1Kate sat next to Tony silently wondering whether or not she should try to strike up a conversation. They had been driving for nearly an hour and a half and neither one of them had said a single word to the other since leaving Virginia. She quietly noted that he looked absolutely amazing in his green turtleneck sweater. God he could make them look good. She silently came to the conclusion that if there was ever a need for a turtleneck sweater model in the world Tony would be set for life. Oh what was she doing. Why was thinking about him this way? This was Tony. The guy who she was sure would never grow up. Still he was Tony one of the hottest agents she had ever met. Plus he made her laugh. He made her feel alive. She loved that he wasn't always so serious. She looked over at him and realized that he was singing along to the radio. He was quiet but you could still hear him. She cleared her throat a little. She had to say something. The silence was killing her."So what was it like growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut?"
Tony was busy focusing on the song and made the sign to just let him finish this one part and then he would answer he question. "Shot through the heart, and your to pay, darling you give love a bad name." He sort blushed at the realization that he had just sung along to a Bon Jovi song in front of Kate Todd. "Sorry about that. I have a thing for Bon Jovi. My sister says that if your from New England then your born a Bon Jovi fan. She says that we have more predominantly 80s stations than anywhere else." He stopped talking when he realized that he must be rambling. Why was he so nervous? This was just Kate. The same Kate he flirted with at work. The same Kate he threw paper clips at when she was trying to talk on the phone. Still there was something different now about how things felt. He realized that he was falling hard for Kate. Or if he wasn't falling then he had already hit rock bottom. "Sorry about the rambling. Well anyway Greenwich. You know I didn't really grow up here. My parents moved her a few years after I went to college. My mother has her masters in creative writing and her Ph.D. in history. Her and my father decided to move here after my father retired because she felt like it was a place rich in history. I mostly just go up for the usual family get together. It's beautiful though."
Kate was a little surprised that he had a sister. From the way Tony acted she would have thought that he was an only child. "You have a sister?"
"Yes I have a sister. She's five years older than me. She has two kids a seventeen year old boy named Robbie, who everyone says is the spitting image of me, and a sixteen year old girl named Mimi, who is definitely going to be a politician one day." Tony smiled when he thought of his niece and nephew. They were his favorite two people in the world. He would do anything for either one of them. Anything at all.
Kate silently did the math in her head. "I totally won the bet with Abby."
"What bet?" Tony asked already knowing that he probably didn't want to know the answer.
"Well on the day of your last birthday you refused to tell anyone how old you were. So Abby and I made this bet. She said that you were twenty eight, but I went thirty. I know I'm right so don't even go trying to deny it." Kate smiled at him triumphantly. Then she smiled even brighter realizing that he didn't look as old as he was.
Tony looked at her shocked. "Oh come on Kate you can't tell people how old I am..."
"Why not?" Kate asked with a sinister smile. This is what she was used to. She liked torturing him and making him squirm.
"Because it is embarrassing being thirty years old and not married. Believe me I got enough of it from my mother and sister. I'll tell you what I'll tell you a little secret if you don't tell anyone."
"How do I know if this is going to be a good secret or not?" Kate asked even though she already knew it would be. Tony always had good secrets. Like the time he told her about the night janitor that blares Aretha Franklin's song Respect while he cleans the bathroom.
Tony licked his lips. "Fine I'll tell you why my parents cut me off."
"Seriously?"
Tony nodded as he spoke. "Seriously."
"Fine I won't tell but this better be one good story." Kate motioned for him to get on with it.
Tony licked his lips. "The week after my twenty first birthday has always been sort of a blur for me. Well one night I went to the bar with a bunch of my buddies and I got drunk...actually I got super drunk...well anyway this blonde came up to me and was hitting on me. Little did I know that said blonde knew me. So one thing lead to another and we went back to her place. I leave in the middle of the night as if nothing had ever transpired between us. Fast forward three months I go home for Christmas only to find out that I had slept with my cousin's fiancé. From the moment I walk in the place I think I recognize her. So right before we are about to sit down at the table I walk up to her and say "Don't I know you from somewhere. I think we may have slept together once." Well my cousin overhears us and basically threatens to kill me. My mother still says it was the worst Christmas...ever. That means it beats the one where my Aunt went into labor just as my uncle was cutting the turkey. The whole thing ended up causing this huge family feud pitting my father against his sister Rosa, said cousin's mother. In the end my father came to the conclusion that the only way to calm things down was to cut me off so he told me that if I was going to be irresponsible then I didn't deserve my trust fund. So until I settle down and in my father's words act as if I've lived life I won't get a single red cent."
Kate looked at him in shock. "You seriously slept with your cousin's fiancé?"
"Well I didn't know it at the time. Still what was really weird is that she knew me. She knew that I was Michael's cousin." Tony shook his head in disgust. "She was a beautiful girl but I don't think she was all there if you ask me."
Kate couldn't help but laugh. "So did they still get married?"
"Michael and Vanessa?"
"No Sonny and Cher. Yes Michael and Vanessa."
Tony shrugged and shook his head. "No, and if you thought that was crazy then get ready for this story. So in the end Michael forgives me and I end up being his best man in his wedding. Well anyway it's the rehearsal dinner and we are sitting there just enjoying ourselves, reminiscing and such. Well for like eight months now my Uncle Giovanni says every time he sees her that he knows her from somewhere. Well nobody believes him because Giovanni is a bit out of it. He's on enough pills to fund his own personal pharmacy. Well anyway at the rehearsal dinner he stands up randomly and we all think he is going to give a toast or something. Instead he blurts out in front of say two hundred people "I feel no where I recognize you from. You used to work at The Temptress." Well The Temptress is a well known strip club down on the Jersey shore and it is also a place that my uncle used to visit quite often. So my Aunt Rosa, stands up and says "Is this true Michael are you marrying some ex-stripper. Oh I thought it was bad enough when she slept with Tony, but now I found out she's a stripper also. If you marry this girl then I'll cut you off." So Michael broke the whole thing off. He got married a couple of years later to a lawyer named Janice and they have a son."
"You have got to be making that up. I mean come on that is like the craziest thing I've ever heard." Kate replied. "That sounds like something straight from a bad soap opera wedding."
"I wish I was. Whenever the incident comes up which is does at the most random moments mostly when someone is really drunk, it's referred to as Michael's mistake and you don't say it you whisper it. If you were to actually say it in a regular voice I think it would actually cause the world to stop spinning." Tony said in a joking voice. Though he was completely serious about the whisper thing. His mother was the type of woman who still whispered words like cancer and gay.
Kate looked out the window and then looked back at him. "Your family sounds interesting to say the least."
"What your family doesn't have embarrassing stories like that?"
Kate scoffed. "Nothing that compares to that. It was basically my parents, my sister, and I growing up. That's it. No big family get togethers. Perfect cookie cutter American lives. Very suburban and middle class."
"You know I think my favorite thing about growing up rich is the shit that happens. Really growing up was sort of like a bad soap opera when you think about it. Three years ago my cousin came out at Easter. He copied that scene from Steel Magnolias and told his parents that he was dying of a brain tumor. My Aunt Rosa started to sob and said "Are you sure?". Johnny laughs and shakes his head. "Actually no I'm not dying I'm just gay." To this my Aunt asked God very loudly in Italian "Why he was cursing her with such dysfunctional children." Weird stuff is always going on with my family. I think it's because there are so many members. My father had two sisters Rosa and Antonia. Both of them got married and had three kids. All together I have six cousins on my father's side alone. That's the side that gets together for holidays. If I were you I would get ready for mayhem because something crazy is going to happen tonight. Something crazy always happens around Christmas. It wouldn't be Christmas if there wasn't at least a drunken brawl."
Kate looked out the window and gasped when she saw the sign that said fifteen miles to Greenwich. She didn't realize how quickly time had gone by. "We're pretty close aren't we?"
"Actually we're closer than you think because I know a short cut that'll get us there in about ten minutes or so. Don't be nervous Katie."
"Who said I was nervous?" she asked as if it was the most preposterous thing she had ever heard. "Nobody said it. It's more like your voice revealed it."
"You never told me anything about your sister or your parents. How will I know which ones they are?" she didn't bother trying to fight with him. She knew he was right. They both knew it.
Tony took a deep breath and sort of sat there quietly trying to think of something that will set his parents apart. "My mother will be a chubby Italian woman, who will remind you of the woman on the Marie Callander box. She'll come up to us replying my bambino, my bambino, it's been forever over and over again. She'll also be the woman who loses complete interest in me as soon as she sees you. My father will be a tall dark haired man who looks a lot like me except with classes who will more than likely be reading the Economist when we come in. He'll also probably be the only sober old man in the room. My sister Angela, well she has glasses and she also has really long dark wavy hair, plus she'll probably look as if she is in dire need of aspirin. She'll come up to us complaining about something or other and then she two will lose interest in me and will more than likely hug you and say it's great that we are finally get to meet one another. Oh and she may have a chubby blonde girl right on her six that's my cousin Sylvia. She'll ask you a million questions the smartest thing to do is to answer her questions with a question."
"So many directions for a simple family introduction." Kate said quietly. She looked like she was in too deep. Like she was getting sucked under by quick sand.
Tony placed his hand over and gently squeezed it. "Don't worry you'll do fine."
Kate closed her eyes and kept processing the information he had given her. When she opened them again they were sitting in the driveway of what she assumed was his parent's house. "Wow..." was all she could say.
Tony laughed. "Wait till you see the inside..."
Sorry it took so long to update. It takes me a while to find the direction I want to go in. I hope you like this. Please review. Your reviews make me feel awful which in turn forces me to work on stories until I like them enough to post the update. Thank you for reading. Oh and in the next chapter you'll see just how crazy the DiNozzos are.
