Page 10 of A Very Rossi Christmas
Of course, even the best of intentions—or the worst, as the case may be—are pretty easy to push to the side if you’ve got what you think is a good reason.
When Brooks and Sloane stepped out of the café while I was still in the act of opening the door to my car, and were then followed by the guy with the snarl, all thoughts of actually getting to that meeting with Donny Parletti—and saving my own skin—fled.
Sloane was laughing again, her eyes bright and sparkling and an incredible silver color, her hands wrapped around something steaming and foamy. She tipped the cup up to take a sip of it, and when she took the cup away again, some of the foam—or was it whipped cream?—stayed on her lip.
And I was suddenly transported back to my fourteenth birthday and the cups of hot cocoa we’d shared in the back of that café. The way we’d bribed the owner to let us hang out in the stock room after hours, just so we could have some time together without the streets outside watching us.
The way I’d threatened him with the gun I’d stolen from my father, telling him that if he ever turned us in to either of our families—or did anything to hurt Sloane—I’d be taking it out of his hide.
I snorted now. I’d been fourteen fucking years old and hadn’t known down from up or right from wrong. I’d shot guns but I definitely hadn’t shot them at other human beings, and I had no clue what I was threatening that guy with.
But I’d already been head-over-heels in love with Sloane Brennan and protecting her had become part of my daily life. She’d had no clue about my feelings, of course, but I would have given her my last breath if she’d asked for it.
She’d kissed me that night, I remembered. Not a real kiss. It had been a stuttering, halting thing, a pathetic excuse for a kiss, full of childish nerves and doubt.
But I could still remember exactly where we’d been, and exactly how it had felt. She’d tasted like chocolate and whip cream, and I’d been so caught up in the moment that I’d—
“The rec center next,” a voice said, far too close to where I was standing.
I dropped into my car without having any conscious thought of being on the way down and ducked toward the floor like I was searching for something, my eyes up and flitting from side to side as I looked for the source of that voice.
God, I was fucking losing it, standing in a parking lot in LA daydreaming about the one time Sloane kissed me while the girl herself was walking around in the same parking lot and I was supposed to be somewhere else entirely.
I’d lost my fucking mind.
My eyes found her at that point, three cars down and looking at her phone while she talked to Brooks, who was getting into the passenger seat of the Ferrari.
“The one in Santa Monica. It wasn’t my first choice but by the time I got around to signing up—”
“Let me guess,” Brooks interrupted. “You were too busy doing something noble for someone else and didn’t have time to get there any sooner.”
“Fuck you,” Sloane replied.
I snorted with laughter, one hand over my mouth to try to keep it down.
Same old Sloane Brennan. She’d always had the face of an angel and the mouth of a sailor—plus the education to out-talk anyone she came into contact with.
She was also the only person I’d ever met who used profanity so naturally that it became part of her everyday conversation, even with her friends.
Brooks knew her nearly as well as I did, though, and I could hear her fizzing with mirth as the doors closed.
Sloane, much to my surprise, turned away from the car and became suddenly serious, her eyes narrowed and flitting across the parking lot like she was looking for someone. She must not have seen what she was looking for, though, because within three seconds she’d turned back to the car and was getting in, grinning like nothing had happened.
Something inside me eased a bit at that look, though.
Sloane might be living in LA these days, but evidently that hadn’t changed how much she cussed—or her habit of checking the places she’d just left, to see whether anyone was following her.
I didn’t think she’d seen the guy I’d seen. But at least now I knew she was keeping an eye out for trouble.
* * *
I busted through the swinging door at the front of the restaurant in Malibu, my face held carefully expressionless and my mouth tight.
I might not be good at the icy demeanor—yet—but this expressionless mask? The appearance that nothing mattered, and that I couldn’t give one single fuck about anything?
Yeah, this part I was good at, and I’d been thanking the universe for that every day since I figured it out. I had a hot temper and ran way too fiery at times when I should have been cold, but I’d always been able to hide it. I’d always been able to convince everyone else that I didn’t care about what was going on.
It had saved my life more than once.
