Chapter 15 – Beautiful Disaster: Falling for My Brother-in-Law

Filed to story: Beautiful Disaster: Falling for My Brother-in-Law

Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You seeped under the door, and I could hear Benito belting out the words. He was the first to start the karaoke, and ironically, it was always to iconic love songs. My cousin wouldn’t sleep with the same girl twice unless she had double-Ds. His words, not mine.

When he mangled his next line, a soft laugh escaped me. I let myself glance at Nicolas, expecting some amusement, but my laughter faded when I found him already looking at me. The darkness in his eyes shaded his sober expression.

The music and voices outside the door became indiscernible noise as blood drummed in my ears. He got up, set his unfinished glass of whiskey on a side table, and headed to leave. He stopped by my side. The ability to breathe ceased to exist when his thumb ran down my cheek, as light as satin and as rough as his voice. He gripped my chin and turned my face toward his.

We looked at each other for seconds that felt like minutes.

“Don’t follow men into dark corners.” A spark flickered to life in his eyes. It softened when his thumb skimmed the edge of my bottom lip. “Next time, you might not get out alive.”

With the warning hanging in the air, his hand slipped from my face and he left the room without another word.

I rested my head against the armchair and breathed normally for the first time since he’d walked through the door. I didn’t know what that was, why it felt like I had a continual live wire under my skin in his presence, but I didn’t want to analyze it. I knew it wasn’t a good thing. Anything that stops your breath can’t be good for you.

My gaze fell to his drink on the table.

I was out of my mind.

I was burning.

I closed the book and got up from my chair. Walking around the side table, I twirled the tumbler on the lacquered wood between loose fingers.

The remaining liquid sat on the bottom, golden and forgotten.

I never did like whiskey.

But I brought it to my lips . . . and I drank it anyway.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”

—Emily Dickinson

THE WHISKEY WAS A MEMORY of warmth in my stomach as I sat on my haunches before my sister’s TV stand. “Fright Night, Evil Dead, or Night of the Living Dead?” I placed the movies on my lap and waited for a response.

Adriana’s muffled words sounded from the bed. “Sixteen Candles.”

My eyes widened. “Sixteen Candles?”

“Mmhmm.”

This was bad. Very bad.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

A sigh. “Yes, Elena.”

“Okay. . . let me go get it.”

I eyed my sister like she’d grown two more heads as I headed out of the room. However, she only looked drunk and tired, covered by a Star Wars blanket.

I returned from my room a moment later, popped the DVD in, and climbed into bed next to her. Stealing half the blanket, I pulled it over the dress I didn’t have the energy to change. Soft light flashed from the TV in the dark room as we watched the movie in silence.

“Elena?” Her voice was quiet.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think of Nico?”

I hesitated.

“I’m not sure,” I finally responded.

“I talked to him a bit tonight.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t so bad. He’s a little rude, but I don’t hate him.”

I focused on the movie because I didn’t know what to say. I was glad for my sister, that she found something to talk about with him . . . However, my chest tightened in a strange way.

“Elena?” she said softly, grabbing something off the nightstand.

“Yeah?”

She handed her cell phone to me without looking. “Please send it. I can’t.”

I took the phone and read the text already typed out to Samantha—well, that was the codename for Ryan. A simple “Goodbye” was all it said.

My throat constricted, but I pushed the little button that could change lives and break hearts with nothing but an electronic word. I did it for Ryan’s sake, and wished I could go back and do the same for another’s.

“Done,” I whispered.

We lay side by side and watched a girl fall in love.

One of us already had, and the other knew she never would.

I sat at the kitchen table, legs crisscrossed on the chair, watching a raindrop make its way down the windowpane.

“No, no, no!” Mamma tossed the wooden spoon on the island, having just tasted the red sauce Adriana had prepared. Mamma’s sweatsuit was purple today, and her hair was half-up like it always was. “Now you’ve gone and killed him.”

Adriana sighed, her expression tightening with frustration. “How have I killed him again already?”

“That sauce is so bitter he would keel over.”

Amusement filled me. The last pot of sauce, Adriana had taken too long and poor Nicolas died of starvation.

Mamma shook her head. “Incredibile. I don’t know how you went on this long not knowing how to cook una semplice salsa di spagetti. I should pull you from those classes you take and make you spend the time in the kitchen.”

Adriana leaned against the counter. A white apron covered her Hamlet t-shirt that was longer than her shorts, and a yellow bandana kept her hair back from her face. “Elena isn’t a good cook either.”

I frowned.

“Elena is not getting married in two weeks!”

The soft patter of rain hitting the windows filled the room, a quiet discomfort replacing any words. The need to ease the tension rushed over me. It was what I was good for, after all.

“I doubt she will kill the man, Mamma. If he can survive being shot a number of times like I’m sure he has, then he should outlive Adriana’s cooking.”

“Three times,” Adriana piped up.

My brows knitted. “What?”

“He’s been shot three times.”

“Mamma mia,” Mamma scolded. “Do not talk of such things.”

A certain interest ran over me, and, ignoring Mamma, I asked, “How do you know that?”

My sister’s sparkling gaze came my way. “I asked him last night.”

“You what? Adriana!”

I sat forward in my chair. “And he told you?”

“Well . . . not exactly. I asked him, and he only looked down on me like I was annoying him. But then Gianna, who was overhearing the conversation, told me three times.”

“Do you have a brain in your head? Why would you ask him something like that?”

Neither of us looked in Mamma’s direction. A smile pulled on our lips. We were now playing a popular game to see who could shock Mamma enough she’d storm from the room, berating us in Italian. It usually began with ignoring her a few times.

“Is Gianna his sister?” I asked, though I was 99 percent sure he was an only child. She could have been a cousin, but somehow, I knew she wasn’t.

Adriana laughed. “No. Stepmother.”

My jaw dropped. “She’s younger than him!”

“A year,” Adriana confirmed.

“My God. Can you imagine sleeping with a man more than twice your age?”

“Elena!”

Adriana’s gaze widened. “You think she had sex with his papà?”

“Stop with this talk.”

I pursed my lips. “Well, they were married. They at least had missionary—”

“Basta!” Mamma headed for the door, tossed her apron on the counter, and spewed Italian about her heathen daughters the whole way.

Our laughter filled the kitchen.

“I can’t believe she’s his stepmother,” I said, before adding, “Or, was.”

“I know.” Adriana stuck her finger in the sauce and tasted it, grimacing. “But I don’t think they have a mother-son relationship.”

“No,” I said, “more like the other way around.”

Adriana shook her head. “No, not like that either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would bet my entire costume collection they’ve slept together.”

My eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yep,” she said, wiping the island down.

My sister was usually quiet, blending into the background at parties and events, but that only made her skilled at reading people—when she took the time or cared about doing it, anyway. She was probably right. How very . . . blasphemous. Though, I wouldn’t have expected much else from the boss.

I hopped off my chair, headed to the pot on the stove, and tasted a little from the wooden spoon. Bitterness exploded in my mouth. “Wow, that’s, um . . .”

Adriana laughed while struggling to reach a cup on the top shelf. She hopped and growled when she still couldn’t get it. She turned around, giving up, her gaze narrowed.