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“Hey Dad.”

Lucky walked into the kitchen with Reno coming in behind him.

Sal stood at the stove, in an apron, cooking. “How did it go?”

“It went great. I beat Uncle Reno by twenty points.”

“Quit lying,” Reno said as he sat at the island.

“What lying?” Lucky was in shorts and a t-shirt. Reno wore a tracksuit. Both of them were sweaty and tired. “I beat you by twenty points.”

“Eight.”

“Twenty, Uncle Reno.”

“Nine.”

Lucky laughed.“Twenty.”

“Okay ten,” said Reno. “But I’m being generous.”

Lucky was about to say twenty again, but Sal shook his head. “Give it up, Lucci. He will never admit defeat.”

“I am admitting it,” said Reno. “Just not by how much he wants me to admit it by.”

Lucky grinned. Sal looked over at him. “How you feeling?”

“Better every day,” Lucky said. “Between me and you at the gym, and Carmine running me around the track, and Uncle Reno running me up and down the basketball court, I’ll say I’m about at ninety-five percent. By football season, I’ll be at a hundred.”

“Ain’t that something?” Reno said to Sal. “He nearly died, but he barely lost a step. It’s a miracle.”

“I’m just grateful to have a family that wouldn’t let me slow down, even when I wanted to. Tomorrow, I’m gonna bench-press with Jimmy and run some drills with Madison and Marie. It’ll be a blast.”

“Just don’t overdo it,” said Sal. “But you’re on the right track, son.”

“Wish I could say that for that food you call yourself cooking. What is it anyway?”

“I’m doing a signature dish. It’s called tuna pudding.”

Lucky laughed. Reno scrunched up his face. “ Tuna pudding ? What kind of Paula Dean shit is that?”

“Come and taste it,” Sal said.

But Lucky was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do it if I were you, Uncle Reno.”

“You tried it before?”

“Tuna and chocolate pudding together? Are you joking? No!”

“How bad can it be?” Reno got up and went to the pot. Sal took the wooden spoon, scooped up a spoonful of the mixture and put it to Reno’s mouth.

“I can feed myself, thank you very much,” Reno said as he took the spoon from Sal. He looked at it. “Damn Sal. This looks like shit.”

“Just taste it, Reno.”

Reno blew on it to ease the heat, and then tasted it.

At first it didn’t taste so bad. Kind of like what you would expect chocolate pudding and tuna fish mixed together to taste like.

But as soon as he completely swallowed it, he nearly regurgitated it right back up.

“ Got damn!” he said, bent over holding his stomach, and ran for the powder room.

Lucky started laughing so hard he nearly peed. He could hear his uncle throwing up.

“It can’t be that bad,” said Sal.

“Have you tasted it, Daddy?”

“Why would I taste it? It’s my signature dish.”

“When was the last time you made this dish?”

Sal had to think about that. “I don’t know. Thirty years ago?”

“ Thirty years ago ? And that’s what you plan to give Mommy for her celebration?”

“It tastes good.”

“It tastes like shit,” said Reno when he came back out of the powder room. “What did you put in that?”

“What I always used to put in it.”

“Which is?” asked Lucky.

“Tuna. The pudding. And then some anchovies and some sardines to round it all out.”

“ Yuk !” said Lucky. “You lost me with the pudding. But anchovies and sardines too?” He shook his head. “You can’t give that to Mommy. You’ll kill her!”

“What are you talking? Let me taste this thing.” Sal scooped up another spoonful, blew it off, and tasted it himself.

Like with Reno, the initial taste was okay. He was even nodding. But as the food traveled further down, the kick happened. And it wasn’t a good kick either. But instead of overreacting the way Reno had done, Sal just stood there and took it all down.

“You like it?” Reno asked as he sat back down at the island.

Sal said nothing. He removed his apron and looked at his watch. “I need to get going. Gemma should be out of court soon.”

“I thought you didn’t go to that courthouse anymore,” said Reno. “You said it hurt Gemma’s chances of winning whenever you showed up.”

“I’m not going upstairs. I’m gonna wait for her downstairs in the lobby.”

“But yet you still plan this celebration for Mommy,” said Lucky. “What if the judge doesn’t grant a new trial and she loses the appeal for her client?”

“That don’t matter,” said Sal, heading for the exit. “It’s about celebrating her, not her victory.”

Lucky stared at his father. To everybody’s shock, Sal kept his word and took an entire month off.

And although he’d since gone back to work, he still found a way to be home for dinner most nights, and around the house many days.

Lucky, Tee-Tee, and Marie had never seen their father around so much.

It was like a dream come true for all of them.

“Tee-Tee spent the night with Marie again. Is she bringing her home for dinner tonight?”

“Yup. They’re on their way back now.”

“I don’t know why you let Marie keep her old room when she has her own place.”

“She stays most nights over here. She’ll always have a room here. Just like you and just like Teresa. I always want my children to know they can always come home again.”

“Not my children if I ever get some,” said Lucky. “As soon as they turn eighteen, they’re out of there.”

Reno grinned. “Amen brother,” he said.

“Oh and Lucci,” Sal said before he left the room.

“Sir?”

“Toss that food. It tastes like shit.”

Reno and Lucky laughed. “But what are you gonna feed Mommy?”

Sal stopped and exhaled. Reno could see that Sal was flustered. He had tried so hard. “Don’t worry about it,” Reno said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll get one of my chefs to throw something spectacular together and get it over here asap. It’ll be here before you get back home with Gemma.”

Sal was relieved, although he knew Reno was being overly optimistic about the timeframe. “Thanks, Reno,” he said. Then he looked at his watch again, and took off.

The atrium erupted in applause when Gemma walked out of the second-floor courtroom after a judge upheld her appeal and granted her client a new trial.

All of the defense attorneys and public defenders and even a few prosecutors and their boss, DA Brad Patrick, were congratulating her.

The chances her client had of getting a new trial were tantamount to a million to one. Gemma had beat the odds.

Although Gemma nor any of her colleagues saw him, Sal had arrived a few minutes earlier and was seated downstairs in the lobby.

With a bouquet of roses in his hand, he was watching her fellow lawyers applaud her.

She seemed so happy, as if she was in her element with those people, Sal thought.

He felt so inadequate. He couldn’t even cook her a good meal. What earthly good was he to her?

“We have the VIP lounge at the Hollinger reserved just for you, Gemma,” Brad said. “We’re ready to party. Aren’t we, folks?” They all cheered that too.

“Thanks,” said Gemma. “I really appreciate all of you, I truly do. But I’m going to have to take a raincheck. I’m going to go home.”

“Home?” said one of her colleagues. “You can go home anytime. What’s so special there?”

To Sal’s relief Gemma didn’t skip a beat. “My husband and my children,” she said.

When Sal heard her say those words, his heart soared. Her colleagues were disappointed, but he could tell Gemma didn’t care. She meant what she said. She just wanted to be with him and their children. Sal could have danced a jig right then and there.

After she said her goodbyes, thanked them again, and began walking down the stairs toward the lobby, she still didn’t see Sal.

Until he stood up.

And when she saw him standing there, looking so wonderful with that beautiful bouquet in his hands, her heart soared too.

And she didn’t care how it looked. Or how lowkey Sal tried to be around her colleagues to avoid them tainting her with his brush.

She didn’t care about any of that. She ran down those stairs with her briefcase flapping in her hand, ran across that lobby, and didn’t stop running until she ran straight into Sal’s open arms.

Sal swept her up and held her tightly. Then they kissed. Then they finally pulled back.

“Thank you for coming, Sal,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I’m so happy you came.”

“I didn’t want to go in the courtroom, but I wanted to be near you. You don’t work too many appeals. I knew it meant a lot to you.”

“It did. I really believe in my client’s innocence and one flawed eyewitness should never be enough to convict.”

“You know I agree with that.”

But Gemma was eyeing those gorgeous roses. “Are those for me?”

“No, I bought them for myself. Of course they’re for you,” he said as she grinned. He gave them to her.

She looked at them, but then she looked at him. “I love you, Sal Luca.”

“I love you more, Gemma G.”

They stared at each other. Their life was no bed of roses to be sure. There was always plenty of drama. Too many close calls. But the love was always there. As real and as tangible as the air they breathe. Their good days far outweighed their bad days.

“Let’s go home,” she said to him as she placed her arm in his arm.

And as Brad and some of those other attorneys looked from above down at them, still wondering what a classy lady like Gemma Jones wanted with that gangster, Gemma and Sal began walking happily out of that courthouse.

“You didn’t even ask me if I won or lost,” Gemma said to him as they walked.

“Because it doesn’t matter to me,” said Sal. “You got on the field. You went to bat for your client. You did the best you could do. That’s all that matters to me.”

Gemma stared at Sal as they walked. She understood why so many women wanted to take him away from her. She understood it perfectly.

Because Sal Luca, she was realizing more and more every single day, was one of the good ones. And although many women out there wanted to have him and to hold him for themselves, they could forget that. Sal was taken. Sal was Gemma’s. And Gemma Jones-Gabrini was never letting that good man go.