Speak Low (17 page)

“Oh, honey.” My heart broke for him.

“I heard those bastards come around the corner and start firing. I heard my pop yell for me to get down, and you know what I did? I fucking ducked. I covered my head and ducked down below the window like a frightened kid.”

“You were scared! Anyone would’ve been scared. And you did what your father wanted you to do—you stayed safe!”

He shook his head, his jaw protruding. “His gun was on the seat. I could’ve grabbed it then. I could’ve shot back. I could’ve done something. But I didn’t.”

“You might have been killed yourself, Joey!” Slamming my eyes shut, I lowered my chin, my lower lip trembling. “Is this how it’s always going to be?”

“I promised myself. I promised myself that day that I would never be a coward again. That I would stand up for myself and my family the way he would have. I can’t let it go.”

“Not even for me?”

He met my eyes, and I saw how hard it would be for him to actually say it. “I love you. You know I do.”

“But not enough.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

Sighing, I toppled forward onto him again, fitting myself against his body as tightly as possible. “I love you too. But I don’t know if I can live like this…I’ll be constantly worried about your safety, wondering if today’s the day your luck will run out.” I snaked my arms behind his lower back and ran my palms along his solid muscles.

His arms locked around me, and he brought his lips to my head as he squeezed me close. “Don’t give up on me. Please.”

I didn’t want to. Bridget said love was work, and I was willing to work hard at loving him. And I’d never felt as cherished as I did lying there in Joey’s arms—I knew he loved me too. But the fear that he could be taken from me at any moment on any average day was enough to give me pause. “Are you still going to work for Sam Scarfone?”

Joey’s body stiffened. “I don’t want to. But I have to tread carefully. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Angelo today, but he’s gonna be looking for me. If he goes to Sam—”

My eyes flew open. “I thought you said he wouldn’t!”

“I said I didn’t see how it would do him any good—but I don’t put anything past anyone, and you shouldn’t either.”

Biting my lip, I kept rubbing Joey’s back. Between Sam, Angelo, and Enzo, there were going to be a whole hell of a lot of gangsters unhappy with us. “And after that? Are you still going to Chicago?”

“I was planning on it. But that was before.”

“Before what?”

He kissed my head again. “Before I got your note.”

I couldn’t help smiling at the memory of that. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when you turned around.”

“I’ll bet it was something else.”

“It was.”

I felt him swallow. “Come with me. To Chicago.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t ask me again,” I teased, but my heart was pounding.

“This is different. That was a stupid thing to do that night. I should have told you how I felt but I was mad and jealous and I didn’t know what to do. But now I do.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” He took me by the shoulders and held me away from away from him slightly. “Marry me, Tiny.”

My jaw fell open. “What?”

“Marry me. I love you, and I want us to live together.”

I stared at him with wide eyes. His hair was wet and disheveled, and his jaw was shadowed with whiskers, but his eyes were serious and I saw no sign of a teasing smile on his lips. But still, this was
Joey
. “Is this a joke?”

That brought a smile. “No! I’m serious. I’ve never been more serious. Will you marry me? Please?”

“Oh my God, Joey.” All I could do was stare at him in disbelief. He was proposing to me? In the tub?

He shimmied my shoulders lightly. “You’re starting to make me nervous here. I’ve asked three times now.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just so surprised—I never imagined—I mean, I love you, but—”

“But what? You think that will change?”

“No, but—”

“You want to keep living with your father and sisters?”

“Definitely not.”

“You didn’t enjoy yourself in the pantry—I’m sorry, pant
ries
?”

My cheeks flushed. “I did, but—”

“Then say yes! You’re killing me.” The look in his eyes was equal parts love and torture. God, he was so handsome. And strong and sexy and loyal and hard-working and funny and sweet and smart.

He adored me. I adored him.

I chewed my lip. “I want to, Joey. I want to say yes.”

“Then say yes. Vince always said we’d end up together.”

A rueful smile stretched my lips. “I heard.”

Yes
was on the tip of my tongue.

He’d be a great father someday.

Our own apartment.

And the cooking. My God, the cooking.

But then I thought about other things. Guns. Bullets. Coffins.

Vince was hardly older than Joey was now when he was killed.

I took a breath. “I have to think about it.” At his devastated face, my heart ached. “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you, Joey.” The words
marry you
made my stomach flip.

“But you’re not ready? You think you’re too young?”

“Not exactly. I mean, yes, we’re young, but my parents were young. Bridget and Vince were young.”

“Then what? You think I don’t love you enough?” he went on, getting more worked up. “Because I do—I love that you’ve spent your life taking care of your family. I love that you were willing to risk your life to keep them safe. I love how smart you are, how brave you are, how beautiful you are. I love that you want to get out and see the world—I do too. You want to go to school? I’ll find a way to pay for it. I love that you want to be a nurse.”

“Joey—”

“Let me finish. I love that you can’t reach the high shelf in the pantry. I love that you can’t cook worth a damn. I love the expression on your face when I catch you staring at me. And I love the way you came here tonight, ready to fight for me. Now I’ll fight for you.” He kissed my lips. “Say yes.”

My throat was so full. “I can’t.”

His face fell. It hurt me not to give him the answer he wanted, but I didn’t want to end up like my sister, widowed at twenty-three with three children.

“Look at Bridget, Joey,” I said softly. “She asked Vince to do something else with his life, but he wouldn’t. He said nothing would happen to him.”

“When you came here tonight, you knew all this about me,” he said sadly. “And yet you still came.”

“I couldn’t stay away.” Of that I was positive.

“And we haven’t been careful tonight.”

I grimaced. “No, we haven’t.”

“So what happens now?”

“I don’t know, Joey. I need to think.” Laying my head on his chest again, I shivered. “We should get out. The water’s getting cold.”

#

I spent the entire night in Joey’s bed, wrapped in the warm comfort of his arms. We didn’t talk any more about Chicago or getting married. I slept a little, my body spooned in the curve of his, his right arm tucked securely around my chest, our right hands clasped. From time to time, I brought my lips to his fingers and kissed them. And more than once I awoke to find him brushing the hair back from my face or rubbing his lips against my shoulder. Countless times, my throat tightened and tears threatened, but there was no point in crying.

Toward dawn, Joey rolled onto his back and I turned over, propping my head on my hand. With his features in repose I could see the little boy he’d been in that First Holy Communion picture. I saw the devil-eyed mischief-maker who’d stolen my underwear. And I saw the full-grown man who wanted to spend the rest of his life making me happy, if only I’d let him.

My gaze wandered down his body, exposed to the waist, and my belly tightened at the sight of his chest, his stomach, the line of dark hair trailing from underneath his belly button. My hands itched to touch him again. My insides felt hollow with need again. If I’d been wearing underwear, it would’ve been damp again.

I sighed. There was no use pretending I could stay away from him—I knew better.

Joey was who he was. And he was offering himself to me, everything he had. His heart, a home, a family, a life together.

What more could I ask him to give?

By sunrise, I’d made up my mind.

Chapter Fifteen

“Joey,” I whispered, gently shaking his shoulder. “Wake up. The answer is yes.”

“Hmm?” Joey’s brow wrinkled and he sniffed but didn’t open his eyes.

“The answer is yes. I’ll marry you.” Saying it out loud made my entire body radiate with excitement.

His eyes opened and he turned his head to look at me. “Did I hear that right?” He sat up and shook his head in disbelief. “Did you say yes, you’ll marry me?”

I nodded. “Yes. I’ll marry you. I’ll
marry you
, can you believe that?” I slapped his shoulder. “After all the years of your mean old short jokes and my giving you lip?”

Pure elation lit his features, and he tackled me, throwing me down and raining kisses all over my face. “I love your lip. You can give it to me any time you want.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

“God, Tiny, do you really mean it?” He stopped and looked down at me, and I threw my arms around his neck.

“Yes. I really do. I want to marry you. I want to be your wife.” I laughed. “That sounds so strange—your wife. You’re gonna have a wife!”

“You’re damn right I am.” He kissed my lips. “I knew you’d come around.”

I circled his neck with my hands and pretended to choke him.

He flipped to his back and set me on top of him, straddling his stomach. “Tell me again that you’ll marry me.”

“I’ll marry you. Now enough talking.” Reaching behind me, I took his cock in my hand—it was already hard. I raised an eyebrow. “Already? I just woke you up thirty seconds ago!”

He grinned. “Better get used to that. Every morning.”

“Every morning? Yes, please.”

Grinning, he shimmied down so my knees rested on either side of his head, and without further warning, buried his tongue inside me.

I tipped forward, clutching the headboard with white knuckles, and wondered how I’d ever thought I needed anything or anyone else to feel alive.

#

A couple hours later, we sat in the kitchen—dressed properly, this time—drinking coffee and eating eggs and toast.
This is what it will be like
, I thought, staring at Joey’s hands as he brought his coffee cup to his lips. I grinned involuntarily.

“Happy?” he asked.

“Yes. But I still can’t believe how much things have changed in just one day.”

“Or one month,” he said. “A few weeks ago, you couldn’t stand me. I lost track of how many times you told me to go to hell.”

I lifted my chin. “I make no apologies. You can be very exasperating sometimes.”

“Well, I suppose enduring your temper is a fair price to pay to have you for breakfast—I mean, at my breakfast table.”

I brought a forkful of eggs to my mouth. “And I’ll put up with your teasing if you’ll cook for me. I’ve decided I’m not going to learn how.”

“That, my sweet, is a relief to both of us.”

I glared at him, but my gaze softened when he glanced at the clock. It was going on nine, and we’d have to part soon. “So what will you do today?” I set down my fork.

“I need to talk to Angelo first thing, convince him I can pay him off in whisky hauls.”

“Will you tell him the truth?”

“I don’t have a better story, so yeah. I guess so.”

I nodded. “I can help you with the whisky.”

Joey shook his head. “You’re done with the whisky business, doll. You’re going back to school, remember?”

“Telling me what to do already?” I arched a brow at him.

“Sorry. But I’ll be the bootlegger in the family, OK?” He stood and carried his dishes to the sink to rinse them.

“What about…the other thing?”

Without turning around, he said, “What about it?”

“Are you still going to do it?”

He didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know.”

Hope surged within me. “Really?”

He turned off the faucet and stayed where he was. “I’m reconsidering.”

“Oh my God.” I jumped out of my chair and rushed to him, circling his torso with my arms and pressing my entire body to his back. I didn’t say anything else, didn’t want to push further. Just knowing he was having second thoughts was enough.

“I had a dream this morning, after we fell back asleep. After you said yes.”

“You did?”

“About my dad.” He swallowed hard before continuing.

“Tell me about it.”

“We were sitting up on the roof like we used to do, like I did with you that one time.”

“Oh?”

“And he was smoking a cigarette just like he used to, and he gave one to me and told me not to tell my mom. But I was grown, and I knew he was dead, so I told him, ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’ And he said, ‘I have to tell you something.’”

My arms prickled with gooseflesh. “What did he tell you?”

“This is the weird thing. I thought for sure he was going to say something about killing the man who shot him, tell me not to do it or something. But he didn’t.”

“He didn’t? What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Teach them about stars.’”

“Teach who about stars?”

“Well, at first it wasn’t clear who he meant, and I was confused. The dream ended there, but ever since I woke up, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I know what he meant.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” His voice caught, and he turned in my arms to face me. Brushing my hair back from my face, he said, “I think he meant my children. Our children.”

I couldn’t have spoken even if I wanted to.

“And I got to thinking, if anything were to happen to me…” He struggled to finish the thought. “Anyway, I understood better what you meant when you talked about Vince and your sister. I don’t want that to be us.”

“Me either.”

“I haven’t made up my mind completely yet, but that promise I made to myself seems less important today than it did yesterday. And I know I gave up all that money just to find out who it was, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. What matters is you.”

I smiled up at him. “You mean it?”

“Yeah. I do. I can’t promise to get out of the business right away, but I’ll do everything I can to make things right with Angelo and get out clean. It’ll be hard, and I’ll miss the money, that’s for sure—”

“I don’t care about money.”

He smiled. “You don’t want a nice ring?”

“No.” I pursed my lips. “Wait, yes I do.”

Laughing, he hugged me close. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a job that makes decent money. Who knows, maybe my sisters are right and I should stay here take over this place.”

My heart thumped happily. “You should! You should!”

“I’ll think about it. Right now I should take you home and then settle up with Angelo.” I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the dread in his voice. “God, I wish I’d never hijacked that stupid shipment and stolen those drugs.”

“No sense thinking that way.” There were plenty of things I wished I hadn’t done either, but regrets never helped anybody. “Let’s look ahead, OK? We’ve got a lot to do.”

We finished the breakfast dishes together before Joey drove me home. We were quiet on the way, each of us thinking about the conversations we had to have today and dreading them. But I wasn’t one to wait around chewing my fingernails when there was something unpleasant to be done. I wasn’t looking forward to turning down Enzo’s offer and explaining the sudden existence of a fiancé in my life—especially since I’d made such a big deal about his—but it had to be done. No use putting it off.

And maybe he wouldn’t even be that angry. After all, he didn’t love me. Ours had not been an affair of the heart, only of the body. We barely knew each other. Certainly, we had enjoyed each other physically, but he could have any woman he wanted—it wasn’t as if I was the only one who could please him. And half the time I drove him crazy anyway. By the time Joey kissed me goodbye and promised to call me later, I was certain I could explain things to Enzo in a way that would have him positively glad to be rid of me.

#

The house was empty when I got home, and I skipped up the stairs to my bedroom humming a tune. As soon as I was cleaned up, I walked down to Bridget’s. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d walked with a spring in my step, but I practically bounced along the sidewalk toward the store. It was sunny and hot, and even though I knew the humidity would do awful things to my hair, I didn’t care. I was still wearing my navy blue dress, which was perhaps a bit wrinkled from spending the night on Joey’s bedroom floor, but I had clean undergarments on and anyway, each little crease in the skirt reminded me of him. I started humming again.

When I turned the corner into the alley, I noticed Daddy’s sign above the garage door was gone, the one that read Jack’s Auto Repair. I saw no sign of activity and wondered if the Prohees that had questioned him had given up on the case or still lurked around town trying to investigate. It was an impossible job. Nobody I knew obeyed the dry law, and I was certain there were very few people who wanted to risk the ire of the big mobsters who now bootlegged most of the booze around here. Too many stories in the papers these days about where you might end up if you ratted on them.

Spying a produce truck behind the store, I grinned like an idiot. The day I’d first heard Joey was back in town, he’d helped Bridget unload produce at the store. He often helped her out if Martin wasn’t available, and for free too, or maybe just for a sandwich or bowl of soup. Bridget said he wouldn’t take money from family. At the time I’d rolled my eyes and declared him a dope, but now I understood him better. Family meant everything to him.

I’d be his family soon.

I may have squealed just a little at the thought.

Letting myself in the back door, I headed through the stock room and into the front, where Molly was teaching Mary Grace to use the cash register, and Bridget’s boys were stacking candy behind the counter. “Good morning, everyone,” I chirped gaily, stopping to ruffle the dark hair on my nephews’ heads.

They both blinked as if they didn’t recognize me. My grin widened and I patted Molly on the shoulder and tweaked Mary Grace’s turned-up nose. “Bridget upstairs?”

“Yeah,” said Molly, her brow furrowed. “Where were you?”

“At Joey’s,” I answered. My body felt lighter than the air around it. I’d nearly forgotten what it was like to tell the truth.

“All night?” Molly’s eyes were wide.

“Uh huh.”

“Tiny, guess what?” Mary Grace either wasn’t surprised at that or it didn’t faze her. “Molly’s teaching me to work the register and Bridget says she’ll pay me if I work some hours at the store each week!”

“That’s great, poppet. You’ll catch on in no time.” I ruffled her hair. “I’ll be down in a little bit.” Tossing them one last smile, I sailed back into the stock room and up the stairs to Bridget’s apartment, leaving Molly in open-mouthed stupor.

The back door was open and music drifted into the stairwell from her radio, a piano waltz that took me back to the night Joey and I sat on the roof.

Teach them about stars.

My belly whooshed, and I grabbed onto a chair back for balance. We would. We would teach our children about stars and planets and history and geography. We’d have a map of the world and show them where their Daddy was born, where their grandparents had immigrated from. Joey would teach them to cook meatballs and tomato sauce and
arancine
, and I’d teach them—

I frowned for a second. Well, I’d think of something to teach them.

And I didn’t want children yet, anyway. Quickly I put a hand to my stomach, closed my eyes and mumbled a prayer asking God to forgive Joey and me for throwing caution out the pantry door—and the bedroom door, and the bathroom door, and the kitchen door—and to grant us some time together before starting a family. Not that we deserved much pardon; we’d been completely reckless. And if it happened, it happened. I was stunned to realize I’d be all right either way.

“Bridge?” I called, fighting the maniacal grin that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on my face.

“In here,” she hollered from the boys’ bedroom. I wandered back and found her stripping the sheets from the beds. “Monday. Laundry,” she reminded me. “Although I don’t know how I’m going to get these sheets to dry, it’s so darn humid outside.” She was sweaty from the exertion of housework and wiped the back of her wrist across her forehead. Finally she eyed me curiously. “You look happy.”

“I am.”

“You’re positively glowing,” she observed, coming around the bed to examine me closer. “What happened with Joey?”

“I told him I was in love with him.”

She gasped. “You didn’t!”

I smiled even wider at the shock on her face and rocked back on my heels. “I did.”

“What did he say?” The grin on her face nearly matched mine.

“He said he loved me too.”

Bridget clapped her palms to her cheeks. “I don’t believe it.”

“And,” I went on, twirling around before backing up to the dresser and leaning back against it dramatically. “He proposed.”

She gasped again. “I don’t
believe
it!”

“Believe it.” I had no ring to show her, but I didn’t care. “I accepted.”

She sank onto the bed, her hands still splayed on her face. “Of course you did.” She shook her head. “I don’t
believe
it. Vince was right all along.”

“He must have seen something we didn’t.”

Finally she dropped her hands and lowered her chin to shoot me a look. “Everyone saw something you two didn’t. Mary Grace saw it, for cryin’ out loud.”

“She did?”

Bridget nodded. “Yes. You weren’t fooling anyone but yourselves.” She fanned her face. “Well. Well. I just can’t seem to think straight.”

“I know the feeling.”

She smiled. “Have you told Daddy?”

It was the one thing capable of turning my smile into a grimace. Well, that and the thought of the conversation I had to have with Enzo. But I wouldn’t think about that now. “No. I wanted to tell someone who’d be happy about it first.”

“I think he’ll be happy,” Bridget said carefully. “He likes Joey. Always has.”

“He likes me at home better, though.”

She stood. “Leave Daddy to me. If he’s anything less than glad for you, I’ll take him to task. The girls are old enough to manage the house and themselves at this point, and you deserve to be happy.”