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CHAPTER TWENTY

ROCCO

L et’s play Never Have I Ever!” Celeste cried when Dario and Rocco came back to the table with a round of drinks.

Everybody else had left after dinner.

Celeste glanced around the table. “Everyone knows the rules, right? Do you know the game, Nico?”

“Yes,” she said tentatively, “I know it.”

Rocco cast her a sidelong glance, wanting to put her at ease.

Come on, look my way.

Finally, she did. He winked. She smiled.

Celeste clapped her hands. “Just think of it as a team-building exercise. I’ll start. Let me think.” After a moment, her eyes blew up. “Never have I ever stolen somebody’s GoGo squeeZ.”

Rocco chuckled, looking over at Nico, who was laughing too. Then he shot Dario a glance. His cousin jutted his chin, crossed his arms, and leaned back.

“See,” Celeste said. “What did I tell you? Team Building 101.”

“Okay, Tony Robbins,” Dario said, “I’m next.” He turned to Celeste. “Never have I ever returned a dress after I’ve worn it. And I don’t just mean tried it on. I mean worn it going out.”

“Very funny,” Celeste said, picking up her glass and taking a drink.

Nico also took a drink.

She was wearing a dress now. When she’d entered the restaurant, a couple of the technicians let out low whistles and made comments, but Rocco shushed them as she’d drawn near.

“Your turn, Roc,” Dario said.

Rocco hesitated. “You know, Dario, technically that wasn’t fair, given you said dress . It’s supposed to be something that applies to everyone sitting at the table. And given neither one of us likes to cross-dress, you should have said something instead of dress , and in that case …”

Rocco picked up his glass and took a drink.

“Dude!” Dario exclaimed.

“It was the inseam. The tailor got it wrong.”

Celeste giggled. “What? You hang to the right, Rocco?”

“No,” he replied, his voice gruff. “To the left. You girls should be thanking me for being so damn upright.”

“Upright?” Nico asked, a feigned look of surprise on her face. “I thought you said you hang left.”

Dario and Celeste burst out laughing.

“Or”—Nico tilted her head, a wry smile on her lips—“perhaps you think we should be grateful for your coming to our rescue.”

Rocco leaned toward her, slivering his eyes and grinning.

“You mean, like a good prince would? Maybe,” he said, leaning even closer, “it’s just a forward-thinking prince recognizing there ought to be a level playing field.”

Even though her dark eyes were hard to read, he thought he saw some change in them as though a window had opened.

“Ahem.”

It was Dario who’d cleared his throat.

Rocco righted himself and avoided meeting his or Celeste’s gaze. “I guess it’s my turn now.”

He thought a moment, and then it came to him. Perfect , he thought.

“Well,” he said, looking around the table, “as long as we’re venturing down under, never have I ever gone commando.”

He and Dario both took a drink. He glanced over at Nico. She and Celeste were eyeing each other, both of them tapping their fingers on the glasses before them.

Finally, Dario nudged Celeste. “Come on, Cellie, play by the rules. You know I know the answer to this one.”

Celeste sighed and took a drink.

Nico put her head down, grinning, and took a drink too.

Well. Well. Well.

Dario’s cell phone rang. “My mom,” he said. “Let me go outside to take this. Be back in a flash.”

Once he’d left, Celeste tapped Nico’s arm. “So, what’s your costume?”

Dario’s parents threw a masquerade ball at their Lake Como villa every year. This time it fell in between the Monza and Monaco races.

Nico shook her head. “You’ll know when you see me.”

“Oh, come on. I’ll tell you what I’m wearing. I’m going as Guinevere, and Dario is going as Lancelot. So?”

“So, you’ll know when you see me. It’ll be a surprise.”

They continued chatting, but the rest of what was said went unheard by Rocco.

He was thinking about that dress. He placed his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm.

It was dark green. Set against her olive skin, it made all those hills and valleys of her body even more sumptuous.

The neckline ran straight across from shoulder to shoulder. He could only catch a hint of her collarbone. The cut of the dress was slim enough to reveal her small waist and that deep arc of her hips.

It was one thing to wear a dress, another altogether to go commando while doing it.

She wouldn’t. Would she?

His blood was pumping so heavy, he felt the weight of it in his legs and especially in that area that lay between them.

“Okay, back to it!” Dario cried, clapping his hands.

Startled, Rocco’s elbow along with his head slid off the edge of the table. He almost fell out of his chair altogether but quickly righted himself.

When he was back to sitting upright, they were all staring at him.

“You all right, dude?” Dario asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I guess it’s my turn now,” Nico said. “Let’s see,” she said, drumming her fingers on the table. “Okay, I’ve got one. Never have I ever fake-cried to get something.”

Nico and Celeste each took a drink. But Rocco and Dario didn’t move.

Celeste prodded Dario. “Dario, do you want me to tell them about the time when you—”

“Okay, okay,” he said, taking a sip of scotch.

Rocco laughed.

Nico eyed him and his bourbon. “Never?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Never.”

Now she placed her elbows on the table and leaned toward him, smiling. “Not even as a child.”

He bit his lip and heaved a big sigh before lifting his glass.

“I thought so.” She laughed.

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“I did. You pout sometimes.”

“She’s right,” Celeste said. “You do.”

“I don’t,” Rocco insisted.

Nico grinned. “You’re doing it now.”

Dario pointed at Rocco. “Dude, she’s right!”

Rocco shook his head while the three of them laughed.

They went around, keeping the never-have-I-evers fairly tame until Dario grinned and looked directly at Rocco. “Never have I ever been handcuffed.”

“Okay, okay, very funny,” Rocco said as he took a drink.

“Oh my,” Celeste said, clapping her hands.

“Really?” Dario chimed in.

They were looking at Nico.

Rocco did likewise. Damn if she didn’t have a poker face.

Turning to Dario, he pointed his thumb at Nico. “Did she take a drink?”

If they were ever to put an image of what it meant to grin from ear to ear in the dictionary, Dario’s face right now would be it.

“She did,” he said.

Rocco’s heart began to beat in a funny way as though it were uncertain which way it wanted to go. Did it want to slow down and make everything around him, including himself, absolutely still? Or did it want to push the gas to the floor and hurl headlong full throttle?

He leaned toward her, grinning. “Care to share any details?”

She mirrored him. “Do you?”

He shrugged. “It was a misunderstanding. A couple of guys got into a fight at a bar. I was an innocent bystander. But when the police arrived, they handcuffed me too until the bartender told them I wasn’t involved.”

He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She just nodded.

It was his turn.

He could smell that scent. He felt a jolt between his thighs, which told him his heart wanted to race.

Looking at her, and only at her, he said, “Never have I ever been handcuffed while in bed.”

What was that look in her dark eyes telling him? He felt as though they’d ventured somewhere that might be painful to her, somewhere she didn’t want to go. And then just like that, she blinked, her eyes glittering as she grinned playfully, lifted her glass, and took a drink.

“Interesting,” Celeste said.

“Very,” Dario added.

Anyone else looking at the table would have said they were enjoying themselves and the mood was joyful. But he couldn’t forget the painful look in those dark eyes just before she’d turned on that sparkling smile like a spigot.

“It’s getting late,” Rocco said. “Maybe—”

“It’s not late,” Celeste cried.

Rocco’s eyes shifted left, but Nico’s eyes quickly darted away.

They went around again, and everything seemed fine. They were all having a good time, including her.

I must have misread that look.

Celeste dealt Dario a blow when she said Never have I ever cried watching the film Titanic, forcing him to reluctantly take a drink.

But Dario paid her back.

“Never have I ever blamed a fart on a pet.”

Rocco sighed and drank while Nico laughed. But then Rocco and Dario stared at Celeste.

“What?” she asked.

“Celeste,” Rocco said. “Drink up.”

“I will not!”

Dario groaned. “We know it was you and not Rocco’s dog.”

“How could you know that?”

“Because I know what he looks like when he farts,” Rocco said. “Not to mention the fact you scared him away. We all saw how he ran out of the room. I found him hiding under the bed.”

“That’s absurd,” she said. “He did not.”

Rocco grinned and glanced over at Nico. She couldn’t contain her laughter.

Dario was having a difficult time too. But he did his best to squelch it when Celeste gave him a dirty look.

“Cellie,” Dario said, placing his hand on her arm gently. “Come on.”

Celeste jutted her jaw and had yet to lift her glass.

“There is no way for you to know it was me. You should accept that it wasn’t, given I told you it wasn’t.”

Rocco and Dario looked at each other.

There was a pause.

And then in unison, they said, “Uh, no.”

“Fine,” Celeste spat, taking a drink. Once she’d slammed her glass on the table, she added, “I did that under protest. I admit to nothing. I just did it so that the two of you would shut up about it and we can move on.”

The game continued.

Most of the things they revealed were lighthearted and funny.

They’d all used a fake ID to get into a bar, and while at a bar, they’d all given a fake phone number to someone who’d asked for it.

Everyone but Celeste had worn something from their dirty laundry.

Nico and Celeste had laughed so hard they’d peed themselves.

Dario and Rocco had forgotten where they’d parked their cars, and Celeste and Nico had faked orgasms. Although Celeste made a point of reassuring Dario she’d never done it with him.