Acrobat by Mary Calmes Page A

when he smiled back, even giving me a hard pat on the arm.
    “You got hurt there, huh, Professor?”
    Funny that they knew what I did. I wouldn’t have thought that bit of information important enough for Dreo to share with them.
    “Some guys by the park yesterday,” I told him.
    “Yeah, we heard about that.” Sal nodded. “But maybe when you walk by there tomorrow, you won’t see those guys no more.”
    “No,” I assured him, “they’re always there.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe not.”
    But it was doubtful.
    “We heard something else happened tonight too, huh?”
    I chuckled. “You mean Mr. Tulia?”
    “Yeah.” Dreo coughed softly, his deep dark eyes flicking to Anthony. “Tulia.”
    “That was just a misunderstanding,” I soothed. “But we’ve got it all figured out now. No need for you to even get involved.”
    “Hey,” Michael called from the couch, not moving.
    Dreo gave him a head tip, and then his eyes, dark and bottomless, were back on me. “So this man, he hit you?”
    “Just a love tap. He fed us.”
    “Fed who?”
    “Me and Michael. We have leftovers.”
    “The good kind of leftovers!” Michael vouched for them from the couch.
    “Are you hungry? Any of you?”
    “Oh, no, Professor,” Frank, I thought, said to me, smiling. “We’re gonna go. Thanks, though, that’s real good of you to ask. I’ll bring you by some of my mother’s carbonara tomorrow.”
    “Friday,” I told him.
    “What?”
    “Carbonara is a favorite of mine, and I bet your mom’s is fantastic, so I would love to take you up on your offer, but tomorrow I’m taking Michael to the opera, and Thursday I have a date. So Friday, if that’s okay?”
    He nodded. “You’re on for Friday. What opera?”
    “ La Bohème .”
    “Nice. Give the kid some culture, huh?”
    “That’s the plan. Plus he needs the extra credit.”
    “Okay.” He smiled at me, turning to look at Dreo. “We’re good here. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
    Dreo nodded, and all five men said good night to me and then left. Dreo locked the door behind them and then turned back to me, eyes locked on my face.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Fine,” he said flatly.
    “Okay. Are you hungry?”
    He shook his head.
    “If you want to just go home and relax, I can send him later.”
    “No, it’s nice over here.”
    And I knew he liked it, as many times as he’d given me compliments.
    “What you’ve done to this place… the hardwood floors and the ceiling all exposed with the pipes, all the stone by the fireplace.” He shrugged. “It beats the hell outta mine.”
    “All right, then, take off your coat and sit down.”
    I started back across the room.
    “It smells good in here too.”
    “Oh yeah?” I teased, walking ahead of him. “Does it smell like the grilled cheese that I made earlier?”
    “No,” he said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder, so I stopped and turned to look at him. “It smells like fire and vanilla and something else.”
    “Is that good?”
    “ Sì ,” he said softly, and I saw those melting eyes of his narrow in half.
    After a minute of his scrutiny, I smiled. “I think he wants to talk to you,” I told him, and he understood that I meant Michael.
    I watched as he pulled off the trench coat he was wearing and the suit jacket underneath and laid them both on my love seat, loosening his tie as he walked to the couch. He cleared a space before he sat down on my coffee table across from his sprawled nephew.
    The red-and-blue print tie was pulled off and folded and put down beside him as he leaned forward to look at Michael.
    “What can I get you?” I asked.
    He shook his head.
    “Come on, leftovers? Grilled cheese?”
    “The grilled cheese was the best thing I had today,” Michael said softly, turning to look at me over his shoulder.
    “Better than Johnny’s ravioli with the spicy marinara?”
    “Yeah.” He nodded. “It reminded me of when my mom used to make it.”
    I really hoped that was a good thing.
    “God,