Miracle (The Pagano Family Book 6) by Susan Fanetti Page A

brothers, his father, and Carmen, and even her daughter, Teresa, were staring at him like he deserved a time-out.
     
    His mood was too good to care. So he turned his attention to the Mass.
     
    Joey decided he’d give up self-loathing for Lent.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
     
    It was 1 COR 15, btw.
     
    KNEW IT. When can I collect my pizza and my kiss. Tonight?
     
    Joey smiled, and a rush of heat warmed his cheeks. She really didn’t seem to care that he’d ruined their kiss. Maybe he hadn’t. I can’t do pizza 2 days in a row. Something else?
     
    Can you do kisses 2 days in a row?
     
    Joey was typing We’ll have to see when John snatched his phone from his hand. “What is with you today? You’ve been staring at this thing and laughing all day. And I swear you’re fucking blushing right now.”
     
    They were back home, and the women were putting together Sunday brunch. Joey had tucked himself into the nook next to the staircase, trying to find privacy without being absent from the family doings. He hadn’t noticed his brother coming up on him.
     
    Joey grabbed for his phone, but John yanked and turned, and they might as well have been twenty—no, thirty—years younger, playing one of their ‘games’ of keep-away.
     
    “John…don’t.”
     
    But John, his forty-year-old brother, was evading his attempts to get his phone back and was reading the texts on the screen. As Joey’s chest tightened, he gave up the fight and focused on keeping his breath. Better to let his brother read the texts than to need his tank.
     
    John turned back around. “This is a woman.”
     
    Joey stared and held out his hand.
     
    A shit-eating grin took over his brother’s entire smug face, and he handed Joey back his phone. “Tina who?”
     
    “F-fuck you. Go to…hell.”
     
    John rearranged his face into something less obnoxious. “No, Joe. I’m sorry. This is good. It’s good. You’ve been…you’re turning shit around, and that’s good.”
     
    “Glad to have…your… … …approval.” He didn’t know why he bothered to try for sarcasm. The bite was gone by the time the words were out. No pacing, no tone.
     
    But John got it. “Don’t be like that. I’m happy for you. Who is she?”
     
    Joey shook his head. “Mine for now. P-please…don’t…”
     
    “I won’t say anything.”
     
    Joey didn’t believe that for a minute. Secrets were hard to come by in their family. But he had to try. Especially when whatever was happening was so new.
     
    “Let me…have this…just for me. For now. …Please.”
     
    “Okay, Joe. Okay. I promise.”

~ 6 ~
     
     
    The room that had once been Tina’s father’s study had made a pretty nice, roomy bedroom for her mother. Three big windows and a door leading to a small porch looked out onto the back yard, which, though its flower beds had faltered in the years since her mother could tend them, was still a lovely thing, full of trees and, in the warm seasons, lush lawn. In the day, when the drapes over those windows were opened, lots of good light filled the space—not overwhelming or hot, just cheerful.
     
    They’d arranged a chair near one of the windows, a special one that allowed Genie to sit and see the yard, and they’d posted several bird baths and feeders within her view. She spent many sunny days there. On days like this, when spring hadn’t flowered yet but winter was losing steam, the sun felt even more luxurious. Like a gift.
     
    Inside, there was plenty of room for all her machines and special equipment. Matt and their father had converted the space so that all that equipment didn’t dominate what people saw, and Matt had built a pretty cabinet with louvered doors to hold the tubes and syringes, adult diapers, mess pads, cans of liquid food, powders, creams, and everything else their mother required to get through each day.
     
    The nearby half bath had been converted to serve her needs as well, so that preparing her food and washing the