Prayer Read Online Free PDF Page A

the family. But that thought had depressed the fuck out of John. Almost as much as the thought of sitting alone in his house had.
     
    “Yeah, yeah. Give me all the shit you want, but help me out.”
     
    “I was gonna get wet today, but okay.” It was an unseasonably warm winter in Rhode Island, and most of the Pagano siblings had spent time surfing the winter waves. “Where are you?”
     
    “Cove Court Apartments. I’m in the lot. Dude, I’m on a stopwatch here. Flight leaves in two and a half hours.”
     
    “Fuck. I’m on it.”
     
    John put his phone away. Something pulled his attention, and he turned and looked up, where he figured Katrynn’s windows were. He saw a curtain move, as if someone had been watching and had backed away as he’d turned.
     
    He hoped it had been one of her cats.
     
    But probably not.
     
    Fuck.

~ 1 ~
     
     
    John headed down the concourse toward the baggage claim. As he was texting Luca to see if he’d arrived yet to pick him up, another text came through. He smiled and opened the photo.
     
    Giada, in a car, making a cute little duckface, with the message, Già mi manchi! XOXO!
     
    John didn’t know as much Italian as he probably should have. Prior to this trip, it had been a long, long time since he’d been in Italy, not since his mother had died twenty years before, and he’d lost most of the useful bits of the language. He could cuss a good game, and drop some good insults, but otherwise, he could barely get by in the big cities, where most residents knew more English than he knew Italian. For his first weeks of this visit with his Italian family, he had relied heavily on their passable command of English.
     
    But then he’d met Giada, and his four-week vacation had become six-plus weeks. She’d helped him out with the language.
     
    And some other stuff, too.
     
    She was gorgeous and funny and enthusiastic about everything, and she played guitar, as he did. She played professionally, though, which he did not, and she’d brought him up on stage with her band a couple of times.
     
    They’d gone skiing together several times, and they’d spent a few days in Milan. And they’d fucked like rabbits for weeks. It hadn’t been serious—how could it have been serious?—but it had sure been fun.
     
    All in all, he felt much better than he had when he’d crawled onto a plane on New Year’s Day, carrying on the worst hangover of his life and a whole cargo of self-hatred and self-pity.
     
    He texted back, Anche tu mi manchi. xo.
     
    I miss you, too. He was nearly one-hundred-percent sure he’d said that right.
     
    And it was true. He liked her a lot. He especially liked her casual, ‘let’s just have a fling’ attitude. He was no longer interested in ‘flinging’ in his real life, but on a vacation, while he was rebounding from a variety of disappointments, a fling had been perfect, and the permission to just have fun without wondering where anything was headed had been cathartic.
     
    Luca was leaning against a post near the baggage claim, and he pushed off and came forward as John approached. John let his guitar and backpack drop off his shoulders, and the brothers hugged hard.
     
    “You look good, man. A shit ton better than when I dropped you off.”
     
    “Thanks. It was a good trip.”
     
    Luca gave him a brotherly punch to the gut. “Got fat.”
     
    No, he hadn’t, but he’d put on a few pounds. It was impossible to spend more than a couple of days in Italy and not gain weight. Most of it he’d skied and walked and fucked off, however. A few days back in his regular routine would take care of the rest.
     
    “Fuck you,” he laughed in reply. “You got bald.”
     
    Luca, past forty, had the same ripped fighter’s physique he’d had since high school. But his hairline had started backing off a bit near his temples.
     
    Luca flipped him off; then, as the carousel started to move and roll out the baggage from John’s flight, he asked,