She tilts her chin, her features growing a little sad. “Why do you do that?”
I pause, wondering what I said wrong, before reaching for a roll. “Do what?”
“Say a lot without really saying anything at all.”
I stop mid-chew. Yeah, this babe’s no dumb broad. “How about I tell you a story instead?”
“A story? You mean about your police training?”
“Nah, I told you everything there is to know.” Okay, not really. “Let me tell you about my family instead.”
“Your family?” she asks, like she doesn’t believe me.
“Sure. You said you wanted to get to know me, right?”
“I really do,” she says with a soft smile I feel down to my gut. Shit, what’s happening here?
I crack my knuckles, trying to relax and shake off whatever the hell she hit me with. “Okay. Then I’ll tell you about the first time I almost got laid.”
The roll falls from her chopsticks, and the smile drops from her face. Her attention sweeps the room. “Do you think this is appropriate?” she whispers breathlessly. “We’re in a restaurant.”
“Probably not, but it’s pretty damn funny.” I chuckle. “Well, at least it is now.”
“But you said you were going to tell me about your family.”
“Oh, it involves them, too,” I assure her.
As much as she’s trying to keep me quiet, there’s no missing the flickers of curiosity in her gaze. “All right,” she says. “I’m all ears.”
No, you’re all legs. Legs I want to wrap around my— I cough into my shoulder. “Okay. See, there’re six of us boys.”
“Six? You have five siblings?”
“No, I have six, on account there’s also our sister, Erin—she goes by Wren. You know, the one who caught our brother fucking—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” she says, shushing me. She slumps back in the booth. “Wow. Seven children in one family.”
I hold out my hands. “What do you expect? We’re Catholic. Anyways, I think Ma and Papa would have stopped after Wren was born and they got their girl. But the Phils made the playoffs the following year and there was all this beer. Nine months later, Ma’s pushing Finnie out on our kitchen floor—but that’s another story.”
“Good Lord,” Tess says, her mouth falling open.
“Yeah, Ma said the same thing, except not so politely. Anyway, so Angus, Seamus, Declan, and Killian had all gotten laid. I turn sixteen, and I still haven’t popped my cherry.”
Tess’s eyes are now the size of the crab roll, but she’s not exactly telling me to stop, so I keep going. “Deanna Zaccara was a girl from the neighborhood. I think she runs a daycare now. Back in the day, she had quite the rep, especially following her affair with the wrestling coach. One day after school, she came up to me, told me I was cute, and asked if she could come over to our house to study.”
Tess tightens her grip on her chopsticks. “Curran! You took advantage of a young woman who was taken advantage of by a teacher?”
“She was nineteen when they were screwing.”
“Nineteen? She was in college?”
“No, high school. I said Deanna had a rep. I never claimed she was a scholar.” I take another bite of food. “So I told her yes. Like an imbecile, I thought she really wanted to study so she’d finally get her ass out of high school. It wasn’t until she dragged me into my parents’ bedroom that I realized she wasn’t interested in my mind.”
Tess gapes at me, and it’s all I can do to keep a straight face. “So I’m all excited,” I tell her, “thinking my time had come. What I didn’t know was that Ma had to close down the dry cleaner she ran early due to a gas leak in the building.”
Tess covers her mouth. “Your mother walked in on you?”
I smirk. “And my grandmother—God rest her soul.”
“No!”
“Oh, yeah. So there I am, wearing Deanna’s green panties—”