Chasing Stars - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Chapter Thirty-Three

                I was frozen for a moment. 

"Katherine." He said again and it sounded so weak and vulnerable.

"If you kill him Alessio-"

His expression changed from desperate to dangerous in a fraction of a second. "You fȕcked him?" He demanded.

"No." I said and his entire body visibly relaxed. "But we kissed."

He flopped back into his chair and reluctantly I sat down as well. The steak sandwich was calling my name something fierce. He linked his fingers together again, propped his elbows together and rested the hands against his lips again. He glared at me for a long and painful time before sighing. "Okay. Go on."

"There isn't much more to go onto. We kissed."

"Did he kiss you, or did you kiss him?"

"I-I don't know." I admitted. I stopped and ran the night back through my mind. "I just went over to apologize to him. Norman made me realize-"

"Norman?" The annoyance in his voice only grew. "There is a Norman now too?"

"Oh yes. Norman. I hadn't planned on going to see Matteo. I was just walking around trying to clear my mind when I saw our bridge."

"Our bridge?" He mocked.

I didn't have it in me to glare at him. I nodded slowly. "I needed to feel the way I did when we were up there. Everything made sense, all of my problems seemed so small, everything just...came together up there. Everything. Anyway, I was standing on the ledge getting ready to climb up there-"

"You shouldn't have done that. You could have killed yourself."

"Funny you should say. Norman owns this suicide hotline, he saw me on the ledge and thought I was trying to kill myself and yanked me off. Anyway, we talked for a long time and Norman pretty much said that a friend emotionally hurting someone is way more painful than an enemy physically hurting them and I realized I was a shit friend. So I had to go apologize to him."

"How sweet of you." Alessio muttered with an eye roll.

"Anyway. I just came to apologize and we talked a bit."

"And kissed a bit?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Please don't be rude Alessio. I'm trying to be honest and mature about all of this."

"All I'm saying is that it had better of been the kind of kiss you give your grandmother."

"And that's what I'm talking about! It's hard not to be afraid of you when you say things like that. Like it had better be a certain way? And what happens if it wasn't? You leave me? Kill me? What?"

"And how would you respond should I tell you that I kissed another woman?" He said sharply and I frowned. "Exactly." He said bitterly followed by a little bit of grumbling that I couldn't make out. He swiped the bottle of scotch up into his hand and took a drink.

"How quickly we forget? Don't remember not so very long ago you came home bragging about the gorgeous woman you had grinding on your lap all night?"