Nero: Made Men novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Thirty Days

Nero drives Mona home, sits across from her in front of the whole cafeteria, and takes her to his family's restaurant, where his father's consigliere tells her thirty days goes fast.

His car was a black sedan with a driver already holding the rear door open.

Nero put me in the back seat and got in beside me.

"Brandt House or hospital," he said.

"Brandt House."

"You're bleeding from the lip."

"I bit it," I said. "I'm fine."

He didn't argue.

He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and held it out, and I pressed it to my mouth.

The heater was on high, and the rain had started against the glass.

"Harlow Academy, Brandt House, the single on the third floor," Nero told the driver.

I turned my head.

"I never told you that."

"The headmistress's office has your file," he said. "My family sits on the donor committee."

"You looked up my room."

"Yes."

He said it, and the strange thing is that I was not afraid.

He was twenty-seven, I was eighteen, and I knew exactly what I was looking at.

I was too cold and too angry, and I was looking at the scar on his hand.

"Why did you wait an hour?" I asked again.

"I told you."

"That's not a reason."

He looked out at the rain.

"Because everyone I know would have broken that door at the first scream," he said. "I wanted to know who you were before I did."

"And who am I?"

"A girl who throws a phone into the bay with five people on her," Nero said.

His eyes came back to mine, and his voice dropped.

"I have not wanted to watch anything that much in years."

My heart did something stupid.

At Brandt House he walked me to the stairs and stopped at the bottom.

"My driver will be outside your building tonight."

"I don't need a guard."

"I know," he said. "Sleep."

He left, and his coat stayed on my shoulders until I realized he had let me keep it.

The next day the whole school knew.

I felt it in the hallway, in the stairwell, in the line at the cafeteria.

Nobody said a word to me.

Everybody turned around.

Chantal's group chat had gone dead, and not one of her friends was anywhere.

Katia had run across the hall that morning in her socks and made me tell it twice.

"He tore the door off," she kept saying. "Off the hinges, Mona."

"Eat your eggs."

"I'm going to have it carved on my headstone."

I sat at the long center table in the cafeteria with my tray, because I was done sitting in corners.

Katia sat across from me, talking with her mouth full.

Then the room went quiet in a wave that started at the door.

Nero walked the length of the dining hall in his black coat with every eye on him.

He did not look at anybody.

He pulled out the chair next to mine, and he sat.

"Good morning," he said.

Katia choked on her orange juice.

"You're here," I said.

"I have a donor meeting at ten. I thought I'd eat first."

"You've never eaten here in your life."

"No," Nero said, and took a piece of toast off my tray. "It's terrible."

Two tables away a boy dropped his fork.

I started laughing.

I couldn't help it, and neither could Katia, and Nero watched me laugh with an expression I couldn't read.

When I stopped, he leaned in close enough that nobody else could hear.

"They won't touch you again," he said.

"That isn't up to you."

"No," he said. "It's up to you. Tell me if you want me to leave."

"Stay."

"All right."

I walked him out afterward, down the library steps, because I wanted to.

The rain had stopped, and the brick was dark and shining.

At the bottom of the steps I turned around.

I was one step above him, and for once our eyes were level.

"You came into that boathouse like you owned it," I said.

"My family paid for the library," Nero said. "We don't own the boathouse."

I took two fistfuls of his lapels and pulled him in and kissed him.

It was a hard kiss, my chipped lip against his mouth, and he went absolutely still.

Then his hand came up into my braid and he kissed me back.

Slowly at first, then not slowly.

I heard someone whistle from the courtyard.

When I let go, he was breathing hard, and his eyes had gone black.

"Dinner," he said. "Tonight."

"Okay."

Bellandi's was on Eastern Avenue, in Little Italy, behind a green awning with gold lettering.

The waiters knew him by name, and the whole dining room lowered its voice when he walked through it.

He sat me at the best table, in the window.

At the back of the room, in a red leather booth, sat an old man with white hair and a rosary half out of his pocket.

He was eating soup.

He looked up once, found me with his pale eyes, and held them there a moment.

Then he lifted one finger off the table.

Nero stood up at once.

"I'll be a minute," he said.

I watched him cross the room and bend to the old man's ear.

A man with a gray mustache and a gold ring on his little finger slid into Nero's chair.

He had a plate of bread in one hand.

"You're the Gilligan girl," he said, and smiled.

"Mona."

"Mona." He tore the bread in half. "Sal Ferraro. I'm a friend of the family."

"I'm waiting for Nero."

"I know, signorina, I know."

He looked past me at the booth, and back at me.

"Enjoy him," Sal said. "Thirty days goes fast."

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