Chapter 17: The Truck at the Corner

Dino's POV

I woke at five, the way I always do, and Gianna was sitting on the edge of the cot with my phone in her hand.

She had not turned on the light.

The screen lit her face from underneath, and she was reading the email for the third time, because her lips were moving.

"How long?" she asked.

"Two weeks."

"You were going to tell me."

"I was going to tell you after your father's party."

"That's what you told yourself about Rocco."

That landed where she meant it to.

I sat up and pulled the blanket over my knees.

"I haven't answered it," I said. "The shop wants a reply by Friday."

"But you wrote one."

I did not ask how she knew.

I had typed the yes three times and deleted it three times, and the draft was still in the box under the offer.

"I wrote it," I said. "I didn't send it."

"Why would you take a job in Philadelphia?"

"They restore the kind of furniture I've only seen in books. They have a steam bending room."

I heard how that sounded.

"And it's not here."

"Why does that matter?"

I looked at her.

Her hair was flat on one side from the pillow.

I had loved her since I was nineteen years old.

I knew it was not fair to say it now, with her father's confession two days old.

I said it anyway.

"Third year of college," I said. "You went home to Bensonhurst every Sunday."

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