Rough and Ready, page 3
She nodded shakily. “Ever since…”
Gio cursed himself. He wasn’t thinking. Of course she was afraid of storms. She’d lost her parents when they got caught in a nasty thunderstorm, their small plane crashing and killing them both. “Oh, Keeley,” he said, continuing to hold her. “I’m sorry. I should have realized.”
Keeley closed her eyes tightly, pressing her face to his chest, her muscles tensing when another lightning strike lit up the outside sky.
This time, it was followed by a loud crack, then a sizzle. The bolt had hit something nearby.
When the lights in the restaurant flickered, then went out completely, he realized it was probably a power pole. And a quick glance out the front window proved they weren’t the only ones without power. The neighborhood outside was pitch black.
With the restaurant plunged into darkness, Keeley clung to him tighter, her whole body shaking. She had downplayed her dislike for storms. This wasn’t disdain…it was terror.
“Hang on.” Rafe used the flashlight on his phone to guide him as he walked back to the kitchen.
Gio carefully led Keeley around a couple tables to the circular corner booth, pushing her onto the cushioned seat before claiming the spot next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and keeping her close.
“Let’s ride out the worst of the storm here. There’s no way we could make it to our cars without getting completely drenched, and I don’t like how close that lightning strike was.”
“Okay,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on leaving right now anyway. I don’t…I couldn’t drive in this.”
Rafe returned with a couple of candles and a lighter. He placed them on the table, lit them, then slid into the opposite side of the booth, claiming Keeley’s other side. He reached out for her hand. “You okay now?”
She shrugged. “Sorry for acting so silly. I swear storms never used to bother me.”
“I get it, Keeley. We understand why,” Rafe said quietly.
Gio shared a look with his best friend, over Keeley’s head. He knew Rafe was recalling the same night he was, ten years earlier. The two of them had been out with Kayden, sharing a pitcher of beer at a sports bar, watching Gio’s cousin Elio play in a pro hockey game on the big screen. It was his first season in the NHL and they were all proud as shit, excited to see him in the rink.
A storm warning scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen, announcing the imminent bad weather rolling in off the coast. Gio had been sitting there wondering if he’d left his car windows cracked, when Kayden’s phone rang.
Within seconds of his friend answering, he knew the news was bad.
Really bad.
“You know,” Keeley said softly, “I don’t think I ever thanked you guys for…that night.” She didn’t have to specify which night. “For what you did for me and Kayden,” she added.
Gio tightened his grip around her shoulders, taking note that Rafe still held her hand. Ever since the night her parents died, Gio had felt some level of…
God, he wasn’t sure what word to use. Responsibility? Protectiveness? Possessiveness?
All he knew was, he’d started watching Keeley a little more closely after that, and Rafe had as well. When she’d been high school, it had definitely been in big brother fashion. But after she graduated from college and returned home…that changed. She’d always been pretty and confident and independent, and those attributes had only become more amplified as the years passed. He’d started taking notice a few years ago, and not as an overprotective brother figure.
“You don’t have to thank us for that, Keeley.”
She shrugged, and Gio could tell she was recalling that night too. He’d played it over in his mind more than a few times himself over the years.
He and Rafe had driven Kayden home. Not to the apartment Kayden shared with Aldo, but to his family home, the one he’d moved out of on his twentieth birthday when he’d achieved his dream of becoming a Philadelphia police officer.
It was just after midnight when they arrived, and they could see the living room lights on, the TV flickering. Gio recalled smiling for a split second, realizing that—of course—Keeley, queen of the night owls, would still be up. That smile faded soon enough…
* * *
Keeley looked up from the TV when he, Rafe, and Kayden walked into the house, clearly surprised to see them. Kayden hadn’t lived at home in five years, and it was way too late to stop by for a visit.
No doubt, she’d been waiting up expecting to see her mom and dad walk in, full of stories about their anniversary weekend on Nantucket.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her gaze traveling from Gio to Rafe, before it locked onto Kayden’s face.
Kayden was trying to school his expression, but Gio could see the shattered devastation in his friend’s eyes. He’d been quiet in the car on the ride over from the bar. No talking, no crying, just steeling himself for what came next.
Gio knew telling Keeley their parents were gone would be the hardest thing his friend would ever do in his life.
“Kayden?” Keeley said, rising slowly from the couch.
Kayden swallowed deeply and took a shaky breath. Keeley saw the tears in her brother’s eyes—and suddenly she was crying too.
Quietly. Without sound. Nothing but shiny lines of tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
She quickly wiped them away, waiting for the inevitable. She was smart and observant, with a heart the size of Texas.
She doesn’t deserve this, Gio thought. Neither of them did.
“Say it,” Keeley croaked, before clearing her throat. “You can say it, Kayden. It’s okay.”
She knew what was coming, and the incredibly brave girl didn’t cower, didn’t scream, didn’t try to deny it. Instead, she found a way to give her brother the strength to speak the words.
“Mom and Dad aren’t coming home. Their plane…the storm…” Kayden said.
And then, as if he’d bid it to come, lightning pierced the sky, followed by a loud peal of thunder.
Keeley flinched, and Gio crossed the room to her while Rafe stepped closer to Kayden. He eased her back down to the couch, afraid her trembling body wouldn’t support her for much longer.
Kayden came and sat on the other side, reaching out for her, and the two of them sat there, locked together, crying out their grief for hours, the storm raging outside, as he and Rafe silently stood sentry by the couch.
* * *
“I know it’s stupid to be afraid,” Keeley said. “I mean…we’re perfectly safe in here.”
“It’s not stupid,” Rafe assured her.
Gio didn’t like how pale she’d gone. What she needed was a distraction. “We all have irrational fears. For me, I’m afraid of hospitals,” Gio admitted.
Keeley smiled slightly. “I don’t think anyone likes hospitals, Gio.”
He chuckled, though the sound held no mirth. “Yeah, well, I think it’s a little more than dislike. I was thirteen when my mom died of cancer.”
“Thirteen?” Keeley asked.
He nodded. “I spent the better part of my eighth-grade year at Hopkins, either waiting while she went through treatment, or sitting next to her hospital bed whenever she was admitted due to complications. I hated the sounds—the constant beeping of machines—and the bright, relentless fluorescent lighting, and the smells. God, they were the worst. Antiseptic and bleach and…sickness.”
Rafe still held one of her hands, so Keeley placed the other on his thigh. She gave his leg a squeeze. Another flash of lightning lit up the restaurant, and Keeley jumped.
He placed his hand on her nape, gently caressing the soft skin beneath her long hair, hoping it would soothe her. “Nowadays, I avoid hospitals like the plague. I couldn’t tell you the last time I stepped foot in one.”
“I never knew all that,” Keeley said. “I mean, I knew your mom passed away, but I never knew how. I should have asked long before now.”
Gio waved away her guilt. “We lived in Baltimore at the time. I didn’t meet Kayden until we moved back here shortly after, just before my freshman year of high school. And you, little one,” he said, chucking her under the chin, “were barely in elementary school and too young to remember any of that anyway.”
“Yeah…but still,” she said.
They sat quietly for a few moments, simply listening to the sound of the rain beating on the roof. If he wasn’t mistaken, he could hear hail pelting the windows as well. It was a violent, nasty storm, but sitting here with Rafe and Keeley, he could almost forget about it.
With anyone else in the world, Gio might have tried to fill the silence between them, kept the conversation going with light chatter. This lingering quietness would have felt awkward in a different crowd, but right now, with them, it felt peaceful.
“What are you afraid of, Rafe?” Keeley asked after a few minutes.
The dark room, lit only by the flickering light from the candles and the occasional flashes of lightning, created an almost…well, if he was the fanciful sort, he’d say romantic atmosphere. There was something about the coziness and the closeness, the three of them huddled together in the booth, that seemed to invite the sharing of deep secrets and the kind of intimate conversation that could only be shared between friends who’d known each other forever.
“I’m afraid of the ghost currently haunting that house I’m living in,” Rafe joked.
Or at least Gio thought it was a joke.
He and Keeley laughed.
Rafe did not.
Keeley leaned toward Rafe, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Seriously?”
Rafe winked, finally breaking into a grin. “No. Not really. I mean, I hear a lot of bumps and creaks in the middle of the night. Personally, I blame Grandpa Albert for planting the ghost story seed.”
“Sounds like your grandpa,” Gio observed. “I loved the guy, but he was definitely…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is eccentric,” Rafe finished for him.
“I thought he was awesome. He always had cinnamons in his pocket, and he said I reminded him of his wife. Said she was a looker too,” Keeley confided with a fond smile.
“I never met Grandma Marta, but I’ve seen plenty of pictures. She was very beautiful…just like you,” Rafe said, brushing a stray hair away from Keeley’s face.
“Why did he think his house was haunted?” she asked.
“Grandpa Albert lived in that mausoleum of a house for nearly fifty years. He bought it for Grandma Marta as a wedding gift.”
“A house as a wedding gift. How sweet,” Keeley gushed.
Gio grinned. She had a romantic streak a mile wide, and he vaguely wondered if that was why she’d always had such a hard time finding a boyfriend. None of the yahoos she and Liza had ever dated seemed capable of sweeping a woman off her feet. Not in the way Keeley deserved.
“You’ve seen the house. If you think that’s romantic, then sure,” Rafe teased. “Anyway, Marta died a few years after the wedding, in childbirth with my mom.”
“Oh no. That’s so sad.”
“Yeah. It is. But Grandpa always insisted Marta never left the house, or him. That her spirit remained behind, waiting for him to join her.”
Keeley was completely enthralled by the ghost story. “And now they’re together.”
“Suuuure they are,” Rafe replied sarcastically.
Keeley gave Rafe a wide-eyed, exasperated look, as if he was missing the obvious. “Of course they are. They’re living in their mansion—the home he bought for her—together at last, forever, in the spirit realm.”
Rafe lifted one shoulder casually. “That could be true. Or maybe this just felt like the right time and place for a ghost story.”
Gio laughed. His friend wasn’t wrong. With a little imagination, it wouldn’t be hard to pretend they were all sitting around a campfire.
Rafe continued, “I’m pretty sure if Grandpa had left the house to Mom, she would have had the thing knocked down five minutes after his funeral. She’s always hated the place.”
“That’s probably why your grandpa left it to you,” Keeley said. “He knew you’d keep his and Marta’s home safe.”
“I’m going to regret telling you that story, aren’t I?” Rafe joked.
“Your mom calmed down yet?” Gio followed up. “Still upset about the will?”
Rafe shrugged. “I haven’t talked to her much since he died. The whole thing just…caught us both unaware. Though now that I’ve had time to think about it, I understand why Grandpa did what he did. He was a workaholic who’d given his life to building up his business. Meanwhile, my mom has maxed out her credit card no less than twenty times in her life.”
“Twenty times?” Keeley asked, aghast.
Rafe nodded. “Mom’s not good with money. She’s spent the last thirty-five years as a secretary. She makes an okay salary, but none of it stays in the bank for long. In my mom’s mind, the way to a man’s heart is either through his stomach—hence an overstuffed fridge of food—or with toys, like computers or big-screen TVs or PlayStations. As a result, her problem with spending was usually the source of her divorces. The first three guys couldn’t handle being buried under her heaps of debt. The fourth one left when she ran out of money to support him.”
“That’s terrible,” Keeley said.
“Yeah. Things would get bad, my stepdad of the moment would cut and run, and then she’d go to Grandpa for help. And he always bailed her out. So I’m sure he was afraid that if he left his estate to her, she’d squander all the money and his legacy would be gone in an instant.”
Keeley shook her head in disbelief. “That’s kind of…”
“Sad,” Rafe filled in for her. “And you’re right. It is.”
Gio looked at the front window. Though the thunder and lightning had died off, the rain was still coming down in sheets. “Doesn’t look like the storm is going to let up for a while.”
Rafe stood and walked over to the bar. Tucking a bottle of wine under his arm and a corkscrew in his pocket, he grabbed three glasses and returned to their table. “I don’t mind hanging out for a little longer.”
He deftly opened the wine, pouring each of them a glass. “Sort of cool owning a restaurant,” Rafe admitted. “Unlimited booze…and cheese fries.”
Keeley narrowed her eyes, pointed a finger at him, and launched into a fake lecture. “If I come to work for you, there will be none of that. You, Mr. Finance, know what it would do to the bottom line if you started feeding this one,” she said, crooking her thumb toward Gio. “He’d eat you out of house and home.”
“Take the if out of that threat,” Rafe said. “You are coming to work for me, Kiwi.”
She didn’t deny Rafe’s assertion because it was clear she wanted the job.
Gio was happy for the two of them, pleased that Keeley would have a good job and Rafe would have the help he so desperately needed.
However, the job would ensure that Rafe and Keeley were together all day, five days a week. And there was a small, silly part of him that felt…left out.
Keeley lifted her wineglass. “To Albert and Marta. Together again.”
The three of them tapped their glasses together and took a sip.
“I miss that old guy,” Rafe confessed.
“He was a character.” Gio had always been fond of Rafe’s grandfather.
Rafe toyed with the stem of his wineglass. “He changed my life. And I don’t mean with the inheritance.”
Gio was surprised to hear Rafe admit that out loud.
He knew quite a bit of Rafe’s history…the issues with his mom and her revolving door of husbands. Gio had been around Rafe enough in high school to see the toll it took on his best friend. And the long-lasting impact it had on Rafe’s own ability to forge lasting relationships.
His surprise stemmed from the fact Rafe was sharing any part of it with Keeley. Rafe didn’t like to talk about himself, and the only reason Gio knew as much as he did was because he’d been around for it, the two of them spending a lot of time in each other’s houses in high school.
“What do you mean he changed your life?” Keeley asked.
Rafe looked at her for a moment, and Gio realized that his friend hadn’t meant to say anything out loud. Rafe didn’t reply immediately, and Gio expected him to backtrack. But he didn’t.
“College wasn’t something I’d ever considered for myself. Like I said, Mom never saved a penny in her life. Grandpa, when I was younger, wasn’t around much, always busy with his business, working long hours. He chased the almighty dollar, while Mom spent most of her days looking for love in all the wrong places.”
Gio started humming the old country song, and the three of them laughed at the familiar tune.
Rafe continued, “Like I said, whenever Mom dug herself into a deep hole, Grandpa would help her, but it was always issued with his standard ‘money lecture.’” Rafe finger-quoted the last two words. “And while his lessons on fiscal responsibility didn’t work on Mom, they definitely worked on me. I hated the way my mother always took the easy way out. Getting Grandpa to write a check to make all her mistakes go away. I refused to be like her. So I worked all through high school at a fast-food place, and for Moretti Brothers in the summer.”
“Your grandpa didn’t give you money like he did her?” Keeley asked.
“He tried. But I was a prideful little fucker, and stubborn to boot. I refused to take his ‘charity.’ That was what I called it. So I worked to buy my own clothes and hockey equipment and shit like that.”
Keeley grinned. “That sounds like you.”
Rafe ruffled her hair, and she swatted his hand away. “I wasn’t planning to go to college. Instead, I was saving every penny to move out after graduation because I knew I’d go crazy if I spent one more minute living with my mom and stepdad number four, who was a complete douchebag.”
“How long did douchebag last?” Keeley asked.
Rafe grimaced. “Longer than most. Six years. He was a total slob, an out-of-work drunk who sat on the couch in his underwear all day, scratching his balls. Unfortunately, my mother loves taking care of people, so Douchebag fit the bill to a tee.”
