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SANTINO

“Nonna’s building again?” Santino exclaimed, throwing down his sketchbook on the long kitchen table. “ Merd a, that’s the second time this month!”

“That rat trap,” his older brother Angelo muttered with a headshake. “Pop really needs to pack her up and move her out of there already.”

“You know how stubborn Nonna is,” Santino sighed. He swallowed the last of his cup of coffee and jumped up. “Alright, let’s go, let’s go.”

Santino knew their paternal grandmother Nonna Greta was already safely tucked in bed at this hour.

It still rattled him to think that she could be trapped in the elevator if a breakdown happened in the morning when she went for her walk or her many doctor visits.

Otherwise, he didn’t mind these low-stakes rescues.

They’d swoop in, save the day, and everybody would go back to the station house safe and sound.

Practiced and quick, they jumped into their turnout gear and hopping in the rig. The ride to the building took less than ten minutes. A mixed crowd of old timers and new faces met them in the lobby.

“There’s a woman stuck in the elevator between this floor and the basement.” The man was tall, pale, and spoke with an Eastern European accent. Newcomer.

“How long she been in there?” Captain Ryan asked.

“Like, maybe an hour? I am so tired of this shit.” That was the woman from 5B who answered, the resident gossip.

“Ma’am?” Cap called, his face close to the black painted door. “I’m Captain Ryan of the New York City Fire Department. We’re gonna get you out in a minute, okay? Are you injured at all or having trouble breathing?”

From below came a faint voice. “I’m fine. Just a little tired of being in here.”

“Okay. Hang on, we’re gonna get you out. Let’s get that door open.”

“Copy that, Cap,” Angelo answered.

They set about the procedure. They split the team, some to go locate the control box in the basement to shut the power off. The other propped open the hoistway door and used the fire service key to unlock the inner cab door. When the cab door was propped open, Cap peered inside and grinned.

“Hello there. We’re gonna get a ladder down there. First Firefighter Donahue is gonna climb down to assist and the second Firefighter Donahue is gonna pull you out. Alright?”

“How many Donahues are up there?” came that voice again, a mix of worry and relief in its tone.

They laughed. It was a good question. There had been five Donahues when Pop and their oldest brother Nico were still with the department. Three remained: Santino, Angelo and Tommy.

“Step back, please, and first Firefighter Donahue will be right in.”

Angelo put the ladder carefully into the elevator and climbed in, greeting the occupant in his cheerful tone.

Santino bent down and saw the top of the woman’s head.

A puffy black silk bonnet covered her hair, but her plain white tank top exposed the rich dark skin of her shoulders and arms. It gleamed with a sheen of sweat.

She raised her head and looked up at him with big, brown eyes and when their gazes connected, he felt it.

Hard . He was zapped stupid, like someone had electrified the floor beneath his boots.

“Just climb up the ladder and my brother up there will help you the rest of the way, alright?” Angelo said, holding the ladder steady. He patted her on the back as she started up.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Santino wanted to punch his beloved brother for putting his hands on his woman even though Angelo was happily married, and she was a stranger to both of them.

Shutting down the irrational thought that echoed in his head, he got down to business.

When she reached the top of the ladder, Santino grasped her under the arms and pulled.

She was lighter than he’d thought she’d be, and she vaulted out of the elevator.

He fell backward with her in his arms. The crowd snickered and her surprised laughter broke over him like a sunburst.

“I am so sorry,” she exclaimed.

Up close, in the circle of his arms, everything seemed to slow down and become a blur with only her face in his sight.

Her long, elegant nose had a high bridge and flared bottom.

Her juicy mouth was designed for tasting.

The soft warmth of her body somehow managed to penetrate his thick uniform and the layers underneath and he was flooded with heat.

But the one thing that absolutely did him in was that dimple that appeared in her cheek.

Speechless, he wasn’t aware he still had his arms wrapped around her until she pushed off him and stood. Angelo was smirking at him. He scrambled up, pretending he still had some fucking professionalism, and nodded stiffly at her when she said, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He managed to give her his usual trademark grin, despite his racing thoughts and the quicksilver heat rampaging through his body.

“Alright, everybody, it’s over,” Cap called, shooing the tenants away. “Call your super first thing in the morning. Please do not use the elevator until you get the all clear from building management. Are you sure you’re alright, ma’am? We’ve got EMS here to check you out.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Thank you.”

Santino had never seen her before. She must be new.

She was smiling at Cap, then Angelo and then at him, suddenly touching her bonnet with a look of embarrassment washing over her face.

She plucked at her tank top while his eyes ran down from her luscious breasts to the thin, worn sweatpants hugging her mouthwatering ass and thighs.

“Yeah, it was supposed to be a quick round trip to take out the garbage,” she said with another embarrassed laugh.

“No, you look good,” he said without thinking. “Nah, seriously. You look good. Really good.”

He’d been told he wasn’t college material, but fuck, did he have to sound like he only knew one word?

“Thanks, I guess,” she responded, giving him a suddenly shrewd look. Her gaze went from his eyes to his lips while she rubbed her arm absentmindedly.

“Are you new? Never seen you in here before.”

“I just moved in this week. I guess this is my welcome to the building,” she said wryly, gesturing toward the elevator.

“I know. My grandmother lives here. Greta Donahue in 2H.”

“Oh, I’ve met her. She’s a little feisty lady,” she said pleasantly.

“Yeah. I’m here a lot. So, if you see me around, you know…” He was going to assure her he wasn’t a stalker, but he had a strong feeling that was going to end up a lie. “Anyway, I’m Santino. Everybody calls me Tino, but you can call me whatever you want.”

Her lips pulled at the corner with sarcasm but then she smiled at him, and damn if the moonlight outside didn’t shine a little brighter in the dingy lobby of this one-hundred-year-old broken-down building.

“Okay, Santino. I’m Vanessa.”

Santino was used to being the loud one in an already loud family, the guy who could talk his way in or out of any situation, but with her? He was tongue-tied again.

Vanessa sized him up with those pretty, almond-shaped eyes.

Was he imagining heat stirring and flaring in that long gaze?

Maybe. She scanned his six-foot-one frame, pausing when he flexed the muscles of his arms and chest in what he hoped looked like a casual stretch while the others talked and packed up their gear.

Women flirted with them all the time on light calls like this, but he’d been warned to keep it professional, and he did.

Never flirted back, never let girls pass him a number while on duty.

He didn’t even date the nurses at the hospital, the EMS workers, or the few firefighting women at the station.

When he’d taken the oath, his father’s warning had been serious. “Do not ever do anything to tarnish the Donahue name.”

His family, his superiors…with the exception of his sister, Gina, none of them believed he took this job or anything else seriously.

His brothers had a running bet, not on if he’d quit but when .

There was every expectation he’d take his trust money from their mom’s side of the family and fuck off to go partying for the rest of his life like a useless asshole.

He’d spent the last four years trying to prove everybody wrong.

And then there was the thing with Antoinette…

So, despite every instinct demanding that he talk to this woman and ask her out, swear his undying love, and offer to father her children, he reined in his mouth before it got him into trouble.

Angelo nudged him. “Hey, time to go.”

Tipping his helmet to her, Santino said, “Have a good night, miss.”

“Thank you,” she replied with sincere gratitude shining in her eyes.

He smiled at her again and left, trailing after the others in a daze. A seed had been planted inside him, someplace deep in his heart that was suddenly soft and broken open to her and only her.

He was quiet on the way back to the station, enduring the insults and the teasing Angelo and his buddies subjected him to about the bits of conversation they’d overheard.

“What the hell was that?” Angelo asked while they were kicking off their boots.

“Nothing.”

He took off the rest of his gear and escaped upstairs to the bunk room. Sitting down on his assigned bed, he pulled out his phone and pressed the button for Nico’s number. “Yo, Nico.”

It sounded like he was at Sully’s Bar. Over the loud music coming through on his end, Nico shouted, “What’s up?”

Rubbing his hand over his own short, spiky, blond hair, Santino couldn’t stop smiling, excitement bursting in his chest. “I, uh…I think I just met my wife.”

Santino was right. Three months later, he and Vanessa were married.

Three years after that, it was over.