Anyone But You (19 page)

“I’m going to go get a soda,” I said, trying to maintain my mental equilibrium. “Anybody else want one?” The disappointment on Ty’s face as I excused myself made it clear he knew full well what my unexpected outburst was really all about.

The snack stand in the hospital’s main lobby had a long lunchtime line, but if I was being honest, that’s not why I’d come down here anyway. I pulled my phone out of my purse and called Roman for the first time since the incident. He hadn’t attempted to reach out to me, having clearly received the message I sent via Mark that I wanted him permanently off my radar.

“Gigi?” He’d picked up on the first ring, sounding almost dazed.

“Hey, Roman.”

“Your cousin—please say he’s okay.”

“It’s hard to tell by looking at him—you’d think he’d fallen from ten stories, not two. But the doctors seem to think he’s out of the woods. I’m at the hospital now.”

“You must hate me.” His words made my heart wince. It was true; I had hated him, reviled him, cursed him with a teeth-gnashing intensity. But I’d also been bombarded with emotions that were the exact opposite of hate: concern, empathy, and a complete inability to exile him from my mind. The resulting guilt I felt over those conflicting emotions had almost consumed me this last week.

“I don’t hate you, Roman.”

“But … I thought ….”

“Because I know you didn’t push him. No matter what Ty says.” He didn’t speak. All I could hear were short and choppy intakes of breath. I recognized what I was hearing, because I’d reacted the same way when I’d finally learned that Ty was going to live. The muffled sounds coming from the other end of the line were sobs of relief.

By the time I hung up with Roman a few minutes later, I saw Chef walking down the hall from the main entrance, carrying a couple of Cap’s catering bags full of the lunch he’d promised to bring over.

“How’s the patient?” he asked.

“Grumpy, which is a good sign,” I answered. “I’m sure he’ll cheer up when he sees real food.”

“Garlic rolls and gnocchi with vodka sauce—his favorite,” said Chef, nodding his head toward his cargo. “Hey, make yourself useful. Take one of these bags, will ya?”

“Actually … I’m not going back up to the room. I have to take off.” Chef gave me a look as if to say,
You’re up to something; do I even want to know?
I shook my head to confirm that he was indeed probably better off being left in the dark. “Will you just tell them I had to go check on something?”

“Some
one
, you mean,” he admonished.

“It’s not like that,” I pleaded. “I just … I
need
to go do this.”

“You’re playing with fire, Bird.”

“I know,” I sighed, not even attempting to counter him on that point. “All I’m asking is that you don’t add more grease to it. Can you cover for me? Just this once? It will be the last favor I ask of you, after all.” Chef’s sad eyes at this remark let me know he had relented. Disappointing me—especially now—was beyond the scope of his abilities.

“Don’t make me regret this,” he said. “Get to Cap’s when your shift starts—or else. Your family needs you right now. Remember that.”

I rapped on the glass door of Monte’s, despite the black-and-white
Closed
sign that hung directly in front of my face. A shadowy figure inside opened the door, allowing me to slip into the dark and deserted eatery. While an intense chemical attraction had been the hallmark of our earlier interactions, this moment felt somehow deeper; more profound. Having been pushed to the brink of my emotional limit, I desperately needed a soft place to fall, and I found it in Roman’s arms. From the way he held onto me, as if clinging to a lifeline, I suspected he felt exactly the same way. Only the sound of birds chattering in the trees outside penetrated the silence of the moment until I finally spoke.

“I can’t stay long. My family would freak out if they knew I was here.”

“I’m glad you came. I really needed to see you.” He looked beaten down and exhausted.

“Roman, look—Ty’s brothers, Frankie and Enzo—well, I’ve never seen them so riled up. You need to be careful, at least for these next few weeks, until ….” The news was still a freshly opened wound to me. I wasn’t sure if or how I’d be able to tell him.

“I understand that they’re angry, Gigi, but you have to know: Ty came after
me
,” said Roman. “He must have seen us together at the station.” I remembered my cousin’s threat the night of my party and what he said he’d do to Roman if I ever saw him again. “I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He just started throwing punches. Then Mark showed up and pulled your cousin off me. I thought Ty was going to kill him. I had to do
something
.”

Roman looked at me imploringly. “We struggled by the railing, and when I sensed him going over, I tried to hold onto him. Honestly, I did. It all happened so fast. He hit the blacktop below, and … Christ,” he whispered, “I thought he was dead.” It was clear he’d been mentally replaying the terrifying moment many times during the past four days.

“He got lucky,” I said. “Ty’s tough, thank God. He’s had to be.”

“I’m sorry, Gigi.” His weary eyes closed as he slowly shook his head. “I’m so incredibly—”

I placed my fingers to his mouth to stop him from speaking. His lips—so soft and warm … God, this wasn’t fair. When he kissed my palm, everything I’d planned to say to him slipped from my mind. Shrugging my purse from my shoulder, I let it drop to the floor. Keys, lip balm, and loose change toppled out onto our feet, and we gave in to the kiss as though we were both under some powerful spell. All the angst, sadness, and confusion that I’d been feeling in recent weeks vanished, like entering an airlock that shielded us both from the past and the future. If I could only stay here like this, with him, none of this other madness could reach us.

Entwined in his arms, I pressed my body even closer, giving myself over completely to the sudden impulse I felt to melt into him.

Threading his fingers through my hair, he gently caressed the back of my head as his lips pressed urgently against mine. His other hand slowly moved along the waistband of my jeans until it rested flat on the curve of my lower back, just under my blouse. The warmth of his touch against my skin sent a ripple of pleasure up and down my spine, but as I felt his hand slide back around and up toward my ribcage, reality started to flood back into my brain like a jarring submarine diving alarm. I was getting in too deep.

“Roman,” I finally said, pushing myself away from him and placing my forehead against his chest. My heart was beating so hard I thought it might bust open my ribcage. I inhaled deeply to catch my breath. “I can’t.”

“Is it because of what happened with Ty?’

“No.” I looked at him imploringly. “Yes. I mean, that’s part of it, but it’s so much more than that.” I slowly, wistfully, backed away from him and stooped to the floor to collect my purse.

“If I could explain to your family how things actually happened—” He lowered himself next to me, grabbing both of my hands in his. “—maybe they’d understand. Maybe you and I could ….” He didn’t complete his thought, no doubt realizing the foolishness of what he was suggesting.

“Nothing can fix this, Roman,” I said quietly, rising to my feet and taking one step backward. I pointedly averted my gaze. “Our families are never going to accept the idea of you and me. We can only … be thankful it will be over soon.”

“Over soon?” He repeated, straightening back up.

“That’s what I came here to explain,” I said, my voice beginning to waver under the weight of what I was about to say. “My dad made the decision yesterday. We’re taking over the lease on his cousin’s building and closing the Taylor Street location. I’m moving.”

The pain I saw in his face mirrored the inner angst I’d been feeling ever since Dad made the announcement in the kitchen before last night’s dinner service. With our restaurant in the red and the anticipation of who knew how many thousands of dollars in Ty’s medical bills, my father had come to the conclusion that we couldn’t just go on treading water without taking some concrete step to stem the proverbial blood loss. My life was unraveling like threads in a poorly knit sweater.

“When?” Roman asked, sliding his hand over his jaw.

“As soon as possible, if my dad gets his way. The plan is to move by the beginning of August, so I can start the new school in September.”

“But that’s only a few weeks away!”

“It could be even sooner. As soon as Ty gets out of the hospital, basically.”

“When do you think that will be?”

“It’s hard to say. He’s pretty messed up.” I thought about my cousin lying broken in his hospital bed. The truth was, Ty’s physical injuries almost seemed to be an outer manifestation of the inner pain he’d been struggling with since his dad died. He’d been looking for trouble for years. Had it not been Roman, I suspected Ty would have just as easily found another outlet for his inner demons. I also suspected that Roman’s sensitivity and tact prevented him from telling me about previous provocations he and his family may have suffered at the hands of my hot-tempered cousin.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” Roman said, walking to me and enveloping me in his arms. I burrowed against him, realizing it would probably be for the last time. “It feels like the world just keeps caving in on itself.”

“I barely even know you … so why do I already miss you so badly?” I looked up into his eyes as tears began to brim in my own. I fought the urge to let them fall, not wanting our final moments together to be marred by the memory of me losing it. “Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?”

“Of course we will,” he said, pushing a strand of my hair behind my ear. Though he sounded completely confident, I’m not certain either of us believed it. “It’s not
that
far,” he continued. “Besides, nobody stays with their family all their life in this day and age.”

“Nobody
except
for Italians.”

“Then we’ll be the gypsies who do it differently. We’ll secretly run off together when the time comes, like Bonnie and Clyde, minus the bank robbing and machine gun toting. I’m betting some day we’ll be able to laugh about how dramatic it was when we first fell in love.”

“‘In love.’” I let the phrase reverberate off my tongue. “So that’s what this is.”

“It’s the only logical explanation for how upside-down my whole life feels right now,” he said. Having a boy tell me he loved me should have been one of the happiest moments in my life, but instead, all it did was intensify the hurt. The realization had dawned upon me that, for a whole slew of tragic reasons, we were doomed.

“I do love you, Roman.” I squeezed my eyes shut as I said this, because it was suddenly too excruciating even to look at him. “But the thought of leaving Chicago is unbearable, and if I leave a piece of my heart here, too, I honestly don’t know how I will even survive all this.”

“What are you saying, Gigi?” He released me from his grasp and stepped away, slumping down onto a long wooden bench near the front window.

“I’m saying that this needs to be goodbye.” I lowered myself next to him. “We can’t drag this out. It would only be torture for us both.”

“So this is it? I just met you, and now I’m never going to see you again?” Roman stared straight ahead. I knew it was pain and not anger that made his expression appear as though it had been carved from stone.

“Maybe we’ll be together someday,” I said, reaching out to hold his hand one last time. “But right now, we just can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t.” And with that, like a candle that had just been snuffed out, I had reluctantly banished the only boy I ever loved.

• • •

A few hours later, while doing routine prep work at the start of my shift, Frankie and Enzo brought their two-man goon squad to my end of the counter—as if I needed any more grief today.

“What you did this afternoon, Gigi? Not cool,” said Enzo.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I responded, quartering and chopping heads of romaine.

“Your not-so-stealth mission to see the guy who practically murdered our brother,” Frankie chimed in. “Yes, we know.” I glanced down the counter at Chef, who shook his head ever so subtly to indicate that he hadn’t betrayed me. “It’s pretty obvious from the way you’ve been acting all week that you’re taking your boyfriend’s side in all this.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, and my heart is sick over it, by the way; just as my heart is sick over what happened to Ty. I’m sick of it all!” I set down my knife and turned to face them. Though the twins were trying to puff out their chests the way their big brother usually did, their scrawny butts didn’t intimidate me in the least.

“I’m half inclined to tell Uncle Benji what’s going on between you and him,” Enzo declared.

“Oh yeah?” I stared him down, almost laughing aloud at his pointless threat. “And what’s he going to do, ship me out of town to some distant relatives? In Peoria, maybe?” No more thrilled to be moving than I was, Frankie and Enzo exchanged withered looks. They’d begged their mom to let them stay behind in Chicago to finish out their high school careers among their friends. My Aunt Val’s answer had been an unequivocal no. Though she had married into the Caputo family, twenty-five years had made her one of us. My mom and dad had helped support her, both emotionally and financially, following my Uncle Greg’s death, and she felt she owed it to my parents to stand with them during the family’s unanticipated crisis. United we stand, divided we fall, and all that.

“This might not mean much to you,” I said, addressing my cousins in a more conciliatory tone, “but I don’t know what I would do if the two of you and Ty weren’t coming along with us to the new place. It’s the only thing that even makes any of this—” I couldn’t finish my thought, as yet another torrent of tears hit me. Where my crying jags were concerned, it had been monsoon season this week.

“Aww, Gig—it’s going to be okay,” said Frankie, wiping his hands on his apron and pulling me in for a hug.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” I said, glancing at Enzo, who bit his lower lip in concern at my mini breakdown.

“Don’t cry, Gigi,” he said. “You’re right. God knows none of this will matter anymore, two months from now. I’m sorry I even went there with you and the whole Monte thing.”