“This is wild. I mean, I knew you were bisexual. But as far as I know, you’ve never dated a man before, right? Actually, you’vebarely dated at all, my whole life, so the fact that you’ve been seeing someone for two months is a big deal.”
“It’s been great, but we both agreed to keep it light when we started.” Okay, so it had become a lot more intense than either of us had probably bargained for, but I didn’t want to try to explain that to my son—not when I hadn’t even sorted it out for myself.
“Did he tell you he’s not interested in a relationship? Because that can be a red flag. A lot of men are only interested in sex, so?—”
“It’s not that. I’m busy with the diner, and he’s new to the US and not sure where he’ll end up long-term, so we’re just taking it day by day.”
“What does he do for work?”
“He’s between jobs right now.”
My son frowned and said, “He sounds sketchy. Please tell me you haven’t given him any money.”
“He’s got plenty of money. He doesn’t even let me pay for anything when we go out.”
Kit was still frowning. “Did you meet him online? There are a lot of con men on the internet, and this could be how he’s setting you up, by pretending he has money and?—”
“No, I met him at the hotel where you got married, and you’ve got this all wrong. Even if he was a con man, which he’s not, those people prey on wealthy widows or divorcees, not broke diner owners.”
“What’s this guy’s full name?”
“Salvatore di Pietro.”
“Is di Pietro one word or two?”
“I assume it’s two.”
Kit sounded frustrated. “You assume?”
“I never asked him to spell it for me.”
Kit sighed before turning to his left and saying, “Try googling it as two words, Vee. If that doesn’t work, try one.” I hadn’t realized his housemate was still in the room.
I asked, “Why are you googling him?”
“Because that’s what you do in this day and age, Dad.”
“Okay, but there’s nothing to worry about. I trust him.”
“Yeah, but you trust everyone.” Vee said something I didn’t catch, and Kit told me, “We just tried searching him with a bunch of different spellings of his name, and he didn’t come up. That’s suspicious right there.”
“It’s really not.”
“Is he on Instagram?”
“How would I know? I don’t use social media,” I said.
The frown line between my son’s brows was so deep that it looked like it might become permanent. “What exactly do you know about this guy?”
“I know he’s kind, and incredibly generous. He’s taken me on the most amazing dates. One weekend, we went to one of those stunt driving schools. Another time, he took me rock climbing. That was a bust because it’s way harder than it looks, but it was fun to try. Two weeks ago, we took a sailing lesson. And last weekend, we stayed at an incredible resort on Catalina Island and went horseback riding. He treats me like a prince.”
“That all sounds fun, but?—”
“He’s good for me in so many ways, Kit. You know how you’re always telling me I work too much? With Tory’s encouragement, I hired Javier’s cousin Cami part time as a second assistant manager. I also hired a bookkeeper, which is going to save me a ton of time. Now I can take every weekend off.”
“So you and this guy can be together?”
“So I can have a life for a change.”
