AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Bianca!”
“What, you are allowed to, but I’m not? I think he’s cute.”
“If you say so. Can we get back to my thing? I don’t know what to do.”
Bianca crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows in an all-knowingly way.
“You go and get him; that’s what you do.”
“B, you should have seen him. You think Hugo was closed up before? This morning he went fucking arctic on me.”
“What’s your last name?”
I rolled my eyes at her.
“B, you sound like nonno.”
“What’s your last name?” she repeated herself.
“Nucci.”
“And?”
“A Nucci always gets what they want.” The sentence was a solemn oath in this family. It was the first thing you heard when you were little and the last thing a lot of people heard before closing their eyes forever.
“Exactly.”
“Bianca, you and me both know Hugo deserves his nick name. He’s a beast, and he still sees me as the pig-tailed girl that used to beg him to play hide and seek with me.”
“Right. The men in our life tend to have this problem, don’t they? My brothers and my dad refuse to see I’m getting older. It’s pretty hard to not grow up fast when you come home and find a stranger handcuffed to a pipe in the basement.” That happened. She and the twins slept at our place for a week when that happened, while Frank Sr. installed locks all over the house. “You have to…”
She was cut by the sound of the door opening and Patty walking in with a smile on her face.
“Cat, love, Hugo is here to pick you up.”
My heart started to thump in my chest. Why? I didn’t tell him to come and pick me up. I thought after the temper tantrum he threw that morning, that he would be happy to have some fucking space.
“I see. I think it was about time to go home anyways. Thank you for lunch, Patty.” I thanked her with a sincere hug.
“Anytime, love. Go say goodbye to your cousins,” she said after letting me go.
I swung by the twins’ room to let them know I was leaving and went down the stairs with Bianca on my tail like she was a hound. Hugo was at the front door with his arms crossed and legs parted. His face was neutral, not showing the faintest trace of emotion. The unhinged man I faced this morning was back in the cage, and the old Hugo, the one who wore jeans and black t-shirts and got lost in the silence was back.
He wasn’t looking at me, and my voice caught him by surprise when I said ‘Hi.’
“Let’s go, Cat.”
We walked together to his car, and I climbed in the passenger seat, not knowing what to expect. He started the car and jumped right into traffic, keeping everything to himself, but I was too unsettled to stay silent.
“Didn’t Frank Sr. tell you I didn’t need a ride?”
I noticed how his grip slightly tightened around the wheel.
“He did, but we needed to talk, and you didn’t come home. Don’t ditch school; your mother will get mad when she finds out.”
“Then let’s not tell her. Let’s talk.”
He growled.
