Page 12 of A Very Rossi Christmas
So she could pull into a parking lot without giving the other people in said parking lot a single thought.
Lucky bitch.
She was, instead, still harping on Joseph Rossi and his sudden presence in town.
Not that I blamed her. That same question had been playing in the background of my mind ever since we left the beach—and him—behind.
I had yet to come up with anything even remotely resembling an answer, and as much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon. He obviously hadn’t been there to talk to me—as evidenced by him lying there and staring at me rather than coming over to say hello—so it wasn’t like I was going to get a straight answer from him, and though I still knew people in New York, I doubted they would know why he was here.
They weren’t exactly privy to the inner workings of the Rossi clan.
Which left me with exactly one choice.
“How about we just forget about Joseph Rossi, hm?” I asked, pulling into a space that had three empties on either side of it.
I’d paid for this car on my own. I didn’t want anyone else screwing it up.
“Excuse me, missy,” Brooks scoffed. “One does not just forget Joseph Rossi.”
Okay, so that was true.
One didn’t just forget Joseph Rossi. Or his gorgeous eyes or broad cheekbones or firm jaw or that tousled hair that always looked like he’d just crawled out of bed. One didn’t forget the way his gaze shot right through you, as if he was staring into your very soul.
Unless one didn’t know why he was in town but doubted that it had anything to do with you, and had watched him see you and then very specificallynotcome to talk to you, despite your long history and what you’d once thought of as a close friendship.
“He’s not here for us, B, and that’s really all I need to know,” I told her bluntly. “And just in case it wasn't, here's one more: He's fucking dangerous, and no longer my best friend or someone I can count on, so we're probably better off if we don't see him again. Let’s go. I don’t want to get in trouble for being late to cut up stars or something.”
Brooks didn’t say anything else, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. And since I’d known her most of my life, I was guessing I probably knew exactly what she was thinking.
And if I was being honest, I was thinking the same thing.
I hadn’t spoken to Joseph Rossi in approximately five years, and I hadn’t seen him in all that time, either. It wasn’t like we’d kept up on one another’s lives or anything like that.
But I would have expected him to at least say hello if we saw each other again.
The fact that he hadn’t… Well, it stung more than I was going to admit to anyone. Even Brooks.
It also made me incredibly nervous.
* * *
They’d already started decorating the lobby at the front of the building when we got there, and we were definitely in trouble for being late.
“You call this helping?” Mel Jones, a portly, overwhelming black woman asked me, her eyebrows rising all the way up to her hairline. “Rolling in here an hour late like you only came because you don’t have anywhere better to be?”
Anyone else might have backed down and apologized, terrified of the look on her face.
But Brooks and I had been volunteering with her organization since we moved to LA, and I knew her well enough to know when she was bluffing.
I shrugged and made like I was going to turn around and head back out the door. “I mean, if you don’t want us here, Mel, you could just have said so. I’m sure we can manage to—”
She grabbed my arm and yanked me around before I could finish the sentence, her eyebrows returned to their natural placement now. “That’s not what I mean, little miss, and you damn well know it. You two are on the line in the back.”
I grinned at her, not even caring about the scowl she was currently wearing. “Thanks, Mel. We’ll get on it.”
* * *
“I think my hands are actually going to fall off soon,” Brooks moaned an hour later.
