“Mia can improv like a boss,” Kelsey says. “Mia’ll reverse-chase his ass so hard, he won’t know what hit him.”
“Do not forget prize-baiting.” Antonio puts away his phone. “Where you position yourself as a prize. A sought-after partner, desired by others.” He smiles, all smoldery man-mystery. “I’ve been working on my backstory, cara.”
“You have?” I try to act like that’s good news, and not the worst news ever. If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s Antonio working on his backstory.
“And when I dress in Hugo Boss?” He kisses his fingers. “With this backstory I’m creating?”
“You in a suit, that’s probably all we need, right there,” I say.
“But to add this backstory,” he says.
“We’ll see. I did see Max cross the street from afar, going between his two buildings, before the last delivery. Around eleven. So we could set it up so he sees you talking with me out there, but you wouldn’t have to interact with him.”
“You saw him before the delivery?” Kelsey asks.
“Just from afar. I was pretty sure it was him. Max’s company owns this rehabbed workshop space across the street from Maximillion Plaza. If he goes back and forth often at that time, I could get the driver to park at a spot where Antonio would be visibly admiring me.”
Antonio rubs his hands. “I will be such a suitor. He will see my passion.”
“My plan is that you just smile at me a lot and laugh at whatever I say. It doesn’t have to be over the top.”
“He would see my desperation for you.”
“Just passion is good,” I say.
“No, it’s desperation.” Antonio puts on a dark expression. Scarface meets Blue Steel on steroids. “I grew up poor in the streets. My father rejected me. My mother was cruel but beautiful. So poor were we that they sold me to a brothel when I was but a boy. I was forced to sell myself in the alleyways of Milano.”
“Double Dark Chocolate Milano is my favorite cookie,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
“Milano is not a cookie,” Antonio growls. “It’s a city.”
“Sorry, Antonio…” Jada winces. “In America it kind of is a cookie.”
“If you knew the underbelly of Milano as I did,” Antonio says, “you would not think it.”
“The underbelly of Milano,” I say. “Is that near the hardscrabble alley behind the Keebler Elves’ Factory?” I ask.
Jada raises a finger. “I believe it’s located east of the Pepperidge Farms killing fields.”
“Stop it, you guys! Let Antonio tell his backstory.” Kelsey turns to Antonio. “Ignore them, Antonio. Please go on.”
Antonio fixes her with Scarface meets Blue Steel. “I grew up fighting hoodlums. The fist, the blade. What did I care? What did ever I see of life?”
I suck in a breath. “Too many productions of West Side Story, maybe?”
He gives me a dark look.
“Dude, I’m just saying you should save this backstory for a real role where you have lines and things,” I say.
Antonio’s unperturbed. “So many shameful acts I did until I hit rock bottom, so desperate was I for a kind word from my mother.”
“Your mother?” Jada squeaks. “Are you going Jerry Springer on us?”
Kelsey scowls at Jada. “Come on, you guys!”
“Italian men prize the love of their mothers,” Antonio says. “It is a pure and good thing.” He turns to me. “Then, at my lowest, lying in the gutter, I see your Yummies ad.”
“Oh my god, Antonio, no,” I laugh. I actually was in a Yummies caramel-pops commercial that got made into a print ad. “I don’t think they have Yummies in Milano.”
“They don’t have Yummies there because all the people are eating Milanos,” Jada says.
Antonio waves her off and continues with his backstory, which involves him lying injured in a pool of blood—the blood of his rival, he clarifies—and then an American tourist comes by and casts a magazine down onto his face in disgust, and when he regains consciousness, he sees my ad. “It is your beauty and talent that inspired me to clean myself up and climb from the gutter and come to America. To seek you out. You are the light of my life.”
“Umm…that’s an amazing backstory, Antonio,” I say. “Not that you’ll be able to use it. But I guess there’s no harm in having that on your mind as you appear to admire me when Max walks by.”
The operative phrase there being on his mind, as opposed to leaving his mouth. No way do I want him saying crazy things to Max.
“Will we kiss? We could make a signal,” he says. “I remember every one of your expert stage kissing pointers.”
I smile. I taught Antonio the art of the stage kiss, where the man puts his fingers behind the woman’s ear and his thumb over her lips, and then he leans in and kisses his own thumb. Antonio’s a very dramatic kisser of his own thumb, needless to say. But then, I’m a dramatic kisser, too.
I sometimes apply my stage-kissing expertise to real life, pouring on the big drama. I find that big, emo kisses make things seem sexier. Unfortunately, the few long-term relationships I’ve been in have felt way more convenient than passionate.
“We won’t need a stage kiss,” I tell him. “Your character sounds protective and macho. Maybe he prefers his woman to appear modest. I doubt he’d wanna go all PDA.”
“Unless he feels his woman is being ogled,” he rumbles. “Then he would want to claim her publicly.”
“Yeah, but what if she gets carried away and messes up his hair?” A threat. He hates when you touch his hair.
“She must not do that,” he growls.
I snort. “Well, it luckily won’t come to that. It would just be you looking adoringly at me.”
If and when the time comes. Which is looking less likely with every new twist in his backstory.
5
Nice guys wind up in the friend zone.
~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room
* * *
Mia
Sienna is down at the rendezvous point when I arrive. She is sitting today, draped elegantly over a bus bench, arms splayed to either side. You can almost hear the lush electronica playing in the background.