“This is all very scary to me,” I hear myself say instead. “I don’t want to be wrong about you.”
“I don’t want that either, Piper.” His thumb rubs over the back of my knuckles. “And so long as you believe that I’m a detective who’s too straight and narrow to make much money, who will never satisfy his family’s expectations, and who values your safety above all else, then I can promise you won’t be.”
“I like that answer. Mostly. I think that safety thing might interfere with my hopes of going after the Finn—”
Mariano puts his hand up to halt me. “Could we fight about that tomorrow? Tonight, I would really like to just enjoy being together and pretend that I’m not going to have to stop you from putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“Okay. Tomorrow. But that’s it.”
Mariano holds up his glass to cheers. “To tomorrow.”
“To tomorrow,” I echo.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Would you like milk or a Coca-Cola?” Emma calls from the kitchen.
“Coca-Cola, please.”
I clasp my hands on my lap so they’ll stop trembling. What a silly thing to be nervous about, dropping in on a friend for a social call. I had claimed my visit was about discussing Robbie and our next move, but really, I hoped to talk to her about Mariano and just . . . be together. Have fun. Connect. Like I would have with Lydia if she were still alive.
I like Emma, and I can’t keep holding it against her that she isn’t Lydia.
When Emma returns to the living room, she balances a tray with two bottles of Coca-Cola and a plate of lemon bars that match the pale yellow of her dress.
“Maybe he doesn’t have much money, so he never decorated.” She settles the tray onto the coffee table, her skirts swishing around her calves. “Robbie is a very simple man. Which I mean in a good way.”
“Maybe.” I run my locket up its chain and back down again as I visit Robbie’s place once more in my mind. “But no piles of mail? No old newspapers?”
“Perhaps he’d just cleaned them away. Robbie is very neat.” Emma perches on the edge of the mahogany armchair, her back straight, her ankles crossed.
I take a bottle of cola and a lemon bar, and I sit up in a way that would please Joyce. “No photographs?”
“Do bachelors keep photographs?”
“I don’t know. Robbie’s is the only single man’s apartment I’ve ever been in.” The lemon bar is creamy and buttery. Crumbs scatter across my white linen dress, and I do my best to discreetly brush them into my napkin.
Emma nibbles at her lemon bar, somehow not creating a single crumb. “Does Mariano have his own place?”
“He has a roommate, but I’ve never met him. I think his name is Jack.” I take a smaller bite of lemon bar this time. “When you meet under the circumstances that Mariano and I did, it’s strange how you skip over ordinary details like roommates.”
“It was dreamy, seeing him carry you out of Robbie’s place. Like some great knight. And the way he looks at you.” Emma grins. “He clearly thinks you’re the bee’s knees, Piper.”
Coca-Cola fizzes down my throat. “Robbie too. He looked as though he might float away as he talked to me about you.”
Emma’s cheeks pinken, brightening her entire face. Seeing her like this makes it seem impossible that I ever thought her plain. “I suppose I’ll just have to be patient now, won’t I? With Mariano warning us away from the neighborhood, it hardly seems prudent to return.” A frown flickers on her face. “I wonder if Robbie is safe there.”
“I could ask Mariano, if you’d like. But I agree that we should do as he says. He’s not the overprotective type.”
“Well, I never thought I’d see this day.” Jeremiah’s words draw a gasp from both me and Emma, and he smirks in the doorway. “Sorry to startle you.”
“What day is that, Jeremiah?” Emma’s voice is edged with impatience.
Jeremiah removes his trilby from his head as he strides into the room. He swipes a lemon bar from the tray and selects the rocking chair across from me. “The day Piper Sail allowed herself to be stifled by a man.” He shakes his head, making a tsk, tsk sound. “What would Zelda Fitzgerald think?”
I lock my gaze on my bottle of Coca-Cola.
“Don’t be a sore loser, Jeremiah,” Emma says. “It’s not an attractive feature in a man.”