Page 37 of Luck of the Draw

Shit. I hadn’t meant to give my brother false hope.

“No,” I said. Then, for reasons I couldn’t comprehend, I reached for the note. Holding it in my hand, I felt a surge of strength. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to come back to stay. I just found out I have a good opportunity here—a manager position—and I’m going to take it.”

I’d expected him to swear at me, or to storm off the way he had when I’d told him I was leaving.Dad’s a proud man,he’d said,but you’re breaking his heart, leaving again when you just got back. Taking a shit job when you have a good one in our family business. What will people say? Nonna almost had a heart attack when she found out you’d been shot, and now you’re moving ten hours away?

In a lot of ways he’d been right, but in one key way he was wrong: it had never been about leaving them—it had always been about finding my own way. Every decision I’d made since the end of my marriage was about figuring out who I was now that the future no longer looked like I’d thought it would. About chasing down a role for myself that fit. The Marines had given me purpose, but it had slipped away after I was discharged. I’d felt like I was treading water again, living from one day to the next just to get through it. Then I’d come here, and Dottie had seen in me something I’d never seen in myself.

She hadn’t just seen Saint Dylan, the peacemaker. She’d seen someone who could be a leader.

But Matteo was already shaking his head on the camera. “No, man. I…look, I’m sorry I reacted like I did, but Tina and Angie”—Angie being his wife—“have talked some sense into me. You did the right thing, and you have my support one hundred percent. We could all tell you weren’t happy living back here, seeing that puta—” Tina hit him. “Just…well, shit, we miss you.”

“I know,” I said, feeling a strange burning in my eyes. “I do too.”

He grinned. “Now, that’s not to say Dad isn’t going to knock your block off the next time he sees you, but he’ll come around. He always does.”

“I hope so.”

“Now tell us about the secret woman who may or may not have ghosted you,” Tina said, leaning closer as if she wanted me to whisper it in her ear. “Because this is the first time you’ve ever hung up on Mom, and you can’t fool me. That means something.”

So I found myself telling them much more than I’d expected to, glossing over the many times we’d had sex—although I relived them all in my head—and finished by sharing the bit about leaving her shoes.

“Holy shit!” Tina said. “You lived a real-life Cinderella story.” Then her face creased with a frown. “Only you shouldn’t have left the shoes without trying to talk to her. That would be a bummer if it happened in a movie.”

Matteo huffed a laugh and gave her a little shove. “It was probably a bummer for him when he did it.”

She tilted her head as if to concede the point. “Still. I think you’ve got her all wrong, Dylan. She wouldn’t have written a note like that if you didn’t mean something to her. I’ll bet she convinced herself you wouldn’t want to date someone with kids. She probably thought you’d throw her to the curb once you found out, so she figured she’d leave first. You should talk to her. Try to figure it out.”

There was an awkward moment when they looked at each other, then at me. After a moment, Matteo shrugged. “She might be right. Most thirty-year-old guys aren’t in your situation.” Another shrug. “But Dylan, man, I’ve never heard you talk about a woman like this.”

We’d hung up a little while later, after I told them about Dottie’s job offer and Matteo shared some news about his kids. But their words had stuck with me. What if they were right? What if I was giving up too easily?

Then I’d gone to the grocery store to pick up some sort of hostess gift for the woman I’d reluctantly agreed to pose for, turned a corner, and there Deeandra was, standing across from me as if she had been delivered by a universe that had decided, for once, to take pity on me. She’d been dressed in a simple outfit—shorts and shirt—that reminded me of what she’d told me in bed.I don’t normally dress like that.She’d sounded self-conscious when she said it, but she looked beautiful this way too—her makeup minimal, her skin glowing, and her hair piled up on her head. And before she saw me, she looked happy too, in a way that suggestedshehadn’t spent a mostly sleepless night turning everything over.

And yet, there was something in her eyes when she looked at me. Something like hope and need.

Her older kid, Liam, had a protective vibe that I respected, and the younger kid was sweet in a way that reminded me of my little cousins back home. And then she’d sent them away and dropped all kinds of truth bombs on me, ones that were so strangely close to Tina’s read on the situation that I was tempted to tell her to interview for that phone psychic gig she’d told me about, the one that would break our grandmother’s heart. (Given how often people in my family said that, Nonna had dozens of broken hearts.)

For a moment, I’d had a glimpse of a different future. One that might involve me having a family, although in a way I hadn’t expected. Which was pure madness given that I’d known her for next to no time at all, and she’d run away from me. But maybe Iwascrazy, because part of me liked the thought. And because it turned out Cinderella and I had even more in common than I’d realized.

But that feeling of possibility, of hope, had slipped away when her kid had revealed she hadn’t even given me her actual name.

“Fate works in mysterious ways,” Dottie pressed, yanking me back to the present. “Turn right.”

I followed her instructions, my mind still reeling. “Maybe so, but give me a break, Dottie. I have some pride. She didn’t even give me her real name.”

She turned to look at me, her scrutiny intense enough that I could feel it. “What’s my name, Dylan?”

It felt like a trick question, but it would also be rude not to answer. “Dottie.”

From my peripheral vision, I could see her head shaking, her pink hair rustling with it. “My name is Dolores. My mother called me Dottie when I was a little girl, and it stuck. Turn left, dear, we’re almost there.”

Something sunk in my stomach. “So you’re saying she has a nickname? Do you know this for a fact?”

“Yes. Actually—although I don’t think she was aware she was talking to me—I booked a couple of cruises through your Deeandra for Lurch and Josie. To keep them from showing up at the wedding.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It turned out that I would have done better focusing my attention on Stella, but everything worked out as it should.”

Hadn’t Deeandra said the cruises were a rip-off? Something told me she would be mortified if she found out she’d sold a couple of packages to Dottie.

“As it happens, Lurch and Josie ended up on a Pikachu-themed ship that only stopped at two ports in the Caribbean for forty-five minutes each, but there was an open bar, and they were quite happy with it, all in all.”

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