Love is Just a Moment by Taylor Hill Page A

I felt a tingle at his touch, despite the fact that I was sure the gesture was for him also certainly platonic. Even though that was how I had deliberately presented myself, I couldn’t deny now feeling a mild disappointment in the pit of my stomach at being treated by him in the same way.
    “Pleased to meet you,” I said, surprised at how small and girlish my voice sounded when it came out.
    Across from us Lou pulled out Lisa’s chair for her to sit (chivalry? really? Who was this guy and what had he done with my brother?) and I felt my eyes travel automatically to Romeo’s face, startled to see his eyes coolly on mine with a wry little smile touching his lips. What—did I expect him to pull out my chair too? Of course not, I was the chaperone , wasn’t I?
    “Please, sit,” I said, “welcome to Gino’s.”
     
     
    “So you been to see mom lately?” Lou asked, taking his attention from my best friend for one solitary second.
    “Not since last week,” I said, “she’s doing ok—as good as ever I suppose.”
    “I saw her this morning,” Lou answered, “you should really get up to see her.”
    That was rich, coming from him. I was the one who always looked out for her. Sometimes Lou wouldn’t go up to the nursing home for months at a time. And now, what? Just because he was trying some kind of new faux-grown-up attitude he was going to reprimand me ? Where was he getting this from anyway?
    I decided to let it go, not least of all because the presence of this cool, dark young man in the leather jacket was somehow, despite my best intentions, absolutely and completely dominating my emotional attention. I felt as if something was pulling me to him and I was afraid to even look at his face when I spoke. What the heck had come over me?
    “So how do you know my brother?” I asked, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be anything other than some jerk-wad wannabe criminal stuff, so that I could hold that against him at least and somehow denigrate this near perfect image he was casting before me.
    I noticed them share a furtive, private glance and thought: thank god! He is just an arrogant hoodlum. He almost had me fooled for a minute there.
    “Oh,” Romeo shrugged, “this and that. We do some work together.”
    “In the bar, you mean?” Lisa asked.
    Lou worked part-time in the campus bar at Chicago City University (CCU) where me and Lisa were freshmen—which was why I avoided the place like the plague—although wherever he got the money to fund his lavish lifestyle from, it certainly wasn’t doing a shift or two a week there. Call it wishful thinking on Lisa’s part, then.
    Romeo and Lou looked at each other again with that secret, conspiratorial man’s look and then he smiled. “Uh… no,” he said, “not the bar.”
    Lisa pouted as if she wanted Lou to explain and I thought to myself: good, at least now you’ll have to admit to yourself what he’s really like.
    Unfortunately, at that moment Gino appeared at the table and clapped Lou on the back before ruffling his scalp like he was still a little boy and I had that to enjoy, if nothing else.
    “Hey Louis! Look at you my boy, you’re not a boy at all, eh? A man now!”
    Lou was not pleased, he shook off Gino’s grip. “Yeah, whatever old timer,” he muttered.
    “Lou!” I admonished. Gino was an old family friend and he deserved better than that, considering how he’d always been there for our family, first when dad left and then years later when dementia got the better of our mom. If I didn’t have the café job to support my studies and pay for mom’s nursing at the home I don’t know what I’d have done.
    Gino though, to his credit, didn’t give a hoot. “Hey, Mr. Big now, huh?” he laughed, “It’s good to see you Louis. You kids want coffee, cannoli maybe? On the house.”
    “Sure,” Lou said, “and Gino, it’s good to see you too.”
    “Thanks Gino,” I said as he went to fill our order and I turned to Romeo. I