A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

4. Nate

4

NATE

As much as I tried to ignore the problem of needing a date for my cousin’s upcoming nuptials, my parents will not let me forget. Dad just had a procedure on his knee this month, so they will not be able to make it for the wedding, which means it’s extra important that I go and show all my extended family that I am doing well, or better yet, great .

I answered a call from my mom on a whim at the start of my prep period and now have been listening for ten minutes about things I should and shouldn’t say about my current life. My cousin Rex is rich, he works some job in stocks, and his sister is a travel influencer, so there’s a bit of insecurity on my parents’ part that their only son is, you know, just shaping the minds of the next generation and teaching the valuable skills of mathematics that they will take into their lives.

“Tell them about how you are working at a private school now,” my dad says in the background of my mom’s phone.

“Good idea, Grant. And who are you bringing again?”

“Ma, I have to go,” I say. “More on this later, I love you.”

I disconnect the call before she can say more and beeline for Jenna’s classroom. She’s my closest friend, both at this school and in general. She teaches seventh to ninth grade English and when I get to her classroom, she’s in the midst of taping paper chains to her wall. Her countdown to the end of the school year.

“One of the kids started shit-talking Macbeth today, and I should get faculty of the year for not failing him,” she says as soon as I’m settled in at one of the desks.

“Bravo,” I say and then cut right to the chase. “Will you go with me to Rex’s wedding?”

I can’t see Jenna’s face, but I already know what she’s doing.

“Don’t roll your eyes, say yes.”

She turns back to face me after taping the last of her students’ chains, this one neon pink and green, and with a sigh, comes down from the step stool to sit across from me.

“You’re my best friend,” Jenna says.

“Thank you.”

“But I will not go with you to that tool’s wedding.”

“He’s not so bad.” I throw my hands up and lean back in my chair. “And you can’t punish me for the crimes of my family. Attending weddings together is our thing.”

Calling it ‘our thing’ is maybe a stretch, since we’ve only been to three weddings together in our five years as friends, and we have many other things we do with a much more frequent cadence: begrudgingly training for a 5k she signs us up for every October, not-so-silently judging parents when our students reveal secrets about their home lives, taste testing ice cream flavors at every shop in the city. But weddings are one of our things, and if they aren’t, then I am officially trying to make them one.

“One, I love you, but I do not want to go. Two, I think I’m seeing someone,” she says.

“Who?”

Jenna doesn’t answer right away, but a bit of a smile tugs at the sides of her mouth and she schools it to be neutral.

“Jenna. . . “

She leans on the table like she’s sharing a secret. “Do you remember the woman from the gym who we thought was checking you out because she kept staring at you when we were on the stair stepper?”

“Leopard leggings? And a kid?”

“Yes. She came up to me last week?—”

“When?” I ask.

“Thursday, you were lesson planning—anyway, hand to God, she asked if you and I were seeing each other.”

“And you said. . .”

“I said no, you’re actually my strange little brother, and then I told her that I like girls, to which she said that she’d love to take me out for drinks.”

“No fucking way ,” I slap both palms on the desk.

“Way. So we went to drinks on Friday.”

“How did you not tell me this? Days have passed. Did you make out?”

“Yes,” Jenna ignores the first question.

She and I have slightly different understandings of the term “best friend.” Namely, I believe we should talk on the phone once per day, even when we already have plans to see each other, and that she should send me texts when the slightest inconvenience happens. She, on the other hand, prefers to not touch her phone for sometimes tens of hours at a time.

“Hot?” I ask.

Jenna nods solemnly. “So hot.”

“This is the biggest thing that’s happened to us all year, why are you just telling me?”

“Because I knew you would react poorly when I also told you that I really can’t go to that wedding because I’m seeing her again this Friday.”

I squint at Jenna, dutifully trying to decide which emotion will win: indignation that she is skipping out on a wedding that I also am dreading, or elation that she’s going out with the hot mom that wears matching workout sets and bench presses twice as much as I do.

“Don’t be mad.” Jenna reaches a hand across the table and pats my arm. “You’ll find someone.”

The list of women I know who I could ask on dates is quickly dwindling as they either keep moving out of the city or getting married, which Jenna knows because she is the one I always bring to said weddings.

“How?”

“Ever heard of a dating app?” The bell rings before she can start her familiar rant, and I quickly remove myself from her classroom.

The Monday after term break is usually a wash for everyone. Even with the best intentions to start the final term strong, the kids are too buzzed on the week they had off and the fact that in two short months it will officially be summer vacation. I didn’t get to sleep until stupid late despite going to bed early. My upstairs neighbor has been on a reggae kick and loves nothing more than playing it well into the night while he does his gaming streams. I’ve watched a few, they’re fine.

So, after a long day of giving all my students what I call a planning day—AKA they set goals for how the rest of the school year will go and then we watch part of October Sky —I stand at pick-up duty fueled only by the third cup of burnt coffee I had after lunch and the promise that after all of these kids clear out I’ll be able to drive home and fall directly into my bed until tomorrow.

Pick-up isn’t an arduous task, all we have to do is make sure there are no fights and the kids aren’t getting kidnapped, which is easy enough. It’s a drag, but we all do our time.

One of the kids has left a softball in the small patch of grass, and I pick it up.

I toss the forgotten softball in the air a few times as I stroll down the sidewalk past the cars that surpass my salary. A horn immediately startles me from my important focus on the ball, and when I turn to look, I am met with a black Land Rover with the darkest tinted windows I’ve ever seen in my life (they cannot be legal). I should recognize the car immediately, but I must be really out of it, because it takes the passenger side window gliding down for me to realize who’s inside.

Vanessa Morelli. Artie’s aunt, or godmother, or whatever, perched in the driver’s seat of the black Land Rover that I drove my car into last week. I’ve been waiting on a call from my insurance after filing the claim, but it hasn’t come.

She’s got these tiny sunglasses slid low on her nose that she’s peering over with a smirk hinting at a shadow of a dimple into her cheek. As if her face isn’t already perfect, she needed to have a dimple. Sure.

“Hey,” she calls.

“Hello,” I say, and make to walk on, but she inches along the sidewalk keeping up with me in the slow-moving line of cars.

“Did Artie get all of his work in today?” she asks, and she has to stop driving or else she’ll hit the one in front of her, so I stop too. I’m very reluctant about it all, though.

“He did,” I say. “Did you write his speech?”

“Speech?”

“Speech,” I repeat, but really, speech isn’t right; it was a performance. A whole monologue. The boy should be in theater. “He gave a rousing, pro-homework manifesto. Stood on his chair and everything.”

Vanessa laughs, her eyes lit up at the image, and really just what does she need with a dimple like that anyway? I stare a beat too long before I nod at the space in front of her and she moves her car forward to close the gap, me walking beside her. I resume tossing the ball because that is something I can focus on without forgetting how insufferable she was last week.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” she says.

I’m not sure I heard her correctly.

I look back into the car and she’s pushed the sunglasses onto her head, which has pushed her hair from her face, because seeing more of her face is exactly what I need when trying to hold a grudge right now.

“It wasn’t cool,” she says. “I recognize that.”

“How big of you,” I say, and then after a moment, “Thank you.”

We’re making eye contact like we know each other, not like I just hit her car and told her to fuck off last week, and the light honk of the car behind her startles us both to move forward.

“I’m sorry too,” I say. “I don’t have a habit of yelling at my parent-teacher conferences.”

“Well maybe you should. You’re good at it.”

She’s smirking, like a cheeky, devious little angel, and I wish I had something clever to say back, but the smirk has sent me into a mute state. Artie shows up with his twin sister in tow, and they both offer me their fists to bump, which I do, because I am not a monster. They climb into the back seat of their aunt’s car and each lean forward to plant a kiss on her cheek.

“Bye, Mr. G.,” Artie says out the window and gives a salute. I mimic the gesture, earning a grin from the boy.

Vanessa leans her head back into my view. “Bye, Mr. G.,” she mimics, before pulling out of the pick-up line and away from the school.

I notice that her bumper is already fixed.