The stain was definitely more seahorse than nose. He’d seen Nella topless before (from the back), because she used to lie facedown by the outdoor pool with her bikini off so she didn’t get tan lines from the straps. But this was ... not that.
‘You said you were single!’ Aldi-Chris’s accusation ripped Jett’s gaze to him.
Nella was standing now, still in just her underwear. She squinted at the guy with vulture eyes. She wouldn’t look at Jett. ‘Iam.He’s my family’s driver.’
‘He doesn’t knock?’
‘He has a key,’ Jett said.
‘Bro.’ Aldi-Chris shook his head. ‘You always knock.’
Jett didn’t give him the satisfaction of a laugh or theI got you, brolook that this guy was clearly expecting, just because they were men of roughly the same age and therefore should apparently have identical worldviews. Aldi-Chris was still topless, and decidedly less Aldi-like in the incredibly flattering shadows cast by the skylight. As he stepped into the harsher tones of the kitchen fluorescents, Jett caught the look on his face that was slippery and squirmy and all too familiar.
People were predictable when it came to their reactions to Jett’s face. They either stared too much or deliberately looked away, suddenly fascinated by a brick wall or a parking meter. It was painfully obvious they thought this was the socially acceptable, polite option. Aldi-Chris was no exception. Jett could feel his skater-boy blue eyes tracking across the deep, jagged scar that ran from the right side of his jaw up the middle, through his eyebrow and then over to his left temple, as though he was tracing it with a cold finger.
Nella, who, on that same day fifteen years ago on the Barbarani balcony, had blinked at him and said, without even taking her lollipop out of her mouth,What happened to your face?, now grabbed Aldi-Chris by the arm. She had to physically pull him away to get him to stop staring. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she asked, turning back to Jett.
He glared at her. ‘Put some clothes on.’ He kicked over a leather jacket that was Aldi-Chris’s size before grabbing a silvery dress that was about the length of a tea towel. It felt like cool, river water in his hands as he tossed it to her.
Okay,ather.
‘What happened the last time you tried to tell me what to do?’ Nella threw the dress back, but it puddled in the space halfway between them, over the brown stain Jett had been staring at.
The memory kicked him in the shin. Giovanni’s funeral. Nella, high as a space shuttle, trying to wrestle the microphone from her brother, her sharp lawyer tongue frothing to unleash thirty-three years of repressed feelings about a dead man in front of everyone who’d ever known him. Jett, arms around her waist, pulling her back into the sea of black and mascara-stained faces. She’d hit him, bitten him, kicked him, sobbed into his chest and, once they were far enough away from the mausoleum, he’d let her go and she’d ... well. Everything she’d wanted to scream at Giovanni’s casket, she screamed at Jett. She’d told him she never wanted to see his face again.
That was the last time he’d seen her.
‘Believe me, Nella.’ Jett scraped the fleshy remnants of a lime into the bin drawer and started to stack the dishwasher with bowls crusted with mac ’n’ cheese and brownish milk that smelled like Coco Pops. ‘I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.’
‘That,’ she said, handing Aldi-Chris his wallet, ‘is impossible.’
‘Uh, should I go?’ the guy asked, his offensively jacked chest now completely covered by his shirt.
‘Yes,’ Nella and Jett said in unison, still glaring at each other.
‘Right, well, it was an ... interesting night, Antonella.’ Aldi-Chris ran a hand through his hair. ‘Maybe I can come back another time ... for some wine?’ With the last word came a smirk Jett didn’t understand.
‘Maybe.’
‘Never got your name, mate.’ Aldi-Chris held out a hand to Jett, his gaze resolutely fixed on Jett’s nose.See, man? Look how cool I am with you! Staring straight at your ugly-ass scar! Now, let me shake your hand with the fingers I was just using to pleasure your boss and we’ll be cool, yeah?
‘Jett. Like the plane,’ he said, his grip tight.
Aldi-Chris squeezed harder. ‘Victor.’
Nella blanched. Jett would bet his car she’d forgotten the guy’s name.
‘Of what exactly?’ Jett asked.
‘Huh?’ Aldi-Chris dropped his hand and went to plant a kiss on Nella’s temple. Nella, still glaring at Jett, pulled Aldi-Chris towards her and stuck her tongue down his throat, pawing at his still-unbuttoned shirt.
Jett moved on to stacking the cutlery in the grey plastic holder.
When Nella eventually set him free, Aldi-Chris stumbled to the door, eyes starry and lips bee-stung. It was a good minute after he’d shut the door behind him before Nella spoke.
‘You ruined everything.’
Jett had turned on the dishwasher and was now working his way around the crime scene that was the living room. ‘I thought someone had broken in,’ he said. ‘The door was open.’
