A Winter in New York(67)
27.
Wrap up warm tonight, I’m taking you somewhere I think you’ll like.
GIO’S TEXT ARRIVES AS I’M staring into the depressingly empty fridge trying to decide.
Or you could just come over and roleplay Moonstruck again? Masterful Gio turned me on something terrible.
I press SEND and my cell bips again after a couple of minutes. I drop the gone-soft cereal in the bin as I reach for my phone.
Put your coat on or freeze, we’re going out whether you like it or not.
My eyes round, startled, and I laugh sharply in my quiet apartment even as my phone bips for a third time.
For the record, I really didn’t want to send that text.
And that, right there, is why I feel so safe with this man. I crack eggs into a bowl as I text with my other hand.
Don’t ruin it now, I was just about to call you for phone sex.
Great. Am about to go into a meeting with Bella’s teacher and now all I can think of is you naked.
You’re so welcome.
And you’re so…and the teacher’s here. Be ready at 7, I’ll pick you up.
I flick the gas on beneath the pan and tip the eggs in.
Damn it, and I’d just unhooked my bra. Saved by the bell, Belotti x
I make the omelet on autopilot, tired even though it’s barely half past nine. Last night’s heavy-handed serving of Jack Daniel’s sent me to sleep but didn’t keep me there—I woke up anxious a little after four and ended up at the kitchen table drinking coffee. I can’t expect Felipe to keep my secrets indefinitely and it isn’t fair to ask it of him. It’s good of him to allow me to handle things in my own time. I came to a conclusion of sorts in the small hours. I’m going to live my life strictly in the here and now until the ball drops in Times Square, and then I’ll tell Gio everything. Oh, I’m well aware that, as plans go, this one is akin to driving headlong at a solid brick wall with my foot flat to the floor. There’s nothing else I can do, though, because the thing I privately acknowledged this morning is that I’m uncontrollably, intoxicatingly, ferociously in love with Gio Belotti.
* * *
—
I HEAR A CAR HORN rather than my door buzzer, and cross to look out of the window, surprised. It’s just before seven and, as requested, I’m bundled into my winter coat and bobble hat, gloves shoved in my pocket, scarf on the table to pick up on my way out.
Gio is outside, not in a cab as I expected, but standing in the road beside a long, low-slung retro black car.
I scrape the window up and lean out into the see-your-breath cold evening.
“Have you ever seen Pretty Woman?”
He rests his arm on the open driver’s door and looks up at me. “Not that I remember.”
“Richard Gere pulls up in a fancy car and climbs the fire escape,” I call down.
My mother always liked to say she was named after Vivian from Pretty Woman, even though she was born more than twenty years before its release. Gio eyes the rickety ladder zigzagging the front of our building and shakes his head, and I laugh and slam the window shut.
Down on the sidewalk, I stand and gaze at the imposing muscle car. It’s gleaming black and chrome, long, low, Saturday Night Fever kind of cool.
“Did you borrow it from John Travolta?”
He grins and bangs the roof. “It’s a 1972 Cadillac Sedan Deville, and it’s Papa’s pride and joy. He asked me to drive it sometimes and keep it oiled for when he can use it again.”
“It’s big enough to have its own zip code,” I say as Gio gets in and leans across to open my door.
“Oh my God,” I groan, because I’m enveloped by cherry-red leather. The car smells just as you’d hope it would, of nourished leather and wood polish, of age and distinction, definite gentleman’s club vibes.
“Can I live in here? This is way more comfortable than my couch.”
I stroke my hand over the teak dashboard. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a button marked “bourbon over ice”—and I’d press it too. It’s a drive-in movies kind of ride, a deep, button-back bench seat in the front with an armrest pulled down between us.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Gio says, gunning the engine.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far,” he says. “It’s a surprise.”
I settle in, surreptitiously watching Gio out of the corner of my eye. “You look sexy driving this.”
He shoots me a look. “Don’t ask me to talk dirty again,” he says. “You got me in enough trouble this morning.”
“You liked it,” I say, laughing into my scarf.
He doesn’t deny it. “You didn’t really take your bra off, did you?”
I contemplate a lie. “No, I was making an omelet.”
He laughs, shaking his head as he turns the radio on. “You’re a real bad influence on me, Iris.”
I look out of my window, trying to stay in the moment rather than let his off-the-cuff words spiral me into thinking exactly how bad I am for Gio, jumping forward to the New Year when his opinion of me will hit the floor. The idea of him thinking badly of me is lead in my heart, so I tune my ear into the Christmas songs on the radio and hum along instead.
* * *