Touch(19)

To Luca, it wasn’t nothing.



He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, why he was taking this girl out—on a date, for chrissakes—but she had his attention clenched in both of her little hands. He’d spent a lot of the night before lying in his bed, thinking about what her brother had told him. The thought of her as a baby, a little girl, sitting alone with no one to love or even notice her—it affected him. His family, despite all the ways they drove him nuts, were abundantly nurturing and warm. Not to have that, those early memories of being held snugly, being loved—the thought chilled him.



He didn’t know if what he was feeling for her was mainly pity or worry or something like that, or if he was actually interested in her. She was not his type—she was, in fact, the opposite of his type. He favored chesty blondes. More important, he favored women with calm dispositions, not fiery little raven-haired sprites who ran around brandishing broken beer bottles when they got pissed.



She was broken; of that there was no doubt. Broken women were dangerous. He needed look no farther back than the summer before, when Carlo’s bipolar ex-wife had nearly killed Joey and had run off with Trey, to find an object lesson about the dangers of involving oneself with mentally unstable women.



And yet, here he was, wrapped in the slim arms of a girl whose childhood had been fucked up to an epic degree, her touch causing his heart to trip, his gut to clench, and his cock to fill out.



He parked his bike at the end of the boardwalk and held his arm out to help her off. When he got off, she handed him his helmet. Her hair was sticking out in all directions, thanks to a little static electricity, but she simply tossed her head carelessly and ran her hands over it once, and it fell into a silken sheet down her back. She had long bangs, the ends of which moved a little every time she blinked. It didn’t seem to bother her to have her hair in her eyes like that. Luca liked it—it was like the bangs even more than the dark eye makeup drew attention right to those eyes of hers.



He locked his helmet onto his bike, then nodded toward the boardwalk. He didn’t try to take her hand. His first impulse had been to reach out, but he curbed it, remembering. She smiled, and he thought there was some gratitude and relief in it. They walked side by side to the hot wiener stand. And there he stopped.



Manny looked up at him. “Seriously? This is your idea of a date?”



“What? You wanted wining and dining? I figure, it’s Friday night, and you don’t like crowds, or people just in general, right?”—after a beat, she nodded—“so we’ll load up a couple of wieners, get some sodas, and head down the beach. Find a place to sit and talk. Look.” He nodded past the bright glow of the boardwalk lights toward the quiet beach beyond.



She turned and looked. Then she turned back. “That’s—that’s pretty cool.”



“Good.”



They stood quietly in line. When it was their turn at the window, the guy taking their order said, “Hey, Luca—what can I get ya?”



“Hey, Wiley. Couple of hot wieners.” He turned to Manny. “How d’you like yours?”



She stepped up to the window and rose up onto her tiptoes. “Works. Extra onions.”



He laughed. “Should I take that as a statement about the rest of the night?”



When she looked up at him, her brow was creased with confusion. “Why?”



Luca felt like he was sailing new waters. Subtlety and innuendo seemed to be really lost on Manny. “Forget about it. Same for me, Wile. And two sodas.” He turned back to her. “You like Coke?”



“Orange, please.”



“Orange and a Dr. Pepper.”



When they had their food, Luca gestured that they should head off the crowded boardwalk and onto the sand. They walked for a few minutes before they cleared the people and noise, and the beach became peaceful, the sound of the surf the loudest thing around.



He led them to a fire pit. The pit was surrounded by big logs, and he motioned for her to sit on one. Then he sat next to her, giving her a couple of inches of space between them.



They had the beach mostly to themselves—a few romantic couples strolling near the surf, a guy walking his dog, but otherwise, just a couple hundred yards from the bustle of the Friday night boardwalk, the coast was serene. The sand had lost its sundrenched heat and was cool to the touch. Balancing her dinner on her lap, Manny zipped up her jacket. Luca, used to the coastal evening cool and comfortable in his t-shirt, would have liked to put his arm around her.



“You come to the beach a lot?” She spoke with her mouth full, putting the hand that held her soda in front of her face.