Нора Робертс - Happy Ever After

“Who leads? That’s a serious question,” he said when she gave him a bland stare. “Somebody has to.”

“They can flip a coin, I suppose, or leave it to the instructor. I think Vinnie because Michael’s the one who’s worried about it, and Vinnie’s pretty gung-ho.”

“Then maybe . . . Wait a minute. February? Is it Vinnie Calerone?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Yeah. Knew him when we were kids. My ma’s friendly with his.When he heard I moved back, he came to see me. I service his Mercedes. He said he was getting married in February, said he’d get me an invite.”

“Were you close?”

“Not especially.” He glanced at her, then decided to finish it out. “He was getting the shit beat out of him back in the day. It looked to me like he’d have held his own one-on-one, but there were two of them. I evened the odds. And I was right. He held his own. Vinnie’s wearing a zoot suit.” His grin spread with easy humor. “I can actually see that.”

“You got into a fight for him?”

“Not for him, especially. It was more the two-against-one deal. Beating somebody up because he’s gay is ignorant. Ganging up to do it? That’s cheap. Anyway, it only took a few minutes.This is the place.”

She stared at him another moment, then turned to look at the restaurant. Despite its situation on the inlet, it was little more than a hole-in-the-wall with faded clapboard siding.

“It doesn’t look like much, but—”

“It looks fine, and I’m in the mood for pizza.”

“That makes two of us.”

THEY KNEW HIM, PARKER NOTED, WHEN A COUPLE OF THE STAFF called him by name.The pizzeria may have been small and on the shabby side, but the scents circulating in the air from the open kitchen and the jammed tables told her Malcolm knew his pizza.

They squeezed into a table preset with paper placemats depicting Italian landmarks.

“You want to steer clear of the Chianti,” Malcolm told her, “but you can get a pretty decent carafe of Cab.”

“That’ll work.”

A waitress bopped over. She had improbable red spiky hair and a nose as perky as her breasts. She might have been just old enough to order the Cab for herself.

“Hey, Mal!”

“How’s it going, Kaylee?”

“Oh, you know.” She slid her gaze toward Parker, and away again, but the glance lasted just long enough to show Parker the disappointment and miff. “Get you a drink?”

“The lady’ll have the Cab. You can bring me a Coke. Luigi’s tossing tonight?”

“You got it.You want your usual?”

“We’ll think about it.”

“Okay. I’ll get your drinks.”

Parker cocked an eyebrow as the girl walked off. “She’s got a crush on you.”

He leaned back, leather jacket open, a day’s scruff on his face, green eyes lit with cocky humor. “What can I say? Women flock to me.”

“She’d like to break the carafe of Cab over my head.”

“Maybe.” He leaned forward again.“She’s seventeen, just started her first year at community college. She wants to be a fashion designer. Or a songwriter. Or.”

“There should always be ors at seventeen. And crushes on older men.”

“Did you have one?”

She shook her head, not in denial but amusement. “No wine for you?”

“I made a deal with my mother, back when I was about a year younger than Kaylee. For every beer or its like I drank, I had to wait an hour once I finished it before I got behind the wheel.”

“You drank beer at sixteen?”

“If I could get it, sure. And knowing there was the possibility, she laid down the law. If I wanted the wheels, I had to make the deal.”

“A lot of teenagers make deals they don’t keep, or intend to keep.”

“In my world if you make a deal, you keep the deal.”

She believed him, and appreciated it, as that had been true in her world as well. “And now that you provide your own wheels?”

“Doesn’t apply. A deal’s a deal for the duration.”

“Did you decide what you want to order?” Kaylee set the Coke in front of Malcolm, and managed to place the carafe and wineglass in front of Parker without making eye contact.

“Not yet.” He started to pull one of the laminated menus out of its holder.

“What’s your usual?” Parker asked.

“Pepperoni, black olives, hot peppers.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay. Have Luigi toss us a large, will you, Kaylee?”

“Sure, Mal. We’ve got those zucchini fritters you like tonight, if you want a starter.”

“That’d be great.We’ll share an order.”

Parker waited until the girl walked away. “Does she get her heart broken every time you come in here with a woman?”

“I don’t generally bring women here. I tend to go for something a little more on the quiet side on a date.”

“This isn’t a date,” she reminded him. “It’s a deal.”

“Right.” He reached over for the carafe, poured her a glass.

She sipped the wine, nodded approval. “It’s good, and hopefully contains no arsenic. So.Your father was military.”

“Yeah. I was an army brat until I was eight, and he was killed in El Salvador.”

“It’s hard to lose a parent, and so young.”

His eyes met hers in a moment of shared loss. “Hard anytime, I’d say.”

“Yes, anytime.Your mother moved back here, to Greenwich.”

“You get a pension, a flag, and some medals. They do what they can do, but she had to work. Her brother has a restaurant.You probably know that.”

“Some. I don’t know your uncle or his wife particularly well.”

“You’re not missing much, from my point of view. He worked her like a dog, and she was supposed to be grateful for the roof he put over our heads. And she was. She . . .”

When he trailed off, Parker gave him a moment of silence. “How’s your mother doing on the computer?”

“Coming along. Thanks, Kaylee,” he added when the girl set the appetizer and two small plates on the table.

“Luigi says to say hi before you go.”

“Will do.”

“The first time I met your mother,” Parker continued,“she was cursing the computer, and not very happy with you for making her use one.”

“That was before she figured out how to play computer Scrabble. She just bought a laptop so she can play at home.”

Parker sampled the zucchini. “These are good.” She took another bite. “Excellent, in fact.”

“It’s a little low-market for your clients,” Malcolm commented when she scanned the restaurant.

“Not necessarily. It could be a fun, casual location for a smaller, more laid-back rehearsal dinner.Also a nice suggestion for out-of-town wedding guests looking for local flavor and good, casual food. Family owned is always a nice touch.”

“How do you know it’s family owned?”

“It has that feel, plus it says so right on the front of the menu.”

“Talk to Luigi. He owns the place.”

“I might do that. So, how did you go from doing stunt work in LA to owning a garage in Greenwich?”

“Is this small talk, or are you interested?”

“It can be both.”

“Okay. A gag went south, messed me up. Some bean counter cut corners, and the equipment was faulty, so they paid me off.”

“How messed up?”

“Broke a lot of bones, bruised a few organs, sliced some skin.” He shrugged, but Parker didn’t buy it had been that simple, that casual.

“It sounds serious. How long were you in the hospital?”

“Put me out for a while,” he continued in that same careless tone. “By the time I got back on my feet, the lawyers had duked it out. I had a nice chunk of change, and decided I’d had enough of jumping off buildings and crashing into walls. I had enough for my own place, and that was always the goal anyway.”

“And you don’t miss it? Hollywood, the movie business?”

He gestured with a zucchini before eating it. “It ain’t what it looks like in your neighborhood cineplex, Legs.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.And I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Can’t help it. Got planted in my head that day you and Emma played soccer at her parents’ big bash.”

“Cinco de Mayo. I have a perfectly good name.”

“It’s Spider-Man’s name.”

She smothered a laugh. “His name’s Peter.”

“Stranger that it’s Spider-Man’s last name. I worked on those movies.”

“You worked with Tobey Maguire on the Spider-Man movies? What was . . .” She narrowed her eyes. “I bet you use that sort of connection to score with women all the time.”

“It’s an angle.” He smiled as Kaylee set the pizza on its holder.

“Anything else I can get you?”

“We’re good, Kaylee.Thanks.”

“The zucchini was wonderful,” Parker told her and got a quick shoulder jerk.

“I’ll let them know you liked it.”

“She’ll always hate me.” Parker sighed. “So the pizza better be worth the harsh thoughts that must be clouding my aura.”

“The hot peppers’ll clear that aura right out.”

“We’ll see about that. Have you always been interested in cars and mechanics?”

“Like I said, I like knowing how things work.The next step is keeping them working. Have you always been interested in weddings?”

“Yes. I liked everything about them. So the next step is helping create them.”

“Which involves being on call pretty much around the clock.”

“It can. And you don’t want to talk about weddings.”

“You don’t want to talk about cars.” He lifted a slice, slid it onto her plate.

“No, but I’m always interested in business. Let’s try something else.You mentioned you lived in Florida.Where else?”

“Japan, Germany, Colorado.”

“Really?”