Unfortunately, all of this still did not provide me with a useful plan.
Because the truth was that I wanted the decision to be fully hers, but I also could not picture a life without her in it and call it one I was willing to live.
I groaned as I massaged my scarred thigh, which had decided to join the general protest against my existence.
By the time I dragged myself back into the living room feeling marginally more human, if no less miserable, and no more willing or able to disguise the limp, I found Olivero unpacking Italian takeout onto the kitchen counter.
He glanced up. “Oh, good. You’re here. I was worried you were going to cry all night in your bath.”
I gave him the finger. “I was not crying, asshole.”
“Mm.” He slid one of the containers toward me. “On a scale of one to ten, how badly did it go?”
I dropped onto a stool and opened the lid to find pasta alla puttanesca. My favorite. I hated that he knew I would need it.
“Minus five,” I said.
“Ah.” He nodded as if this were a respectable data point. “So she didn’t call the police or attempt murder. That’s good. It leaves us hope.”
I just started eating.
Olivero waited a full ten seconds before proving, once again, that silence was impossible for him to maintain.
“What did she say?”
I took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and then answered because I had forgotten how to suffer in private.
“She’s not sure she can trust me anymore.”
The humor slipped off of his face at once. “Ah,” he said more quietly. “That does suck. I’m sorry.”
Then, because he was still Olivero and allergic to remaining serious for too long, he added, “But did you at least tell her you were an idiot?”
I looked up and glared at him. “I think that was implied in my pathetic attempt to apologize.”
“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “Then what you need now is not another apology.”
“Oh yes?”
“Yes. You need to show her she can actually be happy spending her life with a man who has emotional limitations and a documented tendency toward idiocy.”
I stared at him. “That is a truly inspiring pitch.”
“You’re welcome.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “And how exactly do you suggest I do that?”
Olivero shrugged as if the answer were obvious.
“Have her spend time with the two women who married the two biggest idiots in our combined families and still somehow look suspiciously happy.”
I frowned. “What?”
He looked at me like I was exceptionally slow.
“Lily and Violet.”
“You want me to bring my mother and my aunt here so they can explain to the woman I love why loving men like us is survivable?”
