Yeah. That’ll go great.
The door opens.
My nervous system flatlines.
There he is.
Dario Marchetti.
In the flesh. In a suit. In my direct line of sight and my body reacts like I’ve been shocked with a defibrillator.
My pussy wakes up, stretches, and says ‘oh there you are.’
He moves through the restaurant like he owns it.
He probably does own it.
Oh God, he probably owns it.
I’m stalking a man in his own restaurant. That’s a new low. That’s a low I didn’t even know existed until right now.
My heart forgets its job, stops, then slams back to life and tries to climb out of my throat.
He’s real. He’s here.
He exists outside my memory and the grainy news photo I stared at for an embarrassing amount of time last night.
And God, God, he’s even more beautiful than I remembered. How is that possible? Is that allowed? Is it legal to get hotter post-indictment?
How does one man violate this many laws and basic laws of attraction?
My body reacts like he’s magnetic and I’m just a dumb, desperate paperclip.
He heads toward a table in the middle of the restaurant.
And sits.
At that table.
Of course.
The Scene-of-the-Crime Table.
The one where he committed the egregious sin of eating pasta so beautifully I forgot how to breathe.
Of course it’s his table. Of course he has a table. He’s a mobster. Mobsters have tables. I’ve seen movies.
A server appears instantly, not my server, a different one, one who clearly knows him, and sets down water without being asked. Dario says something that makes the server smile. Comfortable. Easy.
This is his domain. He belongs here. Like the espresso machine or the overpriced balsamic.
And me? I’m in the corner seat, dressed like suburban espionage Barbie with a purse full of smuggled snacks and a stress rash blooming under my bra.
Cool. This is going well.
I should look away.
I should pretend to give a shit about my lukewarm chicken parm. Act like a woman who isn’t conducting a full psychological analysis based on the way he twirls linguine.
