Love Me (The Elites of Cheshire shore #2)

4. Florence

CHAPTER FOUR

florence

I ’m no stranger to early mornings. If I’m not prepping for surgeries, I’m going to a yoga or Pilates class, depending on the day of the week. My body needs to be a well-honed machine. I’ve spent years training to deal with the rigorous hours of surgery, and I take it very seriously. Getting a you up? text message at six thirty in the morning from Luca, has me questioning whether he should still keep the title of best friend. Dumb question. He should know this. My internal alarm clock has been waking me up at five thirty a.m. for the last twenty-nine years, I’m always up this early. Feeling a little snarky this morning, I quickly type back.

Flo

I feel like you need to ask yourself that question…

Luca

Thanks for your concern. But I just came so I would say I’m down. But I’m awake.

Reading over his message as a sharp derisive laugh leaves my lips, there is no better way to start your day than laughing at the insane thing your best friend has messaged you. Luca and I have absolutely no barriers, that’s why he is literally my brother and my best friend. Dante, his younger brother, would never cross the line and send me such a lewd message, and Rome…let’s just not even go there. Since my dad died, Luca and his brothers have done their best to make sure I never feel like I’m missing out on having a father figure in my life. Luca especially. There are just times you wish your dad was there, and Luca does everything he can to make sure I never have to feel that. Always filling in the gaps left by the loss of my father, protecting me the way he would have if he was still alive. Not that I would be expecting my dad to send me random-ass, sexually explicit messages at six in the morning, of course. Hearing about Lucas’s sex life is not something unusual, he likes to keep me informed, and quite often too; I’m officially desensitized to it.

Flo

Next time lead with “are you awake?” I don’t need to know about the things your dick has been “up to”…pun intended. (Smiley face. Winky face.)

My phone starts ringing.

“Luca.” I breathe a sigh. I don’t even have to check my caller ID to know it’s him. My wipers screech from the downpour of rain hitting the windshield of my parked car. I’m supposed to start my yoga class in ten minutes, but I just can’t find the motivation to exit the car.

“Flo,” he replies, like he is waiting for me to say something when he is the dipshit who called me.

“Shouldn’t you be basking in afterglow or some shit?”

The clock on my dashboard glares back at me. Five minutes until yoga. Rocking my neck from side to side I try to relax my tired muscles. It doesn’t work. They just cramp right back up again. While my mind insists that I need to get out of my car and my body protests vigorously. This week has been a shit show. I’ve pulled sixteen-hour days at the hospital. Every. Single. Day. And I just can’t find the energy to be up this early on a Saturday morning.

“I prefer the fuck and dump, Flo; cuddling is not a Venuccio thing.” I can feel his smile through the phone. That’s why Luca gets me, we’re both the same. I don’t do relationships, they just open you up to pain.

Am I annoyed my best friend is getting some? Absolutely not. Do I wish I was getting some? I would feel less sour for sure.

Pressing the start button, the roar of my engine puts a smile on my face, it does something to me. My Porche 911, a gift from Mom and Nanai when I graduated med school, is my most prized possession, right behind my Kindle and my dad’s necklace, of course.

I grab the medallion my dad wore that now hangs on my neck and run my thumb over the indentations on its smooth surface. It has the Chinese word for love inscribed and is my daily reminder why love just equals pain. My dad never spent a day without it after my mother gave it to him on their wedding night. When he passed, Mom wanted me to have it—because I am the everlasting symbol of their love. I still can’t believe it’s the fourteen-year anniversary of his passing this year.

My stomach pangs with the feeling of his loss, what would he say if he saw me today, getting ready to work in the hospital he loved. I blink the misty sheen covering my eyes. Way to be sappy this early in the morning, Florence. I’m too damn cold and tried to do yoga this morning. My body wins today. I just want to curl up under my toasty covers and reread the smut scene that has been living in my head rent-free for the past twenty-four hours. At least if I’m not getting any, the fictional characters I’m reading are.

“You cuddle me?” I tease.

“Shhh. Don’t tell anyone, it’s my greatest secret,” he teases.

I bark a laugh and stick the car in Reverse, my sour mood instantly lifting a fraction. Sorry, yoga, I’ll make it up to you next week.

“Where are you?” Luca asks, hearing the squeaking of my windshield wipers.

“I’m ditching my yoga class; I’m too tired this morning.”

“Of course. Only Flo would willingly put herself in downward dog at six a.m. on a Saturday.”

I skip over the obvious pun. “Not only me, asshole. My class is always full.”

“Oh, I bet it is,” he mocks.

“Didn’t you just get some, why the heck are you so focused on your dick today?”

Luca snickers. The best thing about being awake this early. You beat the brutal Cheshire Shore traffic. I make it home in record time; Luca makes the drive go by easier.

“Flo, I don’t know if I should be more upset that you don’t know I’m always focused on my dick. I think that means you have fallen down a best friend peg.”

“Luca,” I huff, already imagining myself grabbing my Kindle from my bedside table. “Is there a reason you’re calling me so early? Because otherwise, I have a pierced dick calling my name,” I tell him. I’m not even going to bother getting changed, I’m just going to glide under my toasty covers and get lost in my book.

“I’m going to skip passed the whole pierced dick situation, but we’re going to talk about this later. Rome has a special guest coming to Mom’s dinner tonight.”

I blink, letting what he says sink in. He’s calling me to tell me Rome is bringing a date? Have I become so sworn off love I need to get the heads up when a potentially happy couple is in my vicinity?

“Thanks so much for the update, bestie. I didn’t realize I’d become the cat lady at such a young age,” I grumble before hanging up on him. I drop my Kindle on the bed and cover my face with my hands, muffling my frustrated sigh. It’s not my fault I’m so bitter about love. It’s just hard to watch your parent lose their spark because the love of their life died. I’m scared falling in love just opens me up to being hurt, and after watching how much it’s affected my mom, it’s not something I want to go through. Nope. I’m happy to focus on my career, my friends, and having fun—the rest of my life will be smooth sailing as long as I stick to that exact plan. My phone beeps with a message just as I grab my Kindle. I read the message on the screen and snort.

Luca

Pierced dick? I need more info, you hung up before the good bits!

A small smile quirks on my lips as I open my Kindle and flick the page I highlighted yesterday— yeah right, he can just let his imagination run wild. And knowing Luca, he has a wild one.

I settle into my bed. I have nowhere to be for a few hours, I have officially entered my pierced dick hoe phase.

My fingers make quick work of braiding my pastel purple hair. I’ve been rocking this particular shade for the better part of seven years and I absolutely adore it. As a child of mixed race, it can be hard at times to feel like you fit in. My mom is half Chinese and half Cambodian, and my dad was Italian. Slowly, I learned the meaning of fitting in is to stand out and be unique.

Even though my hair color is technically not “hospital allowed,” I also don’t technically give a shit. Every single letter HR has given me with the header “infringing on hospital policy” with my choice of outlandish hair color, I’ve taken as a suggestion more than a rule. I consider those letters to be empty threats, and just throw them in the trash. Quite frankly, hospital policy can kiss my shapely ass. If the hospital policy is seriously infringed upon, they can take it up with the person who wrote it, or helped write it—my mom. Not that I’m pulling out the mom card, but I don’t understand how the color of my hair will influence my ability to be a great doctor. It may also help that my mom is on the hospital board and oversees a large chunk of the Liu-Savino funds that get donated to the hospital every year. She is also the kind of person you don’t want to get on the bad side of. I finish getting ready, making sure to add a little extra makeup. Luca’s call was to obviously give me the heads-up that tonight isn’t an ordinary family dinner, and I want to look the part.

I emerge from my twenty-seventh-floor apartment later that evening, after spending the day in bed reading my book. I’ve already downloaded the rest of the series to my Kindle, in preparation for when I come home tonight. Also, pierced dick? Need I say more? The whole time I was reading, my mind couldn’t stop wondering exactly what it would feel like to have it inside me. Too bad the closest I’ll ever get to one is by using my imagination, because I’m not googling that shit again. From a practical standpoint, it almost sounds…exciting.

My eyes are bleary from staring at my Kindle for so long, but I have zero regrets. Mom beeps her horn; I’ve made her wait a whole two minutes and that’s already too long for her neurotic brain to cope with. Dara Liu-Savino sticks to schedules and deadlines like she has an internal Google clock attached to her. Me, I view schedules like a piece of clay—flexible and easily changed.

“Well now everyone in the street will know I’ve left my apartment,” I mutter, closing the car door behind me and giving a slight shiver. The piercing stare of my mom’s gray eyes, the same shade as mine—the only difference is, hers hold so much pain—glare at me. “You would make a great secret agent.”

She purses her lips, not finding my joke the least bit funny. Before Dad died, she would’ve found that hilarious. Since Dad died, not much has really made her smile, not her real breathtaking smile, anyway. She’s used her forced smile so much; it’s now become natural. And that’s why I don’t believe in love. It only brings you pain. It’s been fourteen years this year, and Mom refuses to even look at another man, claiming once you have met your soulmate, the term love becomes a meaningless whisper in a tornado. I guess I’ve followed in her footsteps, swearing off love is a small price to pay to protect my heart.

I lean my head against the window screen, running my finger over the hard ridges of my dad’s necklace. Rain pelts against the window. It hasn’t stopped raining all day and I suddenly regret not bringing a thicker jacket.

“Florence, what part of six thirty don’t you understand?” my mom growls. My eyes flick to the little clock on her dash. Make that three minutes. “We’re going to be late now,” she announces like we’re catching a flight to the moon and it will depart without us, instead of having dinner at Eduardo and Bea’s house. My dad was the same though; he was a stickler for being on time. I guess that is just one of the thousand things my parents have in common. Had. Fuck.

I don’t even get my seat belt buckled all the way when she floors the accelerator, sending the car careening down the street at, I’m sure, well above the speed limit to make up the whole three minutes I am late.

“It’s just dinner with the Venuccios.” I finally manage to get my seat belt clicked in. We’ve been family friends for as long as I can remember. For every single important milestone, the Venuccios have been in my life and I’ve been there for theirs. Mom slices me with an icy glare. It would make my insides wither up and turn to dust, but I’ve had a lifetime of Dara’s glares. They don’t do much but make me roll my eyes anymore.

My mom slams on the brakes, hitting the red light just in time. Damn it. Now we have to add more time to my already three minutes of lateness. “It could be dinner with just you and me for all I care. Being late is a sign of disrespect.”

“We could have just gone in two cars then?” I whisper under my breath, hoping she wouldn’t hear my snappy remark.

The light turns green, but my mom doesn’t budge. “What did you just say?” She glares at me with raised brows, not giving a shit that the guy behind us is laying on the horn, waving his arms, and I’m no expert lip reader, but I definitely think he is telling Mom to fuck off, or maybe it’s What the fuck .

Releasing the breath I’ve been holding, I just say, “Next time I will be on time.” I know when it’s time to concede defeat and this battle against my mom was never going to go in my favor. Mom nods her head, accepting my “apology” as she views it, and immediately presses the accelerator just as the guy behind us gets out of his car, no doubt to shout a few curse words at us, and now all the people behind him are beeping him. I give a quiet chuckle as I continue to watch him in the rearview mirror.

The Venuccio mansion is located in a gated community just outside the main city of Cheshire Shore. Here, the houses have names, not numbers. Ironically, it’s on the beach Cheshire Shore was named after, but the city center is situated away from the water. My muscles begin to relax the moment we pass the gate. The Venuccio’s house has always felt more like a second home to me, a safe haven when my own home feels too claustrophobic. I secretly love Bea Venuccio’s dinner parties too. She uses absolutely any excuse to make even the most low-key dinner into an extravagant dinner party, complete with its own theme, right down to the decor surrounding the table. Even the scent of the candles matches the theme of her dinner.

“Florence, my angel.” Bea beams a smile when she sees me holding the bottle of wine my mom shoved in my hand the moment I got out of her car. A wonderful warm, inviting scent hits my nose, instantly making me feel at home. I really love coming to the Venuccio’s house.

“Bea.” I return her warm smile and wrap my arm around the petite woman. It’s a wonder she had the three giants she calls sons. All three of the Venuccio boys are well over six feet tall, with Rome obviously being the tallest at six-foot-five. For a long time, he wanted a career in football, but that was never really in the cards for him. Not with the whole Ven Industries thing. “This is for you.” I thrust the wine bottle at her the moment she releases me before she turns her attention to my mom, embracing her just as warmly.

Bea’s perfectly botoxed eyebrows pulled as far as her frozen muscles allow into a frown, holding up the bottle in her hands. “Angel, you don’t need to bring anything. You’re family, remember?”

Tell that to, Mom , is on the tip of my tongue, but I can feel her gray eyes boring into the back of my head with such intensity that I can almost smell the strands of my hair burning. I’m already in enough trouble tonight, so instead I go with, “Luca bitched when I told him I was buying this wine, apparently it’s the best vintage.” I shrug my shoulders as Mom pinches my side, I know she’ll bitch about it later, but it was so worth it.

“DID NOT,” Luca yells as he comes to stand beside his mom. Bea clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth and rolls her eyes. I snort my laughter and quickly smother it with a fake cough.

“No Nanai tonight?” Bea asks, looking over our shoulders for my grandmother.

“No, she isn’t feeling too well today. The cold weather is getting to her,” Mom replies, and a flutter of guilt rolls across my belly. I didn’t even ask Mom where Nanai was. I was too busy staring at the clock and death-gripping the door handle, hoping she would make up the three minutes I made her late.

“Poor thing.” Bea nods and I quickly skate past the two of them. They can continue chatting at the door. My stomach gives a growl at the heady scent of food coming from the kitchen. I haven’t eaten anything except a protein bar I keep in my beside drawer, because duh. Eating would interrupt my reading and I was not about to have that. Mental note: need to replace protein bar.

“What’s tonight’s theme?” I’m already bounding toward the smell of food, hoping to pick at something laid out on the table.

Luca follows closely behind me, and from the corner of my eye I can see his arms crossed over his chest, his face a mask of boredom. “Apparently deflection,” he mutters.

I rub my hands together and say, “Ooohh, my favorite theme.”

“What’s this?” Rome asks, coming through the entryway with two glasses of wine in his hands.

“Flo here was asking about tonight’s theme,” Luca replies as Rome hands me a glass of wine and dots a kiss on my temple. I notice his lips linger for a few seconds extra, before pulling away. “Unfortunately, Mom couldn’t change it to go with your suggestion, Flo?” Luca continues, a lightness in his voice makes my stomach drop.

Luca’s hands land on my shoulders, and he gives them a squeeze. I freeze and stare up at Luca with wide, scared eyes. Oh shit . Please stop talking . But from the shit-eating grin on his face, I just know Luca has no intention of shutting up.

“Pierced dicks is more of a summer theme,” he announces loud enough for the whole street to hear. My mouth becomes dry while my lungs fill up with sand in my chest, and I decide I am totally about to go down for murdering my best friend.