Page 85 of Falling for Mr. October

I smile at Giovanni. “She might have a point.”

“Why, Mrs. October,” he says with an answering smile as the fire alarm finally blips to life in the hallway outside the room. “I might start thinking you like seeing me without a shirt on.”

“It’s a logical assumption.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BIANCA

SOCIAL MEDIA THREADS ABOUT MARSHMALLOW-GATE

Hot4CHEF: I want one of those shirts.

HELEN-THE OG SHIRTIE: I’m selling them on eBay, sweetheart.

MissIndependent: I think Bianca should get fired. She could have BBQed all those old people in their beds.

TheFutureMrsCafiero: Agreed. I’m sending a note to your boss. You should be ashamed of yourself, Bianca!

HOTforGiovanni: Do you think this was staged?

Imhisshirt: It totally looks staged, and now someone’s selling T-shirts.

HOTforGiovanni: I bought one, but I don’t like being lied to.

YesChef67: Okay, y’all, don’t come for me, but I have a conspiracy theory.

YesChef67: I don’t think Giovanni’s the OG Shirtless chef.

YesChef67: If he is, where are the videos? What’s he doing out there in the middle of nowhere?

YesChef67: I think he’s, like, some body double. THOUGHTS?

Notinmykitchen: Is anyone else so totally invested in this story?

Notinmykitchen: You know, I heard Bianca’s brother was in this major car accident a while back.

Notinmykitchen: He was the only survivor.

Notinmykitchen: Suspicious?!

I flex my fingers, warring with the need to respond to all of the conspiracy theories about Marshmallow-gate and the knowledge that responding will automatically make everything worse.

It’s early evening, and I’m sitting in the kitchen while Giovanni cooks for us.

My entire family has heard about the kerfuffle, naturally. The fire department is required by law to show up in response to every fire alarm at The Rotten Apple, and the on-duty fireman is married to the biggest gossip in town. He blabbed, she blabbed, and now everyone in town knows that I accidentally caused a fire—and that Giovanni put it out with his shirt.

I’d like to think people are also talking about our homemade graham crackers and marshmallows, which we handed out after the fireman showed up, because they were out-of-this-world delicious. But let’s be honest: no one cared about the goodies when the story about the fire was so much sweeter.

Isabella sent me a text message with about thirty question marks, which I answered with a thumbs-up. (She called me five seconds later.)

Emily straight up called me four times until I answered and told her everything. (Almost everything. Giovanni was in the room, so I couldn’t tell her about this morning, though I did admit “something” happened.)

Theo, bless him, offered to give the nonnas dinner at his house, because he suspected—correctly—that I wasn’t ready to face an inquisition after my attempted BBQing of my place of employment. A few minutes ago, he texted to say they were staying late to watch a few episodes of The Golden Girls, which prompted a further swell of gratitude. As much as I love Nonna Rose, I don’t have the energy to face her right now.

Rhett called me half an hour ago to discuss the incident, and he seemed practically gleeful. As the owner of The Rotten Apple, you’d think his concern would be for the building and the residents, but he only cares about his bottom line. And the fact is, people are even more interested in Giovanni today than they were yesterday.

A couple of the residents did film the whole incident, and they tagged Giovanni’s social media account when they posted their extremely shaky cam footage. Since Giovanni hasn’t posted anything following his video about our fake relationship, the videos immediately went viral, and everything has spun out from there.