Anyone But You Read Online Free PDF Page A

it set my teeth on edge. Having given me life and then lived in my presence for sixteen years, it blew my mind how woefully they failed to comprehend me.
    “We’ve been over this a dozen times, sweetheart,” said my dad. “A big to-do is just the sort of thing we need to let people know we’re back in business.” Cap’s had been shuttered for nearly a month to deal with the water damage.
    “Then call it a ‘Grand Reopening’ or something. Why do you have to drag my birthday into it?”
    “Because not even the Montes would dare rain on a sixteen-year-old girl’s parade, no pun intended,” Mom explained.
    “So I’m the decoy?”
    “You’re our insurance,” Aunt Val clarified. “We can’t risk them pulling any stunts the first night we’re back in business.”
    “If you ask me, you ought to get even with those bastar—sorry, Ma—
jerks
, for what they did to us. They should have to pay,” Frankie said.
    “I could make them pay,” Ty stewed, flashing dark eyes the color of coffee grounds. “Just say the word, Uncle Benji.”
    “Yeah,” added Frankie, “even Carmen here could roll up on that cocky, pretty-boy son of theirs, not to mention the pathetic entourage he calls friends.”
    “I won’t specify exactly what I’d do to Roman Monte’s face,” issued Enzo, “but it might resemble Aunt Nora’s lasagna here by the time I’m through with it.”
    “That’s enough,” said my mother. “Last I checked, our name was Caputo, not Capone.”
    My experience with Roman Monte was limited to hearing him nominally categorized as “Spawn of Satan” by my hyperbolic cousins, who claimed, among other things, that he had an ego the size of Soldier Field. I’d never laid eyes on the guy. Natural curiosity led me to wonder whether Frankie’s assertion that he was a “pretty boy” had any merit, but I figured my cousins couldn’t be counted on for a reliable answer on that front. I’d have to cyber-stalk the guy when I had a chance and see for myself. Too bad Mom already planned on monopolizing my every waking minute for the next two weeks to help her pull off the birthday soiree I’d just as soon skip.
    “What makes you think Roman Monte is the one who pulled our fire alarm?” I asked no one in particular. “Did anyone actually see him?”
    “Seriously, cuz, don’t be so naive,” Ty sighed.
    “What?” I continued. “Enzo, you and Mom were in the stockroom, and Chef was manning the stove. No one ever ID’d anyone, and—”
    “Believe me, if we had proof, that family would be drowning in legal bills right now,” said my dad, dismissing my point out of hand. “The new security cameras went in last week. Next time they try something, we can sue them to the hilt.”
    “Is anyone going to ever tell us the
real
reason our families hate each other, anyway?” I said, attempting a different tack.
    “Because they’re base degenerates,” offered Aunt Val, most unhelpfully.
    “I mean, there are plenty of other Italian restaurants in Chicago,” I continued, “so where does all this hostility originally come from?” You’d think, being taught from birth that the Montes were our sworn enemies, I would already have a good answer to this, but I didn’t. Our family had simply espoused this truth for as long as anyone could remember, which is why my question elicited only blank stares from the faces across the table, as if I’d just asked them to recite the world capitals in alphabetical order.
    “Just steer clear of the lot of them. That means
all
of you,” my father decreed, eyeing Ty in particular. Ever since the boys’ dad, my Uncle Greg, had suffered a heart attack and died four years ago, Ty was like a simmering pot, always ready to boil over. “If there are any scores that need settling,” Dad continued, “that’ll be something that’s handled directly between me and Joe Monte.”
    Carmen had a tendency to lag thirty seconds behind in whatever conversation was going on, but I