Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(15)

He folds his hands in front of him on the tabletop, basketing his fingers. His thumbs drum against each other as he waits patiently for me to stop staring at him, which I can't seem to do. Cutting his eyes toward the second stranger, he clears his throat softly.

Oh my God. I have to stop.

“I apologize for being so clumsy,” the second stranger says slowly. I tear my eyes away from his companion and focus on his face. At first I don't remember what he's talking about and then I recall that he actually did bump into me. That was the first thing. It feels like a month ago.

They must be brothers, but this one is beautiful. Same dark grey eyes, same coarse hair. This one is smiling, though, and the other one doesn’t look like he knows how.

The bartender comes back with three glasses of champagne and places them on the table. I don't even glance up to him to see what kind of scowl he's giving me.

The second stranger picks up the glass by the stem and tips it toward me. I pick mine up too and then pause, waiting for the first stranger to join us. He pauses for a moment, staring at me as though surprised, then raises his glass too.

Out of habit I clink my glass against each of theirs and take a sip. It's an absolute relief to have that semi sweet liquid on my tongue, the bubbles bursting against my teeth. That is definitely what I should have ordered in the first place.

“There now, isn’t that a better?” he says. I can't tell if he's reading my mind or what. Maybe I'm just that obvious. I nod politely.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asks. I realize I haven't actually said anything yet, which is totally unlike me.

“I'm just… I'm not from here,” I say in a rush, making up the words milliseconds before they come off my tongue. “I just thought I would get a drink.”

“Do you usually drink bourbon?” he says, quirking a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. Gianna would be totally impressed with that eyebrow.

“Oh my God, was that bourbon? Really?”

The first stranger finally makes a noise that sounds like a coughing laugh. He smiles out of one side of his mouth and squints me. There's a big, dark gap between two of his teeth where I think there’s supposed to be a whole other tooth.

The second stranger chuckles in a friendly way. “But the champagne is better?”

I nod and look back at the first man, then away. Then back. At first it's a relief to stop staring, and then I am desperate to stare at him again. He hardly seems real. He's too thick, too big. His skin is so strange. Those charcoal grey eyes are like the shiny eyes of a mannequin or a doll. He looks like he was inked in, like a superhero.

“You seem like a champagne sort of woman.”

And here is his companion, looking like he exists just to be in contrast. Just to frame up how truly strange the first stranger is.

I practice keeping my eyes down. To my surprise, I’ve already drunk half of this glass of champagne. Okay. This seems about right. One and a half drinks. Two at the most.

“Where are you from?”

“Does your friend talk?” I interrupt.

He looks at the first man. “Roman? No. Not much. When he does, it’s pretty good though.”

“Okay,” I say, pausing.

“So, where are you from?”

I wince, remembering that I just said it wasn't from here. Then where am I from?

“New York… Queens,” I stumble. Just in case he is also from Queens, I picked a place that I've actually been to a few times and could probably fake my way through a discussion about if I have to.

“Oh,” he says, nodding. “New York. That's an interesting city.”

Oh good. They’re not from New York. “And you?” I ask politely.

“Atlanta,” he explains.

Excellent. They’re not from Chicago either. They’re not family, that much is obvious. Probably just passing through. From the look of them, this one is an eyebrow model. And the other one is a lumberjack. Maybe a circus strongman. Perhaps a professional pylon or something.

His fingertips tap against each other, one at a time. It's nice that he’s showing me his hands. In my family, the men either hide their hands because they’re about to do something bad with them, or they wave them in the air when they’re talking. That's another Italian thing, the hand-waving. It's not a racist cliché if it's true, right?

The piano man is joined by a violinist, and they begin an energetic duet of another song that I think I know. This time I think it's actually some kind of country tune, and the two blonde ladies at the end of the bar start clapping and singing words I don't understand.

“What's your name?”

I'm not sure if I actually heard him say those words, or if he spoke them directly into the middle of my brain. It's getting kind of loud in here, and yet I know he was speaking to me.