Page 80 of Falling for Mr. October

“I’m less excited, but I’m listening.”

She grins at me, so carried away by her plan it’s hard not to get carried along with it too.

“The folks at The Rotten Apple don’t get much excitement. No one tries to make them feel like they’re part of the town, but what if we appoint them our official taste-testers?”

“You’re this eager to go to work on your day off?”

“It’s not just a job to me,” she says softly, seriously, and I feel a pang of loss.

Because I had a gig like that once, a job I loved, but I don’t know how to reclaim The Shirtless Chef. I’m probably stepping on my own toes, like my brother said, but I don’t know how to stop.

“So what you’re saying is that hanging out at the nursing home is also your hobby,” I tease.

“Probably my only hobby.”

“You need to get out more, fake girlfriend.”

“You don’t get why my work is important to me, do you?” She picks up her cappuccino, which has to be fucking cold again, takes an exploratory sip, and scrunches her nose.

“No, I can’t say I do,” I say as she lowers the mug. “It seems like an exercise in misery. You were raised by your grandparents, more or less, same as my brothers and sister. I hated watching my grandparents get old.”

Both of us were kids left for another generation to raise.

I know she must have suffered the way I did, watching the people you look up to age and lose themselves little by little. Each year seemed to shave new bits of my grandparents away.

Why would anyone want to be hit over the head with that reality every single day?

“That’s why I wanted to work with older people,” she says, catching me off guard. “And people who are dying. When someone gets old, the people who are closest to them hang back sometimes. They don’t engage as much, because they don’t like knowing what’s around the corner. But everyone deserves to be cared for at every stage of their lives—not for who they were, but for who they are now.”

A shiver runs down my spine. If I were a more superstitious man, I’d think this woman set some kind of spell on me.

God, she’s too good for this broken world, too good for me, and definitely too good for Mr. Fucking Mayor.

“You’ve seen a lot of people die.”

It’s a statement, not a question. I know it’s true.

She nods, her gaze holding mine, and I feel a glimmer of understanding pass between us.

“Who did you see die?” she asks after a moment.

I don’t answer right away, but my fingers lift to the pendant around my neck.

It turns out I don’t need to say anything, because she gasps. “Your grandfather.”

“I was there when he had his heart attack, yes.” I hesitate, then tell her something else I haven’t shared with anyone but Nico. “With his last breaths, he asked me to take care of my grandmother, Bianca. He wanted me to be there until the end. He said he trusted me to take care of her, and oh God, I’ve really been trying. I was going to move away from my hometown—that was always the plan—but I couldn’t break my word to him.”

“Oh, Giovanni,” she says, her eyes brimming with understanding.

God, she’s beautiful.

“That must have been awful for you.”

“It’s not in my top ten list of memories, no, but…” I swallow a surge of grief. “I was…I was so desperate to save him, but I couldn’t do anything. He slipped away in front of my eyes. I was completely powerless..”

My eyes are dry but hot, my chest tight with the memory.

She leans in, wrapping her arms around me and holding me close. “It was his time,” she murmurs softly, her words and embrace a soft balm. “We all have our time. It was a gift for him to have someone he loved with him at the end. You were a gift to him.”