A Little Too Much

Chapter Four

JESS IS GOING to get this one. I can feel it. Chalk it up to karma or whatever you want. It’s just for a tiny, short-run off-off Broadway show, but if it does well, there’s the possibility of going on the road. LA and maybe Vegas. Vegas could be kind of fun. They’re taking three for the chorus and she was by far the best. Me, not so much, but I’m not surprised. It’s the read where I usually shine, and there’s no read for this part. At least this time, I’m spared the humiliation of getting rejected right in front of everyone. They’re not posting callbacks until tomorrow. It’s not until I grab my bag that I notice Brett in the back. He’s talking to the director.

“We’re still on for tonight?” Jess asks me, pulling my attention away from trying desperately to read the director’s lips.

“Yeah. Club Sixty-nine, right? On Ludlow? Ten?”

“Perfect. Mind if I invite some other friends too?”

I give her a quick, sweaty hug, so I can watch over her shoulder without being rude, as Brett knuckle bumps the director. “It’s your party. Invite whoever you want.” I pull back as Brett makes his way to the stage. “Gotta go, but see you tonight.”

I turn and Brett is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “What did he say?” I mutter as I make my way down.

He shrugs. “He might be able to find something for you.”

I can’t help myself. I leap off the last stair onto him and wrap my legs around his waist, grinning like a moron. “Thank you!”

He grins back. “Don’t thank me yet, babe. But I like the enthusiasm.”

He turns for the side door with me still clinging to him like a monkey, but then I see the director giving us a look. I slide off Brett and try to appear . . . something other than crazy.

“See ya, Tim,” Brett calls with a wave as we head for the door.

The director lifts a hand. “I’ll text you about the audition.”

“What audition?” I ask once we’re on the sidewalk.

“Something he thought you might be better suited for.”

Great. “Which means he’s not giving me a part.”

We weave through the crowded sidewalk toward the subway and he loops his arm around my waist. “You don’t know that.”

“So what’s this other thing?”

“It’s a recast for someone who got knocked up in When You Least Expect It. Says he’ll get you on the audition list.”

I feel my eyes go wide. “At the Elektra? Are you shitting me?”

He grins as he wends us through a swarm of high-school kids in matching orange T-shirts who are clogging the sidewalk. “As far as I know, no, I am not shitting you.”

“But that’s off-Broadway. Open run!”

“Last I looked.” He’s all smug now, trying to hide his self-satisfied smirk.

But then reality comes crashing down on me. “I’m not going to get it.”

He tugs me to his side. “Tim says the dancing is less choreographed for that one so they’re basically looking for someone with a hot body, because there’s a partial nude . . . which you have covered,” he adds, squeezing my ass, “and a voice, which you also got.”

“When is the audition?”

“He just heard about it so he’s not sure. After Thanksgiving, maybe. Said he’d talk to the director and get you on the list, then let me know.”

I’m not even going to let myself believe I might get this. But . . . holy shit!

We jump on the subway, but when we get to Columbus Circle, I stand. “I’m gonna get some tea and run an errand. I’ll be home in a while.”

“I’ve got rehearsal in a few hours. Don’t keep me waiting too long,” he says with that sexy smile and raised eyebrows.

I climb the stairs and head up Central Park West to Sixty-second Street, where my feet slow. I stand on the corner and stare at the building. The West Side YMCA is in a really old brick building just up from Central Park. I’ve walked past this intersection a thousand times, but I’ve never had a reason to turn up Sixty-second. I don’t have a reason now either . . . at least not one that makes sense, but I do it anyway.

“What am I even doing here?” I ask out loud, but that doesn’t stop my feet from carrying me over the threshold. Through a second set of wooden doors is a reception area. I almost turn around, but instead, I head to the desk.

A young Asian man is behind the counter, laughing into a cell phone. I wait a few minutes until he hangs up. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Um . . . maybe. There’s a guy who I think volunteers here . . . Alessandro Moretti?”

He just looks at me a second like he’s expecting more. When I just stare back, he says, “ ‘Here’ is a big place. You’ll have to be more specific.”

I shrug. “I don’t have anything more specific.”

“You can try the gym,” he finally says, looking at the screen of his cell phone. “Take the elevator to the third floor.” He waves his hand at the corridor as he sticks the phone to his ear.

I turn and head in the direction he indicated and find the elevator. When the door opens on three, there is a desk with another Asian guy who could be the last guy’s brother. “Hi,” I say as I step up to the desk. He lifts his face out of the book he’s reading and stares at me blankly. “Do you know if there’s a guy named Alessandro Moretti that volunteers here?”

Finally, something registers on his face. It might be curiosity. “Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, I ask, “Do you know if he’s maybe here? Now?”

He sets his book facedown on the desk. “He’s here.”

After another awkward beat, I lean on the counter. “Do you think maybe I could see him?”

He points to a staircase. “Up one flight. He’s in the basketball gym.”

I find out that’s not as easy as it sounded when I get up one flight and find a weight room first, and then a pool. I look around both places for someone who looks like they might belong here. I finally see an older Hispanic man who is probably a custodian coming out of a locker room.

“Um . . . hi.”

The man looks up at me and smiles. “Hello.”

Why am I nervous? I force myself to stop fidgeting. “Where is the basketball gym?”

“If you go straight through the women’s locker room,” he says, indicating the door just down from where we are, “you’ll find it on the other side.”

I catch myself worrying my lower lip and make myself stop. “Thanks.”

He smiles again and turns for the stairs.

I weave through the women’s locker room and push through the door at the other end into a gym with a running track on a mezzanine above it. There’s a group of four black kids shooting hoops at one end, and in the corner under the mezzanine is a guy in a wifebeater, loose black athletic shorts, and boxing gloves, punching a hanging bag. His skin shimmers under a sheen of sweat, and I catch my gaze wandering over the ripple of muscles in his arms as he lashes out at the bag, a blistering rhythm of hard lefts and rights. I’m not sure what that bag ever did to him, but he’s clearly intent upon killing it.

As my eyes trace the lines of the veins of his forearm, I realize I’m not breathing. Nothing is as hot as a great pair of man-arms, and these are some of the sexiest arms I’ve ever seen.

The problem is, they’re attached to Alessandro.

The whistle from the group of boys on the court breaks my daze, and I realize I’m on the edge of drooling. It also catches Alessandro’s attention. He turns, and when he sees me standing near the doors, his whole body tenses. After a long beat, he tugs off his boxing gloves, tossing them to the floor near the bag, and walks over. By the time he reaches me, I’m just about ready to bolt . . . or trace my finger down one of those arm veins, pulsing under perfect, sweaty skin.

What was I thinking, coming here?

He stops in front of me—out of my reach, I can’t help but notice—and his lips press into a line.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to slap you . . .” I tell him. “Unless you deserve it.”

“I think we both know I deserve it.” He looks at me a long time and I have to pull my eyes away from his. I’m just now remembering a person could get lost in his deep gaze. “Is there something you wanted?”

I shrug and run my fingers over the dark wooden door frame next to me. “I was in the neighborhood.”

That gets a flicker of a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Then I’m glad you stopped by.”

“Sorry I slapped you,” I blurt, not even sure where it came from, but as I say it, I know it’s true.

“I’m sorry I gave you reason to.” The skin around his eyes crinkles as he looks at me, as if he’s trying to see into my head. “Would you like to get something to drink?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He gestures with a nod of his head back toward the locker rooms. “I’ll meet you at the central staircase.”

I nod and move back through the locker room in the direction I came. A minute later, Alessandro emerges through the door of the men’s locker room, a gray hoodie covering those amazing arms.

He motions with a sweep of his arm toward the stairs, and when we get to the first floor, he directs me into a small café there.

“Help yourself to whatever you’d like,” he says with a nod at the drink case.

I slide open the door and pluck a bottle of Diet Coke off the shelf. He chooses a container of Muscle Milk and we settle in at a table near the window.

He crosses one ankle over the other knee, then just looks at me for a long, uncomfortable minute. “When I left, you were waiting for the courts to award your sister custody,” he finally says.

“Yeah.” I’m not going to tell him that, for half of the time in between, I was in rehab. I don’t really remember much about it anyway, and even if I did, it’s none of his business. “I moved in with her about five months after you left.”

He nods. “You were happy there?”

“She and Jeff have always been great to me.” And that’s all he’s getting. His turn to answer some questions. “How did Lorenzo die?” And that’s it, I realize. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I need to know.

His eyes flash to me, dark and guarded, as he stiffens. It takes him a minute to unclamp his jaw, and when he does, his voice is low. “How much do you remember about Lorenzo?”

I remember he hurt me. I remember he dealt drugs. I remember he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. “He was tough. I remember he hit Ms. Jenkins.”

Alessandro nods slowly. “He was thirteen when our father was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and he’d already been in trouble. Our father was able to rein him in, but after he was gone, and our mother became . . . ill, there was no one he felt accountable to. We ended up in juvenile detention because Lorenzo decided to rob a street vendor. It was a habit he never broke. He was shot and killed in Toulon, France, two years ago during a store robbery.”

“Were you with him?”

His face pulls tight as he shakes his head. “No. He left my grandparents’ shortly after turning eighteen . . . just a few months after we’d arrived in Corsica. We never heard from him again until we were notified he’d been killed.”

“Why didn’t you just move back with your mother when you got out of juvie? Why go to Corsica with your grandparents?”

He spins his drink absently with his fingers and I can’t help notice his hands. They’re strong and sure, and his fingers are long. “Our mother attempted suicide while Lorenzo and I were in juvenile detention,” he answers. “She had never been well after our father was killed. Her parents brought her home to Corsica to care for her.”

“Suicide?” That snaps me out of my sexy-hand daze. Did he tell me that? Back then? There’s so much I really don’t remember. I feel suddenly cold and wrap my arms around myself, shuddering at the memory that surfaces. “But she’s okay?”

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “She survived, but she’s never been the same.”

My guts are in a hard knot and I’m having trouble taking a full breath. This is all hitting a little too close to home. I shift in my chair and veer the conversation away from his mother and her botched suicide. “Corsica . . . Rome. That sounds pretty amazing. Why would you want to come back here?”

He hesitates a long second, and when I look up at him, his expression is guarded. “My life took an unexpected turn this spring. When I left training for the priesthood my—”

“Whoa! Back up a sec. The priesthood?”

He rubs his forehead and nods. “I graduated seminary last year. I was days away from my ordination this April when I changed my mind.”

“You wanted to become a priest?” It comes out sharp and cynical. I can’t even begin to get my head around the kid I knew becoming a man of the cloth.

His gaze goes all intense and I swear to God it’s like he’s trying to see into my skull. “I’ve changed since you knew me, Hilary.”

“When I knew you, you were dealing drugs and ruining my life!” It slices out of my mouth like a blade before I even think it, but there’s some satisfaction when I see it hit the mark. His piercing gaze clouds and he won’t meet my eyes.

He picks up his drink and takes a sip. “As I’ve already said, I’m sorry for my part in what happened to you. I’ve always regretted it.”

He’s regretted it. He’s regretted me. Fine. It’s not like that’s news.

“So, why did you change your mind? Why aren’t you a priest?”

“I fell in love.”

Somewhere deep inside me, a knife twists. “So . . . you’re with someone?”

He shakes his head slowly as something like chagrin flashes over his face, but it’s gone as fast. “No. We’re not together.”

“Why? I mean, if you gave up the priesthood . . .”

“She was in love with someone else,” he says, watching his finger trace circles on the tabletop. “But she was the pebble in my shoe that made me see what I’d dogmatically pursued for my entire adult life wasn’t my path. She made me question myself and realize I don’t have the discipline it takes for that life. I’ve never had that kind of control,” he adds, his dark gaze locking on mine.

“You love her.” He loves her. I can’t explain the sudden burst of bitterness I feel at the thought, except that it explodes out of the deepest layers of my being.

“I did,” he says. “She’s an extraordinary person.”

Suddenly, I want to make him suffer the way I did when he left me, and I know just the thing. I turn back and smile at him. “It’s my friend Jess’s birthday. I’m taking her to Club Sixty-nine on the Lower East Side tonight. You should come.”

I’m sure he’ll beg off. I can’t see Mr. I-almost-became-a-priest enjoying himself at a dance club. But that’s exactly why I invited him—to get him on my playing field and throw him off his game. I want to see him as uncomfortable as he makes me. I want to see him squirm. And I definitely know how to make men squirm.

“What time?” he asks.

“Ten.”

He gives me a slow nod. “And what is the dress?”

“You don’t get out much do you?” I smirk. “Dress hot. It’s a dance club.”

He huffs a laugh out his nose. “No, I don’t ‘get out much,’ but I’m sure I can find something that works.”

A little zing of electricity shoots up my spine. This is going to be so satisfying. He falls in love with someone else, but he regrets me? Fine. He’s going to see what he had and gave up. He’s going to squirm with his hard-on, knowing he can never have me again.

My turn to hurt him for a change.