Something Wicked This Way Comes, Volume 2

They met for coffee at Cha Chas three days later. Robyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much and so hard. Jake wasn’t prone toward smiling and probably came off as overly serious to most people, but she’d quickly figured him out. He was amusing as hell once you understood his dry wit and facial expressions. His lips didn’t curve up very much, but his dark eyes lit up and danced in a playful manner quite frequently.

“I thought you were Italian when we first met,” Robyn admitted. “You definitely look it. But your last name is Chamberlin…what is your heritage?”

“Trailer park.”

Robyn grinned. “I’m serious.”

“Unfortunately so am I,” Jake returned. He shrugged. “I have no idea where my people came from. I got my mom and that’s it. My dad left when I was a kid.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“Nope.”

“Cousins?”

“Not that I know of.”

Robyn’s heart wrenched for him. She couldn’t imagine growing up like that. She had been surrounded by people who loved her. She only had one sibling, true, but her family as a whole was huge. “I’m sorry.”

As to Jake’s heritage, she’d never before met somebody who didn’t know where they came from, but then, she had lived her entire life on Mulberry Street. In Little Italy, you grew up not only knowing you were Italian, but you also knew the exact village your people heralded from. And every last one of her friends and acquaintances still had relatives back in those villages in the Old Country.

“No need to be sorry. My mom and I are real close. I’m just glad I was able to get her out of that trailer park and into a nice apartment near me.”

Robyn smiled. His family consisted of only two, but he was loyal to it. A good sign, to her way of thinking.

“So you’re divorced,” Jake said, switching topics. “How long?”

“A long time,” Robyn answered. She blew out a breath as she tried to remember. “At least ten years.”

“Can I ask what went wrong?”

“We didn’t see eye to eye.” Robyn shrugged. “Paulie—that was his name—he thought it was okay to get jealous of other men and beat me up for it. I disagreed.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill him.”

Something in that simple, protective statement made her heart flutter in a way it never had before. She had quickly surmised that Jake was the jealous type—he’d already stared down three men just for looking at her—but he’d never hurt her. Robyn knew the difference. Jake was territorial and protective, just like Nicky, but he wasn’t abusive.

“Too late. Someone else already did,” Robyn admitted.

Jake’s eyebrows shot up.

“Let’s just say there were a lot of people around here who didn’t like him. But no, my family had nothing to do with it. Not that Nicky didn’t do a little damage. But my brother’s baseball bat was the least of Paulie’s problems.”

Jake inclined his head. “Got you.”

The conversation turned to various topics, some serious, some humorous. The more time Robyn spent with Jake, the more she didn’t want their afternoon together to end. She didn’t know where this was going, if anywhere, but she certainly was enjoying the journey toward figuring it out.

Jake Chamberlin. Broodingly handsome, powerfully built and filled with surprises. Just when she discovered a new layer to his personality, he surprised her with yet another one.

Robyn inwardly sighed. If she didn’t watch herself, she could easily fall for this man.

Jake had never felt so comfortable with a woman in his life. He still got a painful hard-on every time Robyn smiled, or bent over, or breathed for that matter, but he also genuinely enjoyed her company. He actually liked talking to her. Talking! Conversation had never been his strong suit, especially with women, but it seemed to come naturally with her.

And he was starting to pick up on something else too. Judging by the way other men kept staring at Robyn, he realized he wasn’t the only man who preferred a fleshy body to skin stretched over bones. He just wished they’d stare at any woman but her. Still, all the local men who walked into Cha Chas with women on their arms seemed to share his preference for females who were ripe all over.

Maybe his fetish wasn’t a fetish after all. Maybe he was actually normal. Hell, he’d only ever lived in society’s two extremes—trailer park and ridiculous wealth. Both of those extremes held up emaciated women as the end-all, be-all of beauty—and both were Whitey McWhite town.

After thirty-seven years, Jake was finally starting to understand what “it’s a cultural thing” meant. And he finally felt as if he’d found the culture he belonged in. He was an Italian trapped in Trailer Park Bob’s life.

It was time to sell the hunting rifle and trailer hitch; at long last, Jake had found his way home.

* * *

Robyn looked at herself from all angles in the full-length mirror. She smoothed out her dress and then played with her hair. Should she wear it up or down? She frowned, trying to decide what would look best with her little red dress and matching heels. In the end, she opted to loosely pin her hair up and let a few tendrils of curls fall to frame her face.

She smiled into the mirror. She looked pretty good, if she did say so herself.

“He’s gonna love you, sis. You look gorgeous.”

Wide-eyed, Robyn whirled around. “Nicky! I didn’t hear you come in.” She affectionately bopped him on the head. “You scared the piss out of me.”

“I don’t see nothing runnin’ down your legs.”

She frowned. “That’s gross.”

He grinned. “Grossing you out is my brotherly duty.”

“Pfft! Not tonight. My nerves are already on edge.”

Her brother’s expression grew serious. His conversation flipped into Italian. “What’s going on? You change your mind about Jake? I can make up an excuse for you if you want me to.”

She waved that away. “No, no, I haven’t changed my mind about him. It’s…you know…our family.” She sighed. “They can be so embarrassing.”

Nicky chuckled, his speech reverting back to English. “Yeah but they are our family. Better to rip that Band-Aid off now on your first date and get it over with.”

“Second date. We met for coffee at Cha Chas already.”

“Oh yeah. How’d that go?”

She sighed, recalling it as if it were yesterday. Then again, it had been yesterday. “Wonderful,” she breathed out, probably sounding too nostalgic. “We talked for hours. I’ve never had that instant connection with anyone before, not even with Paulie. It’s a little scary,” Robyn admitted.

“I’d say that’s a good thing, seeing as how Paulie turned out to be a piece of shit.”

Robyn snorted at that as she took a seat on the edge of her bed. “You got me there. Still,” she sighed, “Jake will probably run for the hills after he meets the family, Nicky.” She grinned. “I know I would.”

Nicky winked. “I don’t know. Uncle Vito can be pretty funny.”

Robyn snorted at that. “If you call making farting sounds under your armpit after you’ve had one too many bottles of Chianti ‘funny’, then yeah, he’s a real riot.”

* * *

Robyn buried her face in her hands while Uncle Vito farted out the national anthem under his armpit. She should have known better than to let Jake meet her family this soon. Armpit farting aside, a man accustomed to a family of two probably found their sheer numbers overwhelming.

Every time the DiMarcos had a family get-together, they locked down their entire building on Mulberry Street, left the doors to everybody’s apartments wide open and made their way from one family member’s place to the next, eating, drinking, laughing and dancing. Ordinarily Robyn lived for these nights, but then, ordinarily she wasn’t hoping to impress a non-Italian man who didn’t have his own version of Uncle Vito back at home.

“Eat something, Robby,” her mother chided. “Your Jake is enjoying himself. Don’t worry so much.”