𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

48|| Entrance

Dante // February 27
•••

"Want to tell me why my Nonna just called me all concerned about the wellbeing of the 'sweet young girl with freckles'?"

I'm sitting in the living room, rethinking my conversation with Celeste while enjoying my last minutes of silence before the chaos that awaits me at the mayor's event. But of course, Ricardo had to come and ruin it.

"No," I answer.

I'd remembered Mirabella's request to tell Ricardo to call her, but I hadn't honored it for multiple reasons.

Number one being that I didn't want Ricardo to know I'd taken Celeste to his nonna's ice cream place. I know him well enough to know that he's going to read way too much into it, and he knows me well enough to know that all of those things would be true.

Number two is that I don't want any more attention on Celeste than necessary.

And the final reason is that Mirabella would have my head if she knew I'd brought the woman who'd been the bane of my mafia's existence for seven whole years into her sacred ice cream salon.

Ricardo sits down on one of the black leather chairs in the seating arrangement with a sigh. "You know you can talk to me, right?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Oh no?" he challenges. "So you think it's normal to take nine shots of vodka just to keep yourself from going back into the medical room to check on her while she was being examined by Amani?"

I send him a glare, remembering how I'd forced myself to leave and stay away from her last night after she'd woken up. My emotions had ridden up so high that I felt like there was a thin threat holding me back from doing something as irrational as kissing her.

"You think it's normal to get yourself twenty six speeding tickets just because she asked you to pick her up? You think it's normal to invite her for breakfast with Adriana?"

"Okay, cazzo, I get it." I lean back into the cough while using my thumb and index finger to rub my eyes until they're pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Look I get that she's pretty-"

A chuckle void of any humor leaves me at his choice of words.

Pretty wasn't enough to describe her in any context whatsoever.

"-but as a friend, I'm telling you that you're getting too deep into this man."

If only he knew how far gone I truly was.

Every conversation, every word she speaks and every bit of personality and past that gets revealed draws me in more.

It's like quicksand, but for some reason I'm not afraid of sinking in entirely.

"Thanks for the advice."

He frowns at me, unimpressed at my dry tone. "Why do I have the feeling that you're not going to listen to me?"

"Because I'm not."

He shakes his head. "Well I guess she's an improvement from Natalia."

"Everything is an improvement from Natalia, Ricardo."