Page 43 of Baby Take Me Home

I knocked on the front door, which had a Private Party sign hanging on it. When there was no answer, I rang the bell because I knew they probably hadn’t heard the knock over the music.

Ashlee leaned into my arm. She looked nervous. “Maybe we should go.”

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Nothing to be worried about. You’re going to like these people.”

As I finished speaking, someone cracked the door, and then opened it wide.

“TJ!” Tony’s wife Cassandra wore a floor-length, multi-colored summer dress and had her long black hair tied into a ponytail that appeared to spring out of the top of her head. Her wrist bangles rang musically as she threw her arms around my neck. “When Tony said your maybe changed to a yes, we were so excited!”

She pulled away from me and immediately drew Ashlee into a hug. “And this must be your plus one. Oh, TJ, she’s a looker. Too good for the likes of you. I’m just kidding,” she said as she finally released Ashlee. “He’s gorgeous. The two of you together are—” she kissed her fingertips. “Tony will justdie! TJ hasn’t brought a woman home in ages.”

“Home?” Ashlee mouthed to me.

I shook my head. “This is Cassandra, my sister-in-law. If it isn’t obvious, she’s very Italian. Very demonstrative. Very chatty.”

“Oh my god, Tony, your brother is here with the most gorgeous woman,” Cassandra called as we stepped into the huge front room of the art gallery she owned.

Tony’s latest collection was hung around the room. The paintings were the brightest, happiest ones I’d seen from him thus far. Every year, as his trauma was farther behind him and his life was better, his art got more lighthearted.

Ashlee stopped in front of one of the paintings, taking it all in, including the signature. I explained that my brother, who had always loved painting and drawing and had minored in fine arts in college, had taken up painting as therapy, and had been discovered by one of the savviest art dealers in DC.

“Cassandra Cisnero,” Ashlee said without looking away from the painting.

“That’s me!” Cassandra held a glass of champagne in one hand and pulled Ashlee into a side hug with her other arm. “Come, come, meet everyone. Everyone, say hello to Ashlee Armand. She’s with Tony’s gorgeous big brother, TJ. TJ, I think you’ve met everyone before. And yes, yes, she’s that Ashlee Armand. We have a celebrity joining us tonight!”

Ashlee cringed visibly. I wanted to throttle Cassandra, who always meant well but sometimes talked too fast for her own and everyone else’s own good.

“The series of articles this woman wrote for the Sun about the Me Too movement,” Cassandra continued, laying one hand over her heart, “a masterpiece. Alice, you remember how we talked about those stories. Come, come, Ashlee, you must meet Alice.”

Just like that, my date was swept away from me and into the middle of an energetic group of men in jeans and suit jackets and women in dresses as colorful and over the top as Cassandra’s. But my loud, over-zealous sister-in-law had made amends by bringing up Ashlee’s award-winning work, and now Ashlee was smiling.

Tony clapped me on the back and pulled me into a hug. “TJ, what the hell, you wait until the last minute to say yes and then you bring one of Cassandra’s celebrity crushes into our midst without warning us?”

“I swear I didn’t know.” I clapped Tony on the back, then stood back to look at my little brother. “You look good.” I mock-punched his midsection. “I see Cassandra’s mom still enjoys feeding you pasta.”

“Watch it, smartass, or I’ll get Mom and Dad on FaceTime and introduce them to your girl.” He lowered his voice and nudged my shoulder. “So tell me about this. It’s new, right? Either that, or you’ve been holding out on me.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s new. But it’s...” I shrugged, unable to find the right words.

“I know it’s...” Tony mirrored my shrug. “I can tell by the fact that you brought her around to meet Cassandra.”

“And you. Oh, and it looks like your wife might let you meet her, too.”

The two women joined us. Ashlee held out her hand, but Tony pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t let this hunk of granite over here fool you,” he said as he nodded in my direction. “Our father’s Italian, so we have hot blood flowing through our veins. We don’t shake hands, we hug.”

When Ashlee glanced at me, I could see the crimson stain at the top of her cheeks. To her credit, she managed a smile. “Anthony R. Cisnero. AnthonyRussoCisnero, formerly a systems engineer, now a celebrated up-and-coming artist in the DC area.”

“That’s me.” Tony glanced at me. “You didn’t tell her about me?”

“Oh, he told me about Tony,” Ashlee said. “And I knew it was short for Anthony. I just didn’t know you werethatAnthony.”

“Well, being honest here, when he told me about someone named Ashlee, I didn’t know you werethatAshlee.” He lowered his voice. “But my big brother here is good at keeping secrets.”

“If you’re fishing to find out if she knows about my work, she does,” I told him. So did he, Cassandra, and my parents, although they only knew I worked for a three-letter agency, not the extent of what I did there.

Cassandra grabbed two full glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and handed them to Ashlee and me. “Drink, manga, mingle. Dinner’s in an hour.” She touched Ashlee’s arm. “You’re sitting by me.”