Delores blushed and looked away from Trish, content to fiddle with the crystal salt and pepper shakers. “Yes, well, that was before I knew that he has tattoos.”

What the heck, she might as well get it all out of the way…in case she was pregnant…in case her mother was going to have to love a baby that was half the product of a man with tattoos. “He rides a motorcycle, too,” Trish said, bracing for the melodrama.

“Your father is going to…”

“What am I going to do?”

Trish inhaled long and loud before she looked at the willowy man, striding through the dining room. “Hi, Dad.”

“Darling.” He removed his golf hat before kissing the top of her head.

“Devlin, please, help me talk some sense into her.”

Devlin smiled. “Trisha, stripes do not go with plaids. There. I talked some sense into you.” He winked, like Tony loved to do.

Trish’s heart hiccupped.

Dolores growled. “The man has tattoos! Mary Perrault says her housekeeper’s son got hepatitis from tattoos.” She shuddered. “Devlin!”

“Is he good to you?”

“I’m sure he’s good to her. Did you see how he dances?”

“I meant, is he kind? Does he make you laugh? Does he help you? Of course, good dance moves don’t hurt either.”

If Trish could be biologically related to either one of her adopted parents, she would pick Devlin. In her own way, Trish loved Delores, but the woman was exhausting. She tried too hard, always wanting to fit in and be noticed. Devlin didn’t worry about those things, probably because he worked too much and too hard to notice. He was who he was, like it or not. Serious confidence and swagger came from living like that. The man was charismatic, decent, and true…just like Tony.

Trish made the connection so swiftly and easily, her head lightened. “Is Tony good to me?” she asked, repeating her father’s question, staring off into space. “Yes, he is. Very.”

He was kind enough to bring her diet caffeine-free soda. When she was around him, she couldn’t help but laugh. And he helped her. Big time. From work projects to this… She smoothed a palm below her belly button. Using her father’s criterion of kindness, laughter, and helpfulness, Tony was far better to her than Stu had ever been. Plus, Tony thought she was beautiful in a sweatshirt with messy hair. Even her mother wouldn’t go so far as to say that.

“Then I don’t see any harm in it, Dolores. Tell Mary Perrault to mind her own business and go make me a sandwich for lunch.”

Dolores gasped, but she regally rose from her chair and walked toward the kitchen.

“She only wants the best…for all of us. Try to remember that.” Devlin kissed Trish on the head again and playfully swatted her arm with his golf hat. “Stay for lunch if you can.”

Trish left five minutes later, after kissing her mother and assuring her for the thousandth time that tattoos were not a prediction of future prison time. She wasn’t sure if she managed to allay all her mother’s fears, but at the very least she propagated the charade should she be carrying Tony’s baby. Better to have her mother think the baby was born from something real than to ever know the truth. And as an added bonus, Dolores wouldn’t be heartbroken when the relationship didn’t “work out.”

Trish’s heart pinched and her stomach clenched. She dropped a hand from the steering wheel to rub away the unrest. The relationship couldn’t work out. Even if on some level she wanted it. Even if on that same level Tony wanted it, too. The idea that both of them were too comfortable in these romantic roles threw her for a loop as she stood in her foyer the other night, having just closed the door on Stu.

Yes, she and Tony shared a mutual attraction. Yes, he was good to her. Yes, he referred to them as we and us and acted awfully jealous when faced with Stu, but what were the chances they could make it work? What were the chances any couple could make any relationship work? Wasn’t it something pitiful like fifty percent? With Angie and a potential baby between them, they couldn’t take the risk. They didn’t need bad blood. Break-up blood.

Nope, Trish thought, shaking her head. This was better, a little awkward, a little depressing, a little frustrating too, but certainly far from the misery she’d expect if they tried to be a couple and failed. At least she could pick up the phone and call him without worrying about the call disintegrating into name calling and general post-breakup venom. As if to prove it, she hit a button on her steering wheel and dialed up Tony.

He didn’t answer.

What should she make of that?

* * *

Tony looked at Angie striding toward him across Nonna’s narrow backyard, and then at the ringing phone in his hand. Boss Lady glowed on the screen. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

He sent the call to voicemail and lifted his butt off the picnic table bench so he could return the phone to his pocket.

“Ange.” He nodded.

“Tone.” She nodded back, and then she sat beside him with a huff. She hadn’t been this close to him on purpose in weeks. “This is stupid. I’m in there watching Ma and Aunt Connie help Nonna into the bathroom, and I’m pissed more at myself than I am at you for the distance between us. So can we quit being mad?”

“I’m not mad,” he said, leaning forward, elbows to widespread knees.

“Okay, then can I quit being mad?”

Angie’s version of an apology was more humorous than heartfelt. He glanced at her over his shoulder, and sure enough, she was squirming against the wooden bench and blinking uncomfortably into the sun.

“Yeah, you can quit being mad.” He spied a clover in the grass and stretched to reach it.

“Good.” She released a noisy exhale. “You can come back to work in the garage now. You’re paying rent for the space, you know?”

“I know.” He popped the head of the pinkish flower from its thin, green stem and tossed both pieces to the ground.

“No work?”

“I got work.” A recycled materials coffee table, as a matter of fact.

“Then get it done,” she said, rolling her right shoulder into his upper back.

Tony nodded, letting silence settle between them. Eventually birds on the power line squeaked. Tony was oddly thankful for the sound. It gave him something to focus on beside the things that remained unsaid, like Angie not mentioning Trish. He should be the one to ask if this truce extended to her, but after his conversation with Vin, Tony was all Trish-ed out. He didn’t want to think any more about helping her, about wanting her, about why she didn’t want him.

“How’s Trish?”

It figured. Tony straightened until his mid-back pressed against the weathered table. He dropped his elbows to the scratchy wood and lifted his chin to the blue sky. “You should know how she is. You’re her best friend.”

“Don’t be an ass, Tony. You’ve seen her more than me lately.”

“Whose fault is that?” Maybe it wasn’t nice and all, after Angie came out to make things right, but still…he didn’t like the idea of Angie being rude to Trish.

Angie leaned forward and assumed Tony’s former position, elbows to knees. She glared at him over her shoulder, her hard-set face framed by pitch-black hair. Her eyes were the most ominous black sometimes. “What do you want me to do, bleed? I said I’m sorry.”

Tony chuckled. “No you didn’t. You asked if you could quit being mad. That’s not the same thing.”

“Fine, then. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t looking at him, so he didn’t know if she was sincere, but those words coming out of her mouth were an oddity, so he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“You owe the apology to Trish.”

“Probably.”

More silence. Tony thought about getting up and going inside, saying his goodbyes, but he dreaded every goodbye since Nonna’s diagnosis. Each one felt like it could be their last, the way she pinched his cheeks and stared hard into his eyes. Intense. So he avoided goodbyes, prolonged them, anyway he could.

“Who’s Stu?” The question spit from his lips like skunked beer, and immediately he felt like a moron. Avoiding goodbye wasn’t worth acting like this.

“Never mind,” he said, standing.

“She told you about Stu?”

He stopped mid-step and faced Angie. As much as the conversation made him uncomfortable, some part of him wanted to know. “I met the guy. Didn’t like him.”

“He’s back? Holy shit.”

“Back from where?” With a suit like that and a side-part to boot, it sure as hell wasn’t prison, unless he was a white collar criminal. Tony could dream.

“He moved to Paris to front his father’s European operations. A couple years ago, I think. Maybe three. Where’d you meet him?”

“At her house. He stopped by while I was there.” Tony couldn’t keep the sneer from his lips.

“Shit,” Angie said again, her eyes widening.

“You don’t say.” Tony dropped his head and shoulders, and spied the decapitated clover littering the grass at his feet. What the hell was he doing? This was supposed to be about giving Nonna the ultimate joy. How had it turned into Tony being…?

“Wait a minute, are you jealous? Worried? You are. Both.” Angie stood. “You think she’s getting back with Stu? Did she tell you she was getting back with Stu? I thought things were good between you guys.”

Too many questions. They mixed with the questions already crowding his mind. “Yeah, sorry. I’m done, Ange. No more. I gotta get outta here. Go for a long ride. I’m gonna clear my head. See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t wait for her protests. He trampled grass beneath his feet until he reached the backdoor. With a deep breath, he opened the screen and stepped inside, ready to face another goodbye, hoping this one wouldn’t be the last.