She hadn’t meant her words as a joke, but Sam gave her a ghost of a smile, clearly taking them that way.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said softly.
She stared at him, at this man who’d been the center of her universe for eleven years, and she knew he was telling her the truth. He wasn’t a bad guy. He’d just done a very stupid, hurtful thing.
“I know that, Sam,” she said. “But you did hurt me.”
“I keep looking back, trying to figure out why I did it. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t find an answer.”
“You’re obviously not trying that hard because the answer’s pretty fucking obvious if you ask me. You let your dick do the thinking.” Gianna recalled Elio saying as much to her, then she realized he’d been right about Sam coming back. She didn’t know if Sam’s plan with this dinner had been simply to apologize or if he was trying to win her back, but Elio had told her he’d come groveling. And here he was.
Sam sighed heavily. “Yeah. I did. It’s just we’d been fighting so much, never managing to get through the week without some blow-up. And then, the firm took on Emma’s family as a client, designing their new office building, and—”
Gianna held up her hand. “Let me stop you right there. I have no desire to hash out any of this. It’s ancient history. Water under the bridge and all that shit.”
“I was just trying to explain where my head was. What was driving my actions.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care about any of that. I’ve moved on, Sam. None of this matters.”
Gianna wasn’t sure what he’d expected from her, but it was obvious he hadn’t foreseen this. Which pissed her off. Did he really think she was so weak or needy or stupid that she’d accept his apology, talk it out with him, and then…what?
They’d get back together?
Then she considered their past—brief—breakups and realized that was exactly how things had played out. Of course, there was a big difference between breaking up over petty fights about money or her cleaning issues or him staying out too late with the guys. He’d cheated on her and lied about it.
This wasn’t the same thing at all.
“Gianna, please. I need to find a way to make this right.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible.”
He looked at her as if waiting for her to change her mind. Oh my God. He really did think she was a pushover.
“You need to leave.”
Sam stood there, hesitant to go. She knew why. It was finally starting to sink in that she was serious, and this was his last chance to change her mind.
She gestured to the still-open apartment door, but he didn’t move. “I need to…I have some things I need to grab.”
She followed him to the kitchen, watching as he grabbed his cellphone from the counter. “I set the timer on the lasagna,” he said. “Should be ready in another forty minutes.”
She didn’t reply except to give him a single nod of her head. She was dumping the food in the trash the second he left.
Then he walked to the living room and grabbed his coat. For the first time, she looked around her apartment and noticed several things were amiss.
“When did you get the key from Mrs. Pasquet?” she asked, when she noticed the throw blanket on the back of her couch was balled up in one corner of the cushions, rather than folded and laying over the back.
Sam sighed. “Yesterday.”
Gianna narrowed her eyes. She was so angry, she couldn’t find the ability to speak. Every part of her felt poised to explode. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“I didn’t mean to…” Sam realized he was on shaky ground. “I was sitting on the couch, waiting for you. It got late and I fell asleep.”
“You had no right.” There were so many furious words piling up in her head, she couldn’t get them out. “Why didn’t you leave this morning?”
“I did. But I saw on your calendar that you were coming back from your trip today, so…”
That was when she recalled the dinner in the oven. “You went to the grocery store and came back?!”
He didn’t bother answering. He clearly didn’t want to. He knew every word was only digging his grave deeper.
The fucker had looked at her calendar.
“Get out!” she yelled. “Get the fuck out and don’t ever come back here.”
Sam grabbed his stuff and quickly walked to the door. She followed him, intent on slamming it behind him and locking it. He turned to look at her, standing just in the threshold.
“For what it’s worth, I really am sorry.”
She scowled. “It’s worth nothing.”
Sam left, but she didn’t slam the door. She refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she closed it gently, threw the dead bolt, then walked to the couch and picked up the blanket, her hands trembling in anger.
“Motherfucker,” she cursed as she folded the throw and put it in its normal place over the back of the couch.
She dragged her suitcase to the washing machine, threw a load in, then grabbed the vacuum. She felt violated. He’d slept in her apartment.
Two hours later, the entire apartment was clean, sparkling. Rather than dump the lasagna, she let it finish baking, then took it down to the two homeless men who slept at the end of her block.
“Just in time,” she murmured as the oven timer went off. Her frozen pizza was ready.
She placed a couple of pieces on a plate and carried them to the living room, just as her cellphone rang.
She checked the caller ID, praying it wasn’t Sam, and hoping it was Elio.
It was neither.
She answered. “Hey.”
“You back?” Liza asked.
“Yep. Home again, home again, jiggety jig,” she said, repeating the silly little saying Grandma had always recited whenever they’d been away from home for a few days.
“How was it? Clear out all the cobwebs? Ready to start the next big adventure?” Liza asked.
“The trip was great, exactly what I needed. That cabin is absolutely incredible. Heaven on earth.”
Right, Gianna thought, it was the place, and not the company, that made her time away so perfect.
“Told you so. And your Sam issues?” Liza asked.
“Over. So fucking over.” Gianna spent the next few minutes telling her best friend what she’d returned home to, as Liza raged and fumed on her behalf.
“What a fucking asshole. Jesus! Do you think you should change the locks?” Liza asked.
Gianna hadn’t considered that, but it wasn’t a bad idea. “I really don’t think he has a key anymore—or he wouldn’t have taken Mrs. Pasquet’s—but I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
“What are your plans this week? I was thinking we could get together for dinner at my place with some Chinese food. Maybe discuss the possibility of setting you up on Bumble.”
Gianna sighed, not wanting to commit to the dating profile until she’d taken the pregnancy test. Not that she could tell Liza that.
“My work schedule is pretty insane this week, thanks to the days off. How about the weekend? Friday night?” Gianna should know by then if she was or if she wasn’t.
God only knew how she’d break the news to her best friend if she was.
“Sounds good,” Liza said.
Gianna’s phone beeped, another call coming through. Glancing nervously/excitedly at the screen, she was disappointed to see her boss’s name. “Hey, Liza. I gotta go. That’s my boss calling.”
“Okay, I’ll see you Friday. Later.”
She disconnected the call with Liza to answer the one from her boss.
“Are you home?” her boss, Donna asked, instead of the usual greeting.
“Yeah. Got home a few hours ago. What’s up?”
“Oh, thank God. We’re dying on the vine here, Gianna. Both night managers called in sick. There’s some virus flying around, and everyone is dropping like flies. I’ve been here for twenty-eight hours, and now…dammit, I’m starting to get a sore throat. I hate to call you since it’s the last day of your vacation—”
Gianna was already on her feet. “Let me change my clothes and I’ll be right there.” She intended to go in armed with all the disinfectant cleaning supplies she had on hand.
“You are a lifesaver,” Donna replied.
Gianna didn’t mind helping because her boss was really awesome. It was that fact that had kept Gianna working at the hotel as long as she had rather than looking for something else.
Regardless, there was no room for advancement where she was, and with Rafe and Gio building her dream inn, it was time to move on.
“I can be there in half an hour.”
She and Donna said their goodbyes, the relief in her boss’s voice so evident, Gianna didn’t mind missing the last night of her vacation.
She hadn’t been looking forward to sleeping alone. Five nights snuggled up with Elio had ruined her for her own bed. At least by working tonight, she could put it off for another night.
Gianna wondered what he was doing right now. Part of her was tempted to text him, but she wasn’t sure how he’d feel about that.
While they’d talked constantly this week, sharing so much of themselves with each other, it occurred to her now, there were a lot of important things they’d left unsaid.
It was early Wednesday evening when Gianna dragged herself home from work, weary to the bone. Donna hadn’t exaggerated about the illness sweeping through the hotel staff. Gianna had worked double shifts ever since Saturday night. She had spent two days cleaning rooms when every maid but one called in sick.
Gianna had also covered for Donna, who had indeed gotten the killer flu, so in addition to serving as a maid, a desk clerk, and even a maintenance person in one instance, she also took over the position of manager, working herself to exhaustion.
Donna had returned to work this afternoon, taken one look at Gianna, and told her not to come back until Saturday, proclaiming she’d earned a couple days off.
Gianna had intended to go straight home, but halfway there, she remembered her refrigerator was completely bare, so she stopped by the grocery store. Placing the bags of food on the counter, she dug through them until she found what she was looking for.
She’d been too busy to grab a pregnancy test before today. Hell, she’d been so overworked, she hadn’t had time to even stress over the possibility.
But now that she had it, she was anxious for the results.
Walking to the bathroom, Gianna opened the package, read the instructions, then pulled down her pants.
One glance down told her all she needed to know.
“Fuck,” she whispered, her heart sinking.
Slowly, she placed the test back in the package and tossed it under the sink, before grabbing the tampons instead.
Sinking down on the toilet, she put her head in her hands, fighting the desire to cry.
What the hell was wrong with her? This was a good thing…right?
Then why did she feel this soul-crushing devastation?
For a few minutes, she just sat there, willing away the tears. Then, she took a deep breath, cleaned herself up, and headed back to the kitchen.
Her phone lay on the counter. She glanced at the clock. Elio had a home game tonight. In fact, he was probably in the locker room getting ready.
She now had the Baltimore schedule memorized, and she knew exactly what channel the games were on. He hadn’t played since leaving the injured reserve list, but Liza had texted their entire friend group this morning, telling everyone Elio was in the starting lineup tonight.
Gianna had promised to call him, but she’d already made him wait three days for a response. So she opened her contacts list and clicked on his name, sending off a quick text, certain he wouldn’t see it until after the game. He’d confided one night that he unplugged completely a few hours before game time to get in the right headspace.
I’m not pregnant.
Then she sent another text, lying about her reason for not calling, saying something lame about not wanting to make him wait. The truth was she didn’t think she could say the words aloud without crying.
Once the two messages were sent, she unpacked her groceries, made herself some macaroni and cheese, the box kind, and dipped out a more than generous helping.
