Read Online Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) by Alexis D. Craig - Free Book Online

wistful smile on his face. “I get that. I have friends from growing up that still live in the old neighborhood. When I go back to visit my family, it’s like I never left.” He pulled the car into a space not far from the patio dining area of Ianucci’s, a restaurant known citywide both for its phenomenal Italian food and its damn near unattainable reservation status.
    She felt disturbingly flattered he’d gone to such effort on her behalf. “Pulling out all the stops, huh?”
    Nico came around and opened the door for her like it was the most natural thing in the world for him. “Not quite. See, Mrs. Ianucci is my Nonna’s third cousin twice removed or something like that; they came over together after the war. She’s looked after me since I moved here. Her son Pete runs the place now.”
    He also held the door into the restaurant for her, his hand on her back as he guided her inside igniting a wave of tingles that she only barely managed to suppress. “So where is your family?”
     

     
    Nico waited to answer her until they were comfortably seated on the patio. It was beautiful under the deepening evening, with a breathtaking view of the Indy skyline, Sinatra and Dean Martin flowing softly from hidden nearby speakers. Perfect, and perfectly romantic…like a freight train. He wasn’t normally given to second thoughts, he was confident enough to trust himself most of the time, but suddenly looking around he realized he might have gone a bit overboard. “Is this okay?”
    “Of course. It’s perfect.” She smiled, looking absolutely stunning in the candlelight. With her hair down and her flowing black shirt, she looked ethereal and he wanted nothing more than to touch her to see if she was real.
    He held himself in check, especially in front of the waiter taking their drink orders, his a bourbon and hers a ‘porn star’ dirty martini. Damn, but she made him laugh. “Porn star?”
    She nodded, a cute blush blossoming in her cheeks. “Yeah, I just didn’t want them to skimp on the olives.” Methodically unfolding her napkin and arranging her area, she looked up at him through hooded lashes, “So you don’t like to talk about your family?”
    “What? No, not at all.” Hell, he’d been so distracted by her, he’d lost the train of the conversation. “Mom, Dad, Charlie, Bea, and Jules all still live in the neighborhood. It’s called Todt Hill, on the northeastern side of Staten Island. Nonna lives in a nursing home, excuse me, an assisted living community not far from there, with her latest conquest, Richard, and they’re all pretty well-adjusted and happy.”
    Nahia blinked, looked stunned as he listed off the people in his life. The waiter brought their drinks and she took a decent sip before saying, “Sounds like a big bunch.”
    “They are, and wild, too, once you add in all my nieces and nephews, varying aunts, uncles, cousins, and the rotating cast of characters that are my sisters’ boyfriends.”  He’d never really given it any thought; it was just how it was. “Your family’s small, huh?”
    She shrugged, toying with the little green sword in her martini glass that skewered her olives. “Yeah, pretty much. Just me and my parents here, with everybody else living everywhere. No siblings, but I’ve always had Nigel. We grew up next door to each other.”
    “And you have my sympathies,” he said, toasting her after he sipped his drink. The burn of the bourbon down his throat settled him down, relaxed him. The conversation was flowing a lot easier than he thought it would, and he just added that to the growing list of things about her that fascinated him.
    Her broad grin cut dimples into her cheeks. “Eh, he’s okay when he’s not trying to marry me off. He’s one babushka away from being a shadchan .”
    “Yiddish? Really? I haven’t heard that word in a very long time.” And she continually surprised him, this time with a tone from home that warmed him more than the liquor.