Page 106 of Captivated By You

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Gia

Note to self: Watch where you’re going.

I hada plethora of talents in my tool kit. I was a fabulous chef, a terrific daughter, and awesome sister to my baby brother, Roberto, I had an unshakable belief that I was meant to meet and marry Christian Bale—the issue of him already having a wife was a minor blip I hadn’t quite figured out yet—and I was an absolute fireball between the sheets, according to my many lovers.

One skill I hadn’t yet mastered? Punctuality.

I hurled the alarm clock across my bedroom and threw myself out of bed. Jackhammers battered my skull as I dashed from the bedroom to the bathroom, leaving destruction worthy of a tornado in my wake. I couldn’t be late for work again this month. Three strikes and Freddo, the head chef at the restaurant where I worked, would have my ass in a sling, or worse.

“Shouldn’t have gone out last night, you idiot,” I muttered while simultaneously drying my hair and grappling with the button fastening on my pants.

When would I learn? Going out drinking the night before an early shift was a terrible idea, yet when my friend Ben had called and dangled the promise of meeting his new boyfriendandbeing on the guest list for a trendy new club in SoHo, I couldn’t say no. Well, I mean Icouldhave. The word “no” hadn’t fallen out of my head. I just liked to have fun; that was all. Life was for living.

My brother taught me that. Every. Single. Day. Through no fault of his own, he’d had to overcome herculean challenges, yet he’d faced each one with the kind of courage that inspired those around him.

I sent Lorenzo, my work buddy, a text asking—no, begging—him to cover for me. Stuffing a banana into my backpack, I slammed my apartment door and sprinted down the five flights of stairs to the street.

The train was crammed with commuters heading over to Manhattan from where I lived in Brooklyn. This was one of the many reasons I preferred the late shift. The lunch and early dinner shift meant I had to wrestle with commuters on the way into work,andon the way home. Double bullshit in the same day.

I tucked myself into a corner and wolfed down the banana, cursing that I hadn’t grabbed a drink from the fridge, too. Thirty minutes later, I emerged onto the street, the air thick and humid despite the early hour. Only the tenth of June, and already I’d had enough of summer. Fall was my favorite time of the year, when the leaves turned orange and gold, the tourists all fucked off back to where they’d come from, and the bitter winter was still far enough away to convince myself that, this year, it wouldn’t come at all.

It did, though. Bastard nature. You’d think she’d cut a girl a break once in a while.

The customers waiting to be served at my favorite deli wasn’t too long, and deciding I might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb, I joined the back of the line. I ordered an OJ, the hangover cure of champions—for me, anyway—and a chicken salad on rye for lunch. I sometimes ate at the restaurant, but my hips could only cope with so much pasta before they ballooned to an unfortunate size requiring an intervention of painful proportions. Diets made me grumpy, which was the main reason that as soon as I hit five pounds over target on the scale, I dialed back on my Italian genes that demanded I eat everything in sight. For a few days at least.

Peeling the plastic lid off the OJ cup, I swigged half before I even hit the street. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes late. Balls. Better run. I broke into a jog, weaving in and out of commuters and tourists alike. Sweat dripped between my breasts, and damp hair clung to my forehead.

My phone buzzed with a text. Bet that was Lorenzo urging me to hurry, or giving me the shitty news that Freddo was already at the restaurant and my efforts to avoid getting fired were moot. I dove into my purse. Yup. It was from Lorenzo. I opened it to reply and—

“Oof.”

I slammed into a solid wall of rock. The remains of my OJ exploded out of the cup and drowned the unfortunate man in a crisp, once white, shirt, a well-pressed navy suit, and a glower worthy of a fighter at a UFC pre-match face-off.

“Shit. Christ, I’m sorry.” I haplessly wafted my hand at him as if the simple action could dry and clean his shirt.

“You should be sorry.” He shoved at my flailing hands as if I were a rather annoying wasp he didn’t have the patience to deal with. “You should have looked where you were going.”

“Orange not your color?” I flashed a grin meant to dial down his exasperation. “I mean, orange and blue are a thing, you know. Maybe you could start a new trend.”

“Are you for real right now?” His scowl deepened. “Have you seen this?”

He pointed to himself as if I needed a signpost to notice the huge orange splotch already drying in the heat of the morning sun.

I narrowed my eyes. “I said I was sorry.”

“If you weren’t so busy checking the number of likes on your latest Instagram post, you wouldn’t have bumped into me, and therefore, you wouldn’t need to apologize. And I wouldn’t have to arrive at an important meeting looking like this.”

Instagram? Okay, I’d given him the benefit of being pissy with me until now. The accident was completely my fault, but come on, it was just a shirt. Easily washed. No need for him to carry on as if I’d maimed a puppy or something.

Not that I’d ever maim a puppy. God, the thought alone made me feel sick.

Focus, Gia.

Somehow, I channeled my amicable American dad rather than my feisty Italian mother and kept my voice calm. Go me. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

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