Fast Connection (Cyberlove #2) (6 page)

I barked out a laugh, then scrolled up to look at the picture he’d sent me when we’d first talked. There was that cocky grin, the blue eyes.

I’d just gotten off five minutes ago, but already lust was racing through my body.

It went against my rules to message him again, but I couldn’t deny that it felt good to have this gorgeous kid pursuing me. I tapped out a reply.

After a minute, the circle next to his name lit green. He must have been checking.

How did he manage to be annoying and charming at the same time?

I bit the inside of my cheek. Now he knew my company name, and that didn’t sit well with me.

His response came thirty seconds later. It was a picture of him standing with his back to a mirror, so I had a perfect view of his ass. His head was turned, so half his face was visible next to his cell phone. And he was flipping me off with his other hand. With the picture was a message.
Been doing yoga. Your loss motherfucker.

The circle next to his avatar went gray, and I was already in a ball, laughing so hard I thought I was going to pop a blood vessel in my eye. Apparently my joy was alarming because Chelle burst into my room.

Her eyes went wide. “What is that sound? Are you crying?”

“Laughing.”

Her confusion did not waver. “Laughing?”

I wiped my eyes and stood up. “Yeah, laughing.”

“You don’t laugh that hard,” she said, following me into the hall.

“Well I’m capable of it, because I just did.”

“What were you doing?” The inquisition persisted as she jogged down the stairs behind me. “Were you watching that meme about the lady in the Chewbacca mask?”

“What?” I asked just as the front door opened. Micah walked in. His cheeks were a ruddy pink from the brisk September night. I scanned him, happy to see everything was intact. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on with Adriana?”

He shrugged off his jacket and followed us into the kitchen. “I don’t know. Her brother Nicky is back living with them, and she said everything’s changed. And her father is worse.”

Nicky? There was another Costigan? Great. “Is she all right?”

Micah watched as I took some chicken breasts out of the fridge. “Yeah, she’s okay.”

“She knows if she acts all pathetic, you’ll pay attention to her, Micah.” Chelle popped a grape into her mouth from a bowl on the table. “And you give it to her every time.”

Micah turned a fearsome glare toward his sister. “Shut up. You don’t know shit about her.”

“Hey!” I cut in. “Don’t talk to your sister that way. And you,” I pointed to Chelle. “Don’t provoke him. I want to have a dinner without you two yelling at each other. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

We ended up eating in uncomfortable silence. After cleaning up, each teen ran up to their room and slammed the door, which caused my head to start pounding,

I could watch TV. Or read. Or do something productive like pay bills, but instead I found myself picking up my phone again and looking at the last picture Dominic had sent. He’d added another message.

I smiled. Bantering with Dominic had been the highlight of my day.

I shifted in my seat. Jesus Christ. I had to do something. I wasn’t forgetting about him, and he wasn’t forgetting about me. I could break my rule and see him one more time. Maybe it was what we both needed. One last scratch for the itch.

I waited him out, and it didn’t take long

Dominic

“What are you in such a good mood about?”

I should have known that coming up for dinner with an ear-to-ear cheesy smile would result in me getting grilled by the family. If there was one thing I hadn’t missed about living in the Costigan household, other than the constantly raised voices, arguing, nagging, and permanent smell of onion bagels, it was the nosiness. Not even discreet nosiness. Entitled, all up in it, demanding-to-know-what-you’re-looking-at-on-your-own-goddamn-phone, nosiness.

“I counted the days until I can move out of here, and it put me in a great mood.”

“Aw Nicky,” my mother said sadly. “My baby wants to leave me with these hooligans already?”

“He’s not a baby,” Duffy barked. “He’s a grown man and—”

I tuned them out and grabbed a plate while my mother continued making sad eyes at me. I had the feeling she was tuning him out too.

Teresa Costigan, my mother and aforementioned saint. First generation Italian-American right down to the thick only-ever-lived-on-Staten-Island accent and flair for dramatics. Talking to her was like talking to a really sarcastic mime. Always with the gestures and making the sign of the cross. I loved her, but she had the capacity to make me feel guilty if I turned down a second helping of eggplant parm. She totally didn’t understand my fitness regime.

I scooped two chicken cutlets out of a foil-covered pan, got a generous helping of broccoli rabe from a pot, and bypassed the pasta.

“You barely eat,” she complained, cutting into my father’s tirade about who the hell knew what. “You’re going to get so skinny.”

“I need protein, Ma. I’m not working out enough to be pounding pasta.”

Duffy scoffed. “You need to stop worrying about looking so pretty and get on top of applying for city jobs.”

And here it went.

“Mike, down at the barber, his son just got a job driving the express buses. How convenient would that be?” Duffy’s chair screeched as he stood to get a couple of beers. He nodded approvingly when I took one. “You could maybe drive the X14 or something. Then come help me out at the shop.”

“First off, Pops, I don’t think I could just choose the route that’s most convenient for me. Second, I’m not about to stay slicing cold cuts and making bacon, egg, and cheese bagels on my off hours.”

Duffy planted his elbows on the table. “So, what are you gonna do when I retire?”

Was he kidding me? Judging by the beady way he was staring me down, he definitely wasn’t at all.

Shaking my head, I cut into my chicken and took a bite. It was delicious as always, all lemony and peppery, but I had no appetite anymore. Not only did he want to pick a job for me, but he wanted to figure out how much he could schedule my free time and future.

“I’m not being a bus driver. Okay? I didn’t serve in the military for almost a decade to come out and—”

“Didn’t serve in the military,”
he said, mimicking. “Get off it, Nicky. You probably sat on base with your thumb up your ass looking at porn or playing basketball all that time. Give me a fucking break.”

My fork dropped as my spine went straight. We’d got into a lot of fights since I’d come back to the reality they kept trying to fit me into, but he’d never outright mocked my service before.

“Are you for real?”

Teresa looked uneasy. “All right, all right, let the boy eat. No fighting at dinner.”

“Like that ever worked out so well in the past?” I stared at my father across the table and searched for signs of myself in him. Same eyes and height, but that was it. If it weren’t for the DNA coding my genes, we’d be strangers. It’d be nice. “When you see your brothers get shot down on patrols and watch ’em walk into traps only to get blown to bits, come back to me and talk about how you think the military works.”

Duffy’s jaw clenched, but there was also a brief flash in his face that almost looked like pride. My father was one weird motherfucker.

“Okay, how about the police officer exam? The fee is waived for vets and everything.”

“Oh my God,” I moaned. “I’d rather drive a bus than be a cop.”

“Why?” he challenged. “So you don’t have to carry a gun again?”

My back stiffened, but I forced myself to ignore the jibe. “I can’t stand the fucking NYPD, and you know that. Especially after all that’s been coming out with them abusing their power and the brutality? Jesus, Pops. Come on.”

“Don’t get political—”

“If you work for the city, it’s automatically political.”

“No politics at the table,” Teresa said, voice getting sharper. “And no son of mine is being a cop. Maybe a firefighter.”

They were hopeless. But it would be a lot easier to make the case that I was twenty-seven and could pick my own career if I knew what the hell I wanted to do with myself now that I’d decided not to stay in the military. It was a bummer to realize they were breaking their necks trying to figure things out for me because they didn’t think I’d figure it out for myself. After all, that had been part of the reason I’d enlisted in the first place. I’d had absolutely no direction as an eighteen-year-old, except towards the nearest bar with my fake ID.

Sinking lower in my chair, I listened to them chatter about the various civil servant exams and poked at my chicken. Horror scenarios were going through my head of being a stereotype or statistic. The big-shot vet who came home and eventually became a big pile of nothing unless I finished school and got some white-collar job. I’d accrued enough credits at community college to finish a lot of core courses, and it would be easy to pick up a major, but I didn’t want to. What was the point of wasting time on college if I didn’t have a goal?

And why the fuck was I still asking myself this question a decade after I’d first stepped up to the recruitment stand in my high school cafeteria?

My mope was interrupted by Adriana slinking into the back door. Her hair was windblown and her cheeks red from the brisk temperature. She looked so grownup and pretty that I gave her a big smile. Too bad I was the only one.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Whoah!” I sat up again. “Take it easy.”

Duffy jabbed a finger at her. “I asked you a question, little girl.”

“I was with friends,” Adriana said dully. “It’s not even dark yet. Why are you freaking out?”

“It’s past dinner time!” Teresa chimed in. “Can’t I once have a nice dinner with my—”

“Who were you with?” Duffy leaned halfway across the table. “If you were with Micah…”

“Oh my God, why do you care if I’m with Micah? He’s the nicest person I know.”

“If his father is letting you go to their house, I swear to God I will walk over there and break my foot off in his ass!”

Adriana’s face colored further. “Dad! Relax yourself. If he was one of your stupid cop friends’ sons, you wouldn’t be so concerned.”

“Oh yes I would,” Duffy roared. “He could be the prince of England and I’d still not want my little girl in his fucking castle—”

“I’m
not
a little girl.”

“Don’t yell at your father—”

The arguing was hitting DEFCON 1, so I slid out of my chair and grabbed my plate. By the time I finished packing away my leftovers for later (because God forbid we should waste three bites of chicken), Adriana had hightailed it to her room. I nearly bit my tongue off trying not to go off on Duffy for not even letting the girl get two steps in the house before scaring her away. She hadn’t even gotten to eat.

“I’m going to the gym,” I muttered.

The room was simmering with tension and neither of my parents responded. I changed into sweats and Nikes, plugged my Beats into my phone, and got ready to jog down Forest Avenue to Planet Fitness. It wasn’t the best place for weight training, but it was cheap.

Before going, I shot off a text to Adriana.

The message broke my heart, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she was so clearly bummed, or maybe because she was surprised I was being nice. Either way, it sucked. Fortunately, I had no doubts my little sister would be out of that fucking house and into college by the time she was eighteen. Sassy attitude and tendency to skip aside, she was smart.

I started jogging, but my spirits were still low as I obsessed over the situation and my future. A distraction was needed. Pronto.

I passed Manor Road and had to stop myself from casually running by Luke’s house. No looking like a stalker. He’d given me another shot, and I’d lure him into giving me a third if the dick stayed as on point as it had been last time.

Or maybe I could convince him to break his weird weekend rule and see me a little earlier. Dominic Costigan wasn’t above a hand job in a car. Or a quickie in the park while posted up against a tree. Yeah, maybe opening the line of communication before the weekend would loosen up my silver fox.