Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
His eagerness to learn was remarkable, too—whether it was Dante and Charlie teaching him a card game, Ollie showing him how to crochet, or Nana teaching him how to curse in Italian, he soaked it up like a sponge and clamored for more.
My contribution to his ongoing quest for knowledge was to share everything I knew about music from the Rat Pack era, which was one of my only areas of expertise. The rental had a big, kidney-shaped pool in the back yard, and he loved the water, so we’d float for hours and listen to song after song. Then I’d tell him everything I knew about the artists. We spent so much time out there that the blond highlights in his hair intensified, and Jack’s skin turned golden brown—except for a pale band around his right bicep that was covered by the waterproof bandages Romy had brought him. He might have just been humoring me, but he claimed to develop a real appreciation for my favorite music.
On our sixth day at the rental, we floated serenely on our inflatable loungers, our joined hands keeping us side-by-side while Dean Martin sang in the background. The sun was setting, bathing the yard and the water and both of us in a warm glow. He was always beautiful, but in that moment with the light turning his skin to gold, he was ethereal.
He wore mirrored, aviator-style sunglasses—actually, the pair we’d taken from Greco’s convertible—and in them, I could see the sky’s reflection. After a while, his sexy full lips curled into a lopsided grin, and he murmured, “You’re staring at me.”
“Of course I am. You’re the most beautiful man in the world. Why wouldn’t I stare?”
He sighed and shook his head, and then he fell silent for a while. Something was on his mind, I could tell.
Finally, he said, “We’ve been in Vegas for a while now. I was planning to get your watch back as soon as we returned to San Francisco, but now I hope it’s not too late. What if the person who has it moved out of my building? Or—”
“No pressure. Once we get back to California, we’ll try to retrieve it. But if it’s gone, it’s gone.”
He frowned at that and reminded me, “It’s your most prized possession.”
“It was. But it’s just a thing, Jack.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought that watch meant everything to you.”
“It used to be really important, because it was the only thing my dad gave me. But that’s not true anymore. It turns out, he gave me an entire second family, and four more brothers. In a lot of ways, he also gave me you.”
Jack raised a brow and said, “The family I get. But how do I fit in?”
“The watch, and by extension my dad, gave us all this time together to really get to know each other, and to build something that’s going to last.”
He grinned and nodded. “Okay. I can see the logic there.”
“For the record, I was planning to ask you out the night we met, after you came back downstairs from taking a shower. Would you have said yes?”
His smile faded. “I would have wanted to. I was wildly attracted to you from the moment we met, but…I don’t know what I would have said. I never dated. Literally never. I was afraid of getting close to people, so I might have denied myself the chance to get to know you. That seems so awful now, the thought that I could have missed out on this, and on you—”
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “This all worked out exactly like it was supposed to, and here we are.” I was glad to see his smile return.
We were still floating and holding hands a few minutes later, when Charlie opened the patio door and called, “Dante wanted me to remind you that we have dinner reservations at eight, and you mentioned grabbing some cocktails beforehand.” He was grinning as he said that. I wasn’t sure what the Dombrusos were up to, but there was definitely some sort of surprise in the works for this evening.
After we climbed out of the pool, I wrapped Jack in a beach towel before picking up mine and drying myself off. As he scrubbed his hair with a corner of the towel, he asked, “What do you think the Dombrusos are up to? It really feels like they’re hatching some sort of surprise for tonight.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
When we went inside, we found Charlie sitting in the living room with his phone, and I asked him, “Where is everyone?”
He told us, “Nana and Ollie wanted to do some gambling, so they headed to the Strip and will meet us at the restaurant. As for Dante, he had an errand to run.” There was that grin again.