“And you just happen to carry that with you because … ?”
“I was trying to get into the old barn at my uncle’s house tonight so we could use it as a storage unit.”
Nic trailed behind me, his attention wandering around the diner like it was the most fascinating place he had ever seen. “My mother ordered a truckload of antiques for the new house, but she doesn’t want us moving them inside the place until she comes back from overseas in a few weeks. She wants to finish the painting first. So right now we’re trying to find a place to stash them.”
I slipped behind the counter and started looking for my keys. “So your mother’s entrusting her sons to handle her expensive furniture in her absence?”
Nic slid in beside me, his arm brushing against mine as we searched side by side. “Pretty much.”
“I’m not sure I’m completely convinced by that, but it does seem more likely than my other theories.”
“What kind of theories?”
I tapped my chin. “How about that you’re a notorious jewel thief?”
Nic angled his head to one side and smiled. The tension seeped from his shoulders. “That actually sounds kind of cool.”
“Or what if you rob little old ladies when they’re asleep in their beds?”
“Not cool.”
I stopped searching for a moment and looked at him — his inky-brown eyes, the curve of his upper lip, the way his hair curled beneath his ears. There was something nebulous about him, something dark and uncertain. It ignited a kind of uneasiness in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I thought of my uncle’s warning to me, and not for the first time felt the weight of it in my mind. “The trouble is,” I said, my voice catching in my throat, “I don’t know what you are.”
Nic held my gaze steady. “Maybe that’s half the fun of it.”
Too flustered to respond, I resumed the search for my keys, and Nic broke into a low laugh. I’m sure he didn’t mean it to be seductive, but the sound of it coupled with our proximity was having that effect on me.
“So your mom went overseas and left all her sons alone in her new house?” I asked in a bid to distract myself. “She sounds very trusting.”
“She’s not,” said Nic, laughing again. “It’s just that her love for Venetian furniture outweighs the distrust she has in her five sons.”
Five sons! So I hadn’t imagined Priestly Boy Number Five and I definitely wasn’t seeing ghosts that night.
“We try to be respectful of her wishes when she’s away,” Nic added as an afterthought. “Though sometimes we make a mess, and of course we end up fighting, too, as brothers do.”
“I don’t have any siblings, so I guess I wouldn’t know a lot about the whole rivalry thing.”
Nic nodded thoughtfully. “That’s too bad. My brothers are my best friends.”
“Even Luca?” I couldn’t help myself.
Nic’s smile was empathetic. “Even Luca.”
“That’s … surprising.”
“He’s not so bad.”
I bit my tongue.
“There’s nothing more important than the bonds of family,” he went on. “When my grandfather was alive he would always say, ‘La famiglia prima di tutto.’ It’s written on his mausoleum.”
Rich much? I bit my tongue again. “What does that mean?”
“‘Family before everything.’”
“Cool,” I said, somewhat ineptly. “When my mom’s dad died, he had ‘All dressed up with nowhere to go’ written on his gravestone.”
Nic’s confused expression was unsurprisingly endearing.
“He was an atheist,” I added by way of explanation.
“Oh.” His bewilderment morphed into a wry smile. “A funny atheist.”
“He died the way he lived — making jokes that pissed off my grandmother.”
I bent down and started rifling through the cabinets behind the counter — there were folded aprons, grimy old sweaters, and somebody’s pair of track pants. Probably mine.
Nic continued to rummage through the papers along the countertop. “Would your manager mind you being in here?”
“My keys aren’t up there,” I said, opening another cupboard and fishing around inside — nothing but dust bunnies and broken pens. “They’re probably in one of these cubbyholes.”
I looked up at Nic. He had picked up a menu and was studying it.
“Would he mind?” he asked again.
“No.” I tried a different nook and felt the tips of my fingers brush against something jagged and metal. “I’ll lock up after us. He won’t even know we were here.”