2.

B ELLA

“This is delicious,” Matteo said before he took another bite of potato salad. “I’ve had food like this before, but it wasn’t nearly this good.”

“I can tell from your accent that you’re not from around here, but I can’t imagine living somewhere that you can’t get a chopped beef sandwich any day of the week.”

“I’m definitely not from around here,” Matteo mumbled before he took another bite.

“I’m not from here either. I’m from Texas.”

Matteo laughed and then said, “I would have never guessed.”

“It’s the accent, isn’t it?” When Matteo just smiled, I said, “You know what’s funny? I can’t hear it. I don’t think I have a very thick accent, but I have some friends who aren’t from Texas that insist it’s as thick as honey.”

“Even if you didn’t have that Texas twang, little tidbits like that would give you away.” In an obviously over-the-top Southern drawl, Matteo said, “It’s ays thicck ays hunney.”

“I do not sound like that.”

He did it again when he mimicked, “Aye do nawt sound like thayt.”

In my best impression of one of my favorite actresses, I said, “I’m tawlking to you. She’s a who-ar.”

“That was a horrible Brooklyn impression. Besides, I’m from the Bronx.”

“Oh! Well, in that case . . .” I cleared my throat and said, “What the fuck are you tawkin’ abowt?”

Matteo burst out laughing and said, “That’s more like it.”

“Let’s make a deal. I won’t make fun of your accent . . .”

“Of which I don’t have . . .” Matteo interrupted.

I continued as if I hadn’t heard him and said, “If you don’t make fun of mine.”

“Which is thick. ”

“Whatever!”

“I can’t guarantee it won’t happen again, but I’ll try my hardest to resist.”

“I’ll do the same,” I assured him before I took a bite of my food. He looked at my plate and raised one eyebrow before he said, “I guess since I can’t make fun of the way you talk, I can make fun of the way you eat.”

“What? This is the best way to eat this combination of food.”

Matteo slowly shook his head as he curled his lip in disgust.

“You like the beans. You like the potato salad. You even like the coleslaw, which lots of people don’t. And you’re a fan of the sauce.” Matteo nodded. I scooped a little of each, which I had arranged strategically on my plate before I covered everything in a drizzle of my brother’s barbecue sauce, and held the fork out toward him and said, “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

He looked skeptical but opened his mouth - his very sexy mouth with perfectly-shaped lips that gave a glimpse of straight white teeth every time he spoke - and took the bite off my fork. He chewed the food for a second before he slowly raised his eyebrows and nodded.

Finally, he said, “You’re right. That combination works.”

“After you’ve eaten the same thing for years, you learn to change it up a bit now and again.”

“Why would you eat the same thing over and over again like that?”

“My brother made all of this food, and I’ve been his taste tester since he started cooking.”

“Your brother catered this?” Matteo asked before he took another bite. “It’s fantastic. He could make a killing at home because we don’t have anything like this in New York City.”

“In Texas, there’s a barbecue joint around every corner, but Rubb My Butt is . . .”

Matteo burst out laughing and asked, “Rub my butt?”

“It’s a play on words. The pork butt is a cut of meat that makes great pulled pork, and, of course, you put a good rub on it before you smoke it to make it taste even better.”

“Is that what we’re eating?” Matteo asked before he forked up another bite.

“Yes.”

“I guess if you’re into eating ass, this is the way to do it.”

I burst out laughing, and Matteo smiled. “I’ll have to tell my brother you said that. He could make it a marketing slogan.”

“I don’t know if anything could beat the name of his restaurant, but that might.” I had just taken another bite when Matteo said, “Now, tell me about this ex of his and why you hate her so much.”

As I chewed, I noticed that Matteo was now scooping up a little of each thing on his plate and smiled before I said, “She doesn’t understand that Dylan and I are close. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my other brother and sister, but Dill and I have a connection I just can’t explain.”

“Obviously, I get it.”

“She would get jealous if he spent too much time with me, and it irritated her that he talked to me about everything.”

“Everything?”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Not that sort of everything, but if he had a new idea for a recipe, he’d run it by me and get my input and then when he made something new, he’d call me to come have a taste. If I had a big thing at work I was dealing with, I’d naturally gravitate to him so I could chill out and relax, or I’d call him to talk me off the ledge when I was stressed. She tried to convince him that it was weird and we needed to put some distance between us.”

“That’s bullshit. I can’t believe he put up with that. I’m lucky that my brother’s fiancée is chill with me.”

“Dill didn’t put up with it, and it caused argument after argument between them.”

“Which she also blamed you for,” Matteo concluded. “There seems to be a pattern there.”

As if she knew I was talking about her, Dylan’s phone buzzed again. When I glanced down, I saw that she was calling.

“Wanna fuck with her?” Matteo asked.

“How?”

He picked up the phone and slid his thumb across the screen to answer before he pushed the button to put her on speaker. I was stunned when he started speaking Italian. Jill started sputtering, accusing him of stealing Dylan’s phone, but Matteo never changed his tone of voice or stopped speaking Italian until she finally hung up.

It rang again almost instantly, and when he answered it this time, he spoke in French. He was grinning at me when she hung up. He started speaking in Spanish when he answered again, but it was different from the Spanish I grew up hearing or even the kind I learned in school.

Finally, when Jill hung up this time, she didn’t call back immediately.

“I guess that worked,” Matteo said with a grin before he tossed the phone onto the grass between us.

“How many languages do you know?”

“Fluently? I’d say four. English, of course, and I grew up speaking Italian at home. For some reason, other languages came easily to me, so I also learned French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese.”

“Wow. I took Spanish in school, but I wouldn’t say that I’m at all fluent in the language. However, I can rock some Pig Latin.”

Matteo raised one eyebrow and asked, “Is that a thing?”

“You don’t know how to speak Pig Latin?”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“I can’t believe you don’t know it with all of those other languages under your belt.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re trying to pull one over on me right now.”

“Iay on’tday owknay atwhay ouyay eanmay. Iay ouldway evernay oday uchsay ay ingthay.”

“Huh?”

“Dill and I used to speak to each other in Pig Latin just to piss off our little brother and sister.”

“He knows it too?”

“Everybody knows how to speak Pig Latin.”

“I’m not everybody.”

“I can tell.” I scooted my plate over and laid down on my side, propping my head up on my bent arm before I ordered, “So, tell me about yourself, Matteo. Why were you out here all alone when there’s a field full of people having a good time?”

“I was wallowing in my own misery, I guess.”

“And why are you miserable?”

“Because my brother and our best friend are all lovey dovey with the perfect women, building families and planning weddings, while I’m the odd guy out who’s just gonna have to be content to be the cool uncle or some shit.”

“You’re not in a relationship?” When Matteo shook his head, I asked, “What’s wrong with the women in New York? You’re obviously a good-looking guy . . .”

“Thank you.”

“And you seem educated. I can tell by the way you’re dressed and the way you carry yourself that you’re some kind of professional. How is it that you’re single?”

“My job makes it difficult to find a woman I can trust.”

“Hmm.International spy?”

Matteo burst out laughing and asked, “Are you single?”

“Yes, and my friends are dropping like flies.”

“One of your friends is getting married today, I assume. Bride or groom?”

“Bride. We’re not all that close, but we’ve been friends for quite a while and I helped plan her wedding.”

“You helped Bernadette?”

“I did. How do you know Bernadette?”

“She’s almost my stepmom.”

“So Russo’s Road Trip is your dad.”

“Everyone calls him Stamp, but yes, he’s my father.”

“I love his show. I watch it all the time, and I’m so jealous.”

“You like food that much?”

“I usually watch with my brother, who loves the food and gets great ideas for his restaurant, but I watch it because I love seeing him go to all the little dives and cool places. I’d love to be able to just get up and go like he does.”

“Why don’t you?”

I shrugged one shoulder and said, “I don’t want to just travel, I want to explore.”

“So do it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“You work for a living, don’t you? Can you just take off on a whim?”

“Technically, I can if I want to, even if it’s just for a few weeks at a time, but I know my situation isn’t the norm.”

“I guess I could, too, if I planned the trip far enough in advance. If I saved up for a while, I could go anywhere, but what’s the fun in exploring by myself?”

“Take a friend.”

“My friends also work for a living and have lives of their own.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Just like that, huh? You’ll take off on a whim and explore with me?”

“Let’s do it. Where do you want to go?”

“I want to snorkel in Bali and see the coral reef.”

“Possible.”

“I want to eat lobster in Maine.”

“Delicious.”

“I want to walk through Central Park.” Matteo just smiled, and I guessed that's because I was talking about his part of the country. “I want to go whale watching in Gloucester, Massachusetts.”

“That’s doable.”

“I want to see Big Ben and Notre Dame, stomp on grapes in Italy, eat pastry in France, visit Stonehenge, watch the seals in Seal Bay, Australia, and see the Lady Knox Geyser in New Zealand.”

“Do you have a passport?”

“No.”

“Well, you’ll need one before we go, but since that takes some time, is there anywhere else in the US you’d like to go?”

“I’d like to see Yosemite,” I said wistfully. Matteo nodded. “Go to Salem and take historical tours and then do the same thing in New Orleans. I want to spend the weekend gambling in Vegas and go to a show. I want to watch the sunset over the ocean in California and then do the same thing in Hawaii. I want to hunt for Bigfoot in Oregon and go to the fish market in Seattle.”

“Those are all easy trips. Pick one, and we’ll go next week.”

“It’s not that easy, Matteo.”

“Okay, what would it take for you to get out of town for the weekend?”

“Even for the ones in the continental US, I’d need more than a weekend with travel times and all of that.”

“Three-day weekend?”

“Maybe for some of them.”

“Where are we going first?”

“You’re serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’d just take a random trip with a complete stranger? What if I start to annoy you?”

“I don’t see that happening, Bella. I haven’t ever enjoyed a woman’s company as much as I’ve enjoyed yours, and I think seeing the sights with you would be fun.”

“Since you live in New York and I live in Texas, we’d probably have to coordinate our flights to meet at whatever destination we pick.”

“True. Or we could just take a private jet.”

“You’re right!” I said sarcastically. “I completely forgot that I have three of those parked behind my house.”

“Three, huh?”

I sighed theatrically and said, “I couldn’t decide which color I wanted, so I bought one of each.”

“Big baller, huh?”

“You have no idea. I brush my teeth with caviar and use hundred dollar bills to wipe my ass.”

Matteo started laughing and asked, “What kind of caviar?”

I hummed as I racked my brain to try and remember a specific type of caviar, which was difficult since I’d never even seen the stuff, so I took a shot in the dark and asked, “Salmon?”

“Mmm . . . sounds fishy to me.” He made a motion like he was playing drums as he said, “Ba dum tss!”

When I rolled my eyes, Matteo laughed so I said, “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. It might be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

“I have a feeling that’s not quite true.”

“So, what’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted?”

“I haven’t tasted it yet.” Matteo’s brown eyes sparkled as he said, “As soon as I do, I’ll let you know how much I like it.”

“I have a feeling we’re not talking about caviar anymore.”

“Trust your instincts, sweetheart.”

I decided to change the subject back to something safer so I asked, “Where should we go first?”

“My suggestion would be to get a passport.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “I’m sure that will take a while, so let’s talk continental US destinations. What sounds good to you?”

“It’s that part of summer that makes it difficult to plan a pleasant trip that includes anything outdoors. If it was fall, I would suggest we plan a trip to see the foliage,” Matteo suggested. “There’s a little town in New York close to Vermont called Keene that has the most breathtaking views when the leaves change.”

“If we wait until October, that would give me some time to save up for the trip.”

“I figured money wasn’t an object since you have those private jets.”

I laughed uncomfortably before I said, “Let’s pretend money is an object and say we’re traveling commercial and balling on a budget.”

“Hmm. Where to go in August? I’d have to say nowhere in the South unless we want to melt.”

“It’s not too bad here.”

“True, but in Wisconsin, it’s probably around seventy degrees.”

“Oh, that’s barely warmer than I keep my house,” I said as I rolled onto my back in the grass. “It sounds lovely.”

“Do you want to leave tonight or in the morning?”

“I have to go home tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting on Monday that I can’t miss,” I said sadly.

“I’m supposed to be at a meeting right now, but I skipped it.”

“To come to the wedding? That was sweet.”

“Nothing against Dub, but I barely know the man. I skipped it so I could visit my father.”

“Can you reschedule? I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

“I can do anything I want,” Matteo said before he moved our plates out of the way and laid down in the grass beside me.

“Must be nice.”

“You do realize that we’re planning to travel the world together and don’t know anything about each other, right?”

“I do.”

“That’s not exactly the safest course to take.”

“I know, and if I decided to pack you up on my private jet today without all those pertinent details, my family would have a fit. Dill would probably turn it into a hostage situation just to keep me home safe.”

“Good for him.”

“That tells me a lot about you.”

“Like what?”

“If you had a sister, you’d be overprotective.”

“I do have a sister, and I’d like to believe that I’m not - however, she and our mother would disagree.”

I burst out laughing at his petulant tone and said, “Well, now I know something else about you. You’ve got a twin brother and a sister.”

“My sister is significantly younger than me, as are our two brothers.”

“There are some more details. Keep them coming.”

“I think it’s my turn to learn something about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Other than my father, have you ever met anyone with the last name Russo?”

“No.” I gave him a cheesy grin before I said, “I’ve never actually met your father, but if you’d like to introduce me, I would appreciate it.”

Matteo smiled before he said, “I’d love to introduce you to him.”

“Well, once you do, that will make him the second person with the last name Russo that I’ve ever met.”

“Have you ever heard of anyone with the last name Russo?”

“I don’t think so.” I turned back onto my side and propped my head up on my hand again so I could look at Matteo, but that put us so close together that we were almost touching. He didn’t seem to mind, so I stayed where I was rather than put space between us like I would usually do with a relative stranger. “Why would I?”

“Is that your question?”

“Are we playing twenty questions now? I thought we were planning a trip.”

“We’ll do that afterward.”

“Hmm. Okay, so if it’s my turn, I guess my question would be . . .” I took a deep breath and then finally blurted, “Are you really single?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay.Your turn.”

“Have you ever broken the law?”

I burst out laughing and then coughed and cleared my throat, as if that could mask it, before I said, “Yes, actually, I have.”

Matteo’s eyes narrowed, and he winced before he opened his mouth and then closed it again. Finally, he said, “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

“Okay. Have you ever broken the law?”

“Not today.”

“Smartass.”

Matteo sighed before he said, “Yes, I have broken the law. Now it’s my turn.”

“Hit me with it, although I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to ask.”

“What did you do?”

“Which time?” I hedged before I grinned. “Your questions have to be more specific.”

“Oh. I guess that means there’s been more than one time. That’s good to know. I’m going to assume that means you’ve been arrested . . .” He studied my face for a second and then smiled. “That’s a yes.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to, Twang. Poker is my game, and I can read you like a book.”

“Okay, yes. I’ve been arrested. It’s not like I can lie about it since it’s a matter of public record.”

“And what exactly were you arrested for?”

“Which time?” I asked sarcastically.

He grinned at me and said, “Well, aren’t you quite the little criminal?” When I just shrugged, he specified, “The last time you were arrested, what was the charge?”

“Gang violence.”

Matteo burst out laughing before he chided, “No lying during our game, Bella.”

“I’m not lying. I’m listed as an active gang member.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“You don’t look like any gang member I’ve ever met.”

“And you’ve met quite a few?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I belong to a motorcycle club, and since we’re an organized group of individuals who committed a crime together, a violent one, that’s considered gang violence.”

“A violent crime.” Matteo seemed to think about what I’d said for a second, and then his eyes got wide before he asked, “A motorcycle club?”

“An all-female motorcycle club.”

“Huh.” Matteo grinned and said, “Bella Conner, you’re a breath of fresh air.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Will your criminal record make it difficult for you to travel?”

“I was arrested but not convicted for that little . . . skirmish. The charges were dropped after the DA reviewed the cameras at the convenience store.”

“You got into a brawl at a convenience store?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Holy shit,” Matteo cackled. “That’s fantastic.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Did you do it?”

“The charges were dropped.”

“Yeah, but did you do it?”

“Are you wearing a wire?”

Matteo burst out laughing again before he said, “That’s the best fucking comeback . . .” He wiped the tears from his eyes and chuckled a little more before he said, “You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”

“I don’t think I should talk about this without my lawyer present,” I said primly, as I put my nose in the air and looked away. Suddenly, I realized that we’d veered away from the twenty question game quite a while ago, and it was my turn so I asked, “Have you ever been arrested?”

“Yes to the arrest, no to the conviction either time,” he said, sobering suddenly.

“Good lawyer, huh?”

“Some of the best.”

“More than one?” I asked. When he nodded, I said, “Look at you, Mr. Bigshot Criminal. What exactly were you arrested for?”

“I was part of a sting operation.”

I sobered then and asked, “Drugs?”

“Fuck no.”

I took a deep breath and let it out before I said, “Good.”

“We don’t run drugs or ladies,” Matteo said as if that was a perfectly normal part of everyday conversation.

I narrowed my eyes and asked, “What exactly do you do for a living, Matteo?”

“It’s a matter of public record.”

“Tell me.”

“Google me.” When I raised my eyebrows, he said, “I’m not trying to hide anything from you, Bella. I know that’s the first thing you would do if you became interested in me, so . . .”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the second you walk away from me after you find out who I am, I’ll google you just so I have a picture to look at when I think about the beautiful woman that slipped away because she couldn’t handle the cold, hard truth.”

“Well, shit,” Bella mumbled before she picked up her brother’s phone and punched in the code to open it. She flopped onto her back so she could use both thumbs to type in her search, and a few seconds later, I watched her eyes widen before she slowly turned to look at me. “You’re part of the Italian mafia?”

“I am.”

I giggled before I said, “I can’t wait to tell the girls I met an honest-to-goodness gangster.”

“Are you going to listen to them when they tell you that seeing me is a bad idea?”

“You don’t know my friends, Matteo.”

“Will I get to meet them someday?”

“The majority of them are here right now. I won’t hold it against you, and neither will they.”

“You’re serious.”

“Is that not the reaction you were hoping for?” I cleared my throat before I pasted on a sugary smile and batted my eyelashes. In an airhead voice, I said, “Oh my goodness. You’re a mobster. That’s, like, hawt. ”

Matteo chuckled and said, “Please don’t ever do that impression again.”

“You’re fun to hang out with, Matteo Russo.”

“I’m glad you think so, considering we’re going to be exploring the world together.”