“Well, do you have any way to get in touch with her?” John asked.
Valentino shook his head. “Nope. I had her number at one point, but I deleted it a long time ago. And she’s made no effort to get in touch with me until now.”
“What about her last name?” Karen asked.
“I honestly don’t remember.”
Karen shook her head. “I swear, Valentino, this is like med school all over again.”
“Huh?” That got my attention.
“Mom.” Valentino spoke deep and low, his gaze hard. “We don’t need to get into any of that.”
“Why not?” Mom asked. She turned to me, smirk on her face. “Back when Val was younger, he was a bit of a Casanova.”
“Is that right?” I asked, a smile spreading across my face. I realized at that moment that I didn’t really know all that much about Valentino’s past.
Maddie looked up from her coloring book. “Mommy, what’s a Cas...a-mona?” She scrunched her face in an adorable way as she tried to wrap her lips around the new word.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” I said.
“Mom, we really don’t need to get into this,” Valentino said again, his tone suggesting that he knew there was no sense in trying to talk her out of it.
“Oh, I think wedo,” Karen said. “After all, it’s your womanizing ways that got you into all of this.” She turned back to me. “Valentino, well, let’s say he lived up to his namesake back when he was a student. It was just one woman after another after another after...you get the idea.”
“Is this true?” I asked.
He shrugged. “What can I say? I was a responsible student, but an irresponsible everything else.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Doesn’t seem like you’re still that way.”
“You have John to thank for that,” Karen said.
I leaned in, beyond interested in the story.
John nodded. “He was staying over at our place during his last semester of med school, wanting some private time to study. Anyway, Karen and I were in the living room doing some reading when we hear this yelling. At first, we’re not sure what it was. Then we realized it was awoman. We got up and went to the porch, finding this gal in the street shouting for Valentino.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yep,” Karen said. “Turns out she was another in a long line of hearts he’d broken. I swear, I should’ve known better than naming him after the biggest playboy in Hollywood history.”
“Anyway,” John said, “I’d heard enough about his history to decide this was the end of it. I told Valentino to get out there, apologize to her, then send her on her way. While he was out there, I printed out some information for a military residency. I’d been a bit of a hellraiser when I was a young guy, and the Navy ended up straightening me out like nothing else.”
“The military?” I asked.
Valentino nodded. “Yep. Did my residency in the Navy, then joined Doctors Without Borders when I was done with that. By the time those years were over, I’d gotten all the immaturity knocked out of me.”
“Except for with you-know-who,” I said, nodding toward the door, referring to Ashley.
He sighed. “I thought I was doing the right thing. She’d seemed nice enough at first. It wasn’t until...well,afterthat she showed her true colors. After that all had gone down, I'd sworn that I'd never do that again.”
“Until you met me,” I said.
John and Karen laughed.
“You know,” John said. “I’m starting to think of a certain story right now, about a leopard who couldn’t change his spots.”
I took his hand. “I’ll keep him on the straight and narrow, don't you worry about us.”
