Page 56 of Salvatore

Chapter Fifteen

Aedry

“Come shopping with me tomorrow,” Donnie chimes on the other end of the line. “We’ll hit a few shops uptown and maybe catch a late lunch.”

When I first met Donnie, I never expected someone like her to be friends with me. She’s a fabulous city girl, and I’m very much a small-town girl at heart. I was taken aback when she stopped by Sal’s the other week unannounced. I was making them dinner and I wondered how often she dropped in in my absence.

Sal and the boys weren’t particularly excited to see her. They assured me it wasn’t something Donnie often did. Sal especially appeared tense and he kept encouraging her to leave. I convinced him to let her stay for dinner. I’d made a lot of food and she seemed lonely and sad, despite the smile she repeatedly flashed.

Donnie chatted up a storm during our meal, insisting I give her my number. She left abruptly when it was time to clear the table. I didn’t expect her to call, but she had every day since, reinforcing my belief that she lives a lonely life.

“I can’t tomorrow,” I tell her. I race around my office with the receiver tucked between my chin and shoulder as I tidy up.

“Why not? We had so much fun Monday. And, you said yourself, Sal liked the dress I picked out.”

I don’t mention to Donnie that Sal also loved the shoes and the lingerie, but she can probably guess as much. “We’re taking the boys to a winter festival in Pennsylvania,” I explain. “Food, sleigh rides, that sort of thing.”

The first few times Donnie reached out to me, I made excuses to avoid meeting her. I had trouble believing that she and Sal were always “just friends.” She’d spent our entire dinner clinging to him and the boys. It was hard to watch and almost too much to handle.

Donnie is . . . gorgeous. I’m not typically insecure and I’m comfortable with the way I look. But Donnie has a face and body that belongs in Maxim. The only way I’ll ever grace Maxim is if I tape a picture of my face to the cover.

It’s when I realized how desperate Donnie seemed for a friend that I finally gave in. I’m glad I did. Like I suspected, she doesn’t have anyone in her life to lean on. Those women I saw her with at the club were more devoted to what she could do for them than what they could do for her. And regardless of how confident she is in her beauty, those uncertainties she hides beneath trendy clothes and expensive cosmetics poke through when she thinks I’m not paying attention.

“Would you like to come with us?” I ask, realizing how quiet she becomes.

She laughs. It seems forced. “Can you seriously see me on a back of a sleigh?”

I see her point. Our most outdoorsy excursion included a walk through Central Park, following lunch at Tavern on the Green. “No. Not really.”

“Vincent doesn’t like that kind of thing,” she adds quickly, trying to add merit to her argument. “He won’t even take me on a carriage ride through the city.”

Donnie does that a lot, bounces from talking about herself as if she’s single, to reminding me that she’s not. She doesn’t discuss their relationship, aside from comments like, “Vincent says this” or “Vincent bought me that.” From the tidbits I’ve gathered, their relationship is volatile at best. She’s told me she wants more of a commitment, but that Vincent isn’t ready to settle down. She also talks as if Vincent and Salvatore are the best of friends.

When I’ve asked Salvatore about Vincent, Sal shuts down, telling me he doesn’t like to talk about work or his boss when he’s with me.

I sit at my chair and file the folders I’ve been working on all day. I feel bad for Donnie. Everything about her behavior demonstrates that she loves Vincent and that he’s everything to her. I can’t be certain he shares those feelings. His needs always come first and his availability is severely lacking. There are days that I don’t think he calls her at all.

Salvatore and I have been together almost six weeks. We spent Thanksgiving apart when I flew home to North Carolina. Despite how much I’ve missed my family and friends, I was crawling out of my skin with how badly I missed being in Salvatore’s arms.

And I wasn’t alone.

Sal texted me constantly and so did the boys. He picked me up from the airport, greeting me with one hell of a kiss and a few more on the drive back to my apartment. When we arrived and I found almost every square inch covered with vases spilling roses, I teared up.

“Just wanted to show you I missed you,” he said when I turned to kiss him.

Yes. . . Vincent and Donnie have been together longer, but Sal is far more committed. What’s challenging is he still won’t make love to me, even though I’m begging him every time he touches me.

“Aedry?” Donnie says.

I ram the last folder into my drawer. “Sorry,” I offer. “I’m trying to do too many things at once.”

“Oh,” she says, clearly upset that she didn’t have my complete attention.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. I shove my heavy filing cabinet closed. “It’s hard for me to talk at work.” It’s something I’ve often told her, but it doesn’t stop her from calling. It’s only because it’s the end of the day that I was able to take her call this time.

I don’t think most people would be offended. But Donnie is sensitive. I feel terrible about not offering more to the conversation. When she stays silent and all I can think about is her spending her weekend pining over Vincent, I add, “Give some thought to coming with us to the festival. It won’t be an intrusion. My girlfriend, Autumn, is going to join us, if she doesn’t have to cover a shift.”

“Family isn’t my thing,” she says, her tone stiff. “You know that.”

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