Worth the fight

Chapter 43

Nico

I’ve never brought a woman to our monthly dinner. It’s not that my mom and brothers would mind, I just never found one that I thought would still be around by the time the next month’s dinner rolled around, so why bother introducing them? Elle baked cookies to bring, which is sweet, but I’m going to have to hide them from the kids to save them from possible food poisoning. She burned three batches before she finally got it right, or at least she thinks she did.

My niece Sarah takes Elle almost the minute we walk in and introduces her around like she’s a shiny new toy. My mom seems curious and I catch her watching Elle a few times. She must like what she sees because she smiles to herself as she watches. I check on Elle every once in a while, but she doesn’t look uncomfortable so I leave her to the women. She catches me looking at her each time, and smiles like a kid. It’s hard for me to tear my eyes away.

“You got it bad, bro.” Sam smiles at me before taking a swig from his beer bottle.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Sam laughs. “What? It’s about time. You had us worried you were going to get STDs the way you tore through women.”

“I didn’t tear through women.”

“Yeah, ya did.”

“You’re just jealous, asshole.”

“Jealous about what?” Elle’s voice surprises me, I hadn’t realized she was near me.

“Nothing.” I snake my arm around her waist, pulling her close to me. “Come here.” I kiss her forehead as I wrap my other hand around her waist. She looks up at me and smiles. Jesus Christ I’m so far gone for this woman that I do shit like kiss her forehead and smile just because she smiles. Yep, I’m god damn whipped. And I love every damn minute of it. It doesn’t even bother me when I look up and find half my family watching us, smiling like complete idiots.

Sarah insists on sitting in between me and Elle during dinner. She’s the only girl among the seven boys my brothers have spawned. She’s wearing a silver princess crown, pink bodysuit, and her Girl Scout sash across her like Miss America. She’s also wearing yellow rain boots and it’s not raining. But whatever, she’s freakin adorable and she seems to have taken a liking to Elle.

“Can I paint your nails after dinner?” I look over at Elle’s manicured hands and try to save her, throw her a lifeline.

“I think Elle’s nails are already painted, Sarah.” Yeah, reasoning with her should work.

“I wasn’t going to repaint them, Uncle Nico.” She responds to me as she rolls her eyes, like I’m crazy for thinking she wanted to paint her nails, even though that’s the exact question she asked. “I’m just going to polka dot them!”

Elle smiles at Sarah. “I’d love that…mine are too plain.”

Sarah beams at Elle and looks back to me flatly, her face bearing the words “I told you so.”

The pair chat their way through dinner, covering pressing issues such as favorite cookies, favorite color, favorite cartoon, and favorite fighter. There seems to be a running theme with Sarah’s question topics. Elle pretends to struggle with her answer on the last question and, for a second, I think things might go sour with Sarah, but instead she just jumps up and down, amused. “Elle, you’re supposed to say Uncle Nico is your favorite fighter! I have a poster of him in my room and all. Uncle Nico gave it to me to scare away the monsters in my dreams, because he looks mean. Really mean.” Sarah makes a face that is supposed to be mean, but it’s freakin cute as hell instead. “And it works! Do you have monsters in your dreams? Uncle Nico, Elle needs a poster too!”

Everyone is laughing at Sarah’s excitement, so they don’t hear it when Elle leans in close and whispers to me, “I’ll take a poster for over the bathtub. For next time.”

The woman is going to be the death of me. Giving me a hard-on while sitting at a table surrounded by my family and next to a six-year-old.

“Go away with me this weekend?” We’re driving back to Elle’s, so I can’t see her reaction to my question, but she doesn’t keep me waiting long.

“Okay.”

“Don’t you even want to know where we’re going?” Her answer is fucking awesome, but I’m curious.

“Nope. I don’t care where we go, as long as I’m with you.”

Yep, I love this fucking girl.