A Little Too Much

Chapter Twenty-One

I WAKE UP in the morning on Jess’s couch, and despite the lumps, I feel more rested than I have in a long time. But I’ve barely opened my eyes when Dev is blasting out of my phone. My alarm.

I pick it up and look at it. Eight thirty. Ugh. I should have told Alessandro that ten o’clock wasn’t going to happen. I turn off the alarm and close my eyes, but before I can fall back asleep, Creed is blasting out of my phone.

“Shut up!” I tell them as I reach for it, clicking off the ringer. “What?” I croak when I connect.

“You’ve turned off your alarm, haven’t you?” There’s a teasing lilt to his silk accent, and I want to choke him.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I know you.”

When I realize the truth in his words, it scares me. I’ve hidden who I am for so long, afraid of the questions from Mallory and Jeff, afraid of the feeding frenzy if anyone else saw the fear and insecurity. But Alessandro knew me before, when I was just me. He knew me before everything happened and I put up the walls.

He’s beautiful. Still. There’s no denying I’m attracted to him, but I can’t let him close again. I should never have gone to his place on Christmas Eve.

“You have to tell me what’s worth getting out of . . . couch so early for, or I’m not coming.”

“I’d think you’d know by now that I’m not going to divulge that information. It’s Thursday, it’s my turn, and you have to uphold our pact.”

“Our pact?”

“Unless you want to be done with our Thursday excursions.”

I rub my eyes and grimace, furious with myself that I can’t say no. “I’ll be there,” I say, sweeping the blanket off and sitting on the couch.

“Excellent. Wear something comfortable.”

I open my mouth to ask why, but I know he’s not going to tell me. “Fine.”

AT TEN SHARP I’m standing in the doorway of the Catholic youth center. It’s basically a gym. There’s a half court just inside the door, complete with a parquet wooden floor and a regulation backboard and hoop. But right now, in the middle of it are seven six-year-old girls in black leotards and pink tights standing at a portable dance bar. On the other side of the half court is a row of free weight benches where a group of teenage boys are working out, and beyond that is a small boxing ring.

Standing between the weights and the boxing ring, Alessandro is talking to a pretty blond woman who’s probably a hair older than him. He’s in a snug black tank and loose athletic shorts and for a second I can’t take my eyes off the contours of his biceps and the vein running down his forearm. God, he’s got sexy arms. But then the blonde reaches out and brushes her fingers down one of those biceps, yanking me out of my daze.

She’s in black yoga pants, which happens to be what I’m wearing. But where, under my jacket, I’m in a frumpish tank top, she’s in a sports bra. Her ass is round, her stomach is flat, her boobs are perky, and she’s pretty.

Really pretty.

Something in my gut twists as I step through the door and start moving toward them. I skirt around the half court and one of the boys at the weight benches whistles through his teeth as I pass. That catches Alessandro’s attention and he looks away from Ms. Perky Boobs.

“Ah, and here she is,” he says as I approach. He grasps my elbow and pulls me closer. “Marie, this is my friend Hilary.” He tips his head and smiles at me, but there’s something mischievous in it. “Hilary, this is your new dance instructor, Marie.”

My eyes shoot to her and back. “What?”

“You said you needed dance lessons. Marie is an accomplished dancer. She trained with the Joffrey Ballet School.”

“It’s nice to meet you Hilary,” she says, holding out her hand.

I shake it because anything else would be rude, even for me, then glance at the girls at the half court. “That’s your class?”

“Yep. We’re just about to start,” she answers, then turns to Alessandro and smiles. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner?” She sweeps her fingers down the vein in his arm as she asks and the stab of jealousy I feel as he smiles back surprises me.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

They’re dating. I knew it. There’s no mistaking the body language. Alessandro is beautiful. There’s no way I’m the only person who’s noticed this. Of course women are going to flock to him. Of course they’re going to want him. But what I feel at the realization is a literal stab. It feels like someone took something sharp to my stomach. It’s totally different than what I felt with Brett. With Brett, it was more like I just didn’t want anyone touching my stuff. This is more visceral. The thought of Alessandro with someone else is painful.

She presses up onto her toes and gives him a peck on the cheek. “See you at eight.” Then she turns to me. “Come on, Hilary.” She spins and twitches toward the dance girls.

“Go,” Alessandro says with a brush of his hand toward the court. “But I’ll see you in an hour,” he adds as I trudge toward Snow Bitch and her seven dwarves, shrugging off my jacket on the way. I hang it on a hook on the wall next to a Hello Kitty jacket that must belong to one of my fellow students, and make my way to the group. As much as I feel like a freaking moron, and I pretty much want to kill Alessandro, which it sounds like I might get a chance to do in an hour, I really need dance lessons. So I line up on the right side of the bar at the end, behind all the dwarves.

Snow Bitch queues up the music on her iPod and the speakers spit out a tinkling piano piece. “All right, girls. First position,” she says standing in front of the group with her heels tight together and her legs turned out at the hip so her toes are spread apart.

All the little dwarves snap to attention, grasping the bar with one hand and rounding the other in front of them, mimicking her leg position.

I copy their position as best I can.

“And plié, two, three, four,” she says, bending her knees so they follow the direction her toes are pointing. All the little dwarves bend their knees, then straighten them. “Plié, two, three, four,” she says again and they all repeat the knee bend. I follow along. After a few more reps, just when I’m catching on, she says, “And relevé . . .” The dwarves press up onto their toes. “And second position.”

She moves toward the bar as the dwarves spread their legs so they’re in the same position, but with some space between their heels. “And plié, two, three, four,” she starts again as they all bend their knees in this position.

I’m still working on getting my feet right when she comes to me at the bar. She lays a hand on my stomach and the other on my back. “Tight abs,” she says pressing her hand gently into my stomach. “Straight back.”

The dwarves are going through the same knee bend routine as we did in the first position, so I follow along to the music.

“Good,” she says. “Now arms softer.”

I shake the tension out of my shoulders and soften my arms. She grasps one gently and curves my elbow and wrist a little more. “There. Like that.”

Then she smiles as she moves around the bar to correct the dwarf on the other side.

So maybe she’s not that bad after all.

“And relevé . . . and third,” she says after a few more knee bends, and all the dwarves shift their feet again, placing the heel of one near the toe of the other, legs still turned out. Again, I try to copy them as they go through their knee bends but this one is harder. I feel off balance.

Marie is back, a hand on my butt and the other on my stomach again. “Turn your legs out and as you plié, keep your knees over your toes,” she says. “Your center of gravity needs to be over your base of support.”

“What?”

“Keep your butt over your heels,” she says with a smile.

I do and it’s easier.

As we move, as stupid as I feel, a troll among pixies, I start to become aware of my body in a way I’ve never been before. And as everything clicks back together, I realize that at some point—maybe as far back as Lorenzo—I intentionally disconnected from my body. For years, it’s been easier to pretend like what happens to it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing more than a vehicle. If it gets dented, so what? Just slap a fresh coat of paint on and keep going. But now, as I feel myself fully in my body for the first time in years, the sensations are almost overwhelming. My skin prickles, the nerve endings uber-sensitized by just the movement of the air around me. I glance over at Alessandro, in the boxing ring with a buff black kid, and I can hear and see things I shouldn’t be able to from here.

“Move your feet, Alex,” Alessandro says. And even from thirty feet away, I see the sweat trickling down his neck, the vein pulsing in his temple, the ripple of his biceps under a glossy sheen of sweat. I can almost taste his breath. I hear the grunt as the boy swings and I see the muscles shift under Alessandro’s skin as he moves to block the punch. His hand comes up like lightning and the boy stumbles back as Alessandro’s glove connects with the underside of his chin.

I gasp and grab for the dance bar as the memory flash knocks me off balance. Alessandro’s fist connecting with a boy’s face. Blood. The black boy morphs into Eric, his shocked face bloody as Alessandro’s fist slams into it over and over.

I was fluttering somewhere above my body, way up near the ceiling of the rec room, watching it all happen. I saw my body, sprawled on the couch, my T-shirt pushed up over my bra. I saw Alessandro beating Eric bloody on the floor next to me. And then I heard the laugh. Lorenzo.

He pushed off the door frame, where he’d been watching the fight. “Oh, little bro,” he taunted, moving toward my body like a prowling tiger. “You gotta learn to share, like I did.” He brushed his fingers down my face, my neck, my chest. I saw it from where I was floating, but I didn’t feel it.

Alessandro leapt off Eric and was next to my body in a heartbeat, shoving Lorenzo. “Don’t touch her!” he spit, then sat on the edge of the couch, straightening my shirt and sitting me up. My body was Jell-O and the rest of me was still fluttering near the ceiling like a butterfly. He scooped me off the couch and stepped over Eric on his way up the stairs.

“I think she gave me the clap, bro, so watch yourself,” Lorenzo yelled after us.

Alessandro laid me in my bed and everything spun. “Did he hurt you? Are you okay?” he asked, looking me over.

I shoved him away and muttered something that wasn’t even words.

He pulled the sheets up around me and the world went fuzzy, then faded out.

But Eric never touched me after that. At least . . . not until I let him.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe. The half court spins and I need out. I need to find air. I stagger to the door I entered through and hear Marie call my name. I don’t stop until I’m out on the sidewalk. As I stagger back toward the subway, my head spins just like it did then, with whatever Eric gave me. I can’t shake the image . . . the feeling.

“Hilary!” Alessandro’s voice calls behind me, but I don’t stop moving. I can’t. I need to outrun whatever this is. A minute later, there’s a hand on my arm and a second after that, my jacket is draped over my shoulders.

“Hilary,” Alessandro says, but I don’t turn to look at him. He guides me to a bus stop bench and sits me on it. “Are you all right? What happened?”

For a long time, I can’t answer. He sits with me, catching his breath, and I stare into space, trying to push the image of Eric’s bloody face out of my head. Finally, I sag into his shoulder.

“Talk to me, Hilary.”

My chest expands as I finally find some oxygen. “There are things I don’t remember from before, but some of them are coming back.” I glance up at him. “Like the time you beat the shit out of Eric.”

He cringes a little. “Just one more thing I’ve had to pray forgiveness for.”

“What happened? I don’t remember everything.”

He rolls his eyes up and breathes deep. “How much to you remember?”

“Just that I think he must have given me something, because I couldn’t really move.”

He nods slowly. “He roofied you.”

“Did he . . .” I trail off and pinch my face against tears. I’m not going to cry. Not again.

“He didn’t rape you,” he answers, reading my mind, “but only because Lorenzo and I came back from the courthouse before he could take it that far.”

“So you hit him.”

“I came in and found him on top of you on the couch. You were staring at the ceiling and singing in this voice that wasn’t right, like your tongue was too thick for your mouth. I knew what he must have done, so I . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. “I should have stopped. I pulled him off of you and I should have left it at that, but I was . . . I was so angry.” He hangs his head. “I lost control.”

I lower my head into my hands. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t let him hurt you the way Lorenzo had.”

I look up at him. “You were the only person who gave a shit about me through any of that. If it weren’t for you, God knows where I would have ended up.” I lean into his shoulder and he holds me tighter. The delicious scent of warm musk and sweat wraps around me and that’s when I realize he’s still in his tank and gym shorts. “You must be freezing,” I say, reaching for his arm and finally doing what I’ve been dying to. I trail a fingertip over his flawless olive skin, along the vein from bicep to forearm.

“Don’t worry about me. I have a high metabolism.”

I wrap my hand around his lean forearm and smile at him. “You’re a terrible liar and I know this because you’re shivering.”

He looks down into my eyes for a long minute, the smile fading from his lips. “I have no right to want to touch you, and yet I want that more than anything—to convince all of my senses you’re really here after all this time.”

I reach up and stroke my finger along the strong line of his jaw. “I’m here.”

He cups my cheek and thumbs my chin, and I can’t take my eyes off his, suddenly so deep that I could fall right into them. His hand glides around the nape of my neck, threading into my kinks, and I let him pull me closer. His lips pause an inch from mine, and he gazes into my eyes with a question in his. The air between us crackles and I fight the draw, shuddering at his closeness—at the starved expression on his face. And, staring into those eyes, I lose the battle. I lean forward and brush my lips across his.

The white bellow of his breath pauses as he pulls me closer and presses his lips tighter to mine. When he finally backs away, he strokes his fingers down my cheek. “You’re as soft as I remember.”

In the pocket of my jacket, Dev starts singing about her sex drive. I ignore her and kiss Alessandro again, but a sudden knot in my chest makes me stop.

I shouldn’t want this. I’m totally playing with fire.

I can’t do this.

He blows out a breath and stands, holding out his hand, as if he heard my thoughts and agrees. “We should go back.”

I push off the bench without taking his hand and start back toward the youth center, trying to reconcile the desire I can’t deny anymore with my reality. I can’t want him.

Once we get there, Alessandro ducks into the locker room to change, and that’s when I remember my phone. I check it and find a missed call and two texts from Mallory. The first is from fifteen minutes ago.

Max is sick. Jeff went in the ambulance with him to the hospital. Call me!

And then three minutes later:

Wendy and Mike are away for X-mas. I need you to come stay the night with Henri.

“Oh, no!” I gasp, staring at her messages.

“What is it?”

I look up to see Alessandro stepping out of the locker room in jeans and a black button-down.

“I have to go to my sister’s. There’s an emergency.”

He shrugs his jacket on and loops his duffel bag over his shoulder. “Things here are under control. I’ll come with you.”

I don’t argue. I spin and head for the door and Alessandro follows.

ALESSANDRO EXCUSES HIMSELF and moves up the train car to make a call. It’s not until he’s gone from my side that it occurs to me bringing him was a really bad idea. Hopefully Mallory will be too wrapped up in worrying about Max to realize who he is. I call her while he’s gone. Her voice is thick when she answers and I can tell she’s been crying.

“What happened? Is Max okay?” I hear the panic in my voice and try to rein it in. Mallory’s already scared enough.

“Jeff just called from the hospital. It’s appendicitis. They’re taking him to surgery.”

“Oh God,” I murmur.

Alessandro slides into the seat next to me and reaches for my hand, and when I look up at him, his expression is all concern.

“Thanks for coming, Hilary. I can’t take Henri to the hospital, and Wendy and Mike are at Jeff’s parents’ in Kansas for Christmas.” Wendy is Jeff’s sister and Mallory’s regular fallback. They live closer than me and they have a son and a daughter just about the boys’ ages.

“We’re on the PATH. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” I say.

“Hurry.” She sniffles and disconnects.

The buses cooperate and we’re at her door forty-five minutes later. I haven’t even rung the bell when she rips the door open, already in her jacket. Her eyes are red and swollen, but she’s not crying at the moment.

I wrap her in a hug. “We’re here. Go.”

I pull back and see her eyes locked over my shoulder, on Alessandro.

He steps up next to me and holds out his hand. “I’m Alessandro.”

“Mallory,” she answers flatly without taking it.

The combination of panic and betrayal is clear in her eyes as they shift to me and narrow. I step through the door and concentrate on peeling off my jacket and hanging it on the coat tree so I don’t have to look at her and see it there.

Alessandro hesitates in the door as if deciding if he’s welcome here. He’s not, but I can’t really tell him that without saying why. Instead, I take his hand and pull him through, closing the door behind him.

“Auntie!” Henri croons as he appears from the hall to his room and runs up to hug my waist.

I ruffle his black hair. “Hey, buddy. How you holding out?”

He looks up at me with wide, scared eyes. “Max was screaming.”

I crouch next to him. “It’s going to be okay. He’s with the doctors and they’re going to fix him all up. Don’t worry, okay?”

He presses himself against me and I hug him tight. When he lets me go, I kiss his forehead and stand. “It will be fine,” I tell Mallory prodding her toward the garage door. “Everything will be fine. Call us when Max is out of surgery.”

Her eyes shift between me, Henri, and Alessandro, like she’s still not sure about leaving us.

I take her elbow and guide her to the garage door. “We’ll keep Henri busy. Don’t worry about us.”

With a last concerned glance at Henri, she disappears through the door.

I turn back to the boys and force myself to stop shaking. “Too bad no one around here has any Legos.”

The fear melts off Henri’s face and he grins and bolts for his room.

“Are you okay?” Alessandro says as I stand frozen.

I force myself to breathe. “Just worried.”

He comes to me and folds me into his arms. “He’s getting medical attention. He’ll be fine,” he says low in my ear. His warm breath in my hair makes me shudder and he holds me tighter.

At his touch, the tension runs out of my body and I sag into him. He holds me close and goose bumps prickle my scalp as he strokes my hair. But then I hear the rattling of Legos against a cardboard box. Alessandro releases me and I turn.

“Oh, dude!” I say as Henri hauls the box with his biggest, baddest Lord of the Rings Lego set into the family room.

“Legos,” Alessandro says with a smile at Henri. “I loved these as a kid.” He moves to where Henri is dumping the contents of the box into the middle of the floor and lowers himself onto the carpet. “I used to sit and build Legos for hours.”

“Who are you?” Henri asks, without looking up, as he sorts his Legos into color-coded stacks, and I feel a sharp twist in my stomach.

Alessandro reaches in and helps sort. “My name is Alessandro. I’m a friend of your aunt’s.”

Henri grins up at Alessandro, already comfortable with him, and I force myself to start breathing again. But as I walk over and lower myself onto the carpet next to them, I feel a wet lump form in my throat and tears press at the backs of my eyes.

Because Henri looks just like his father.