Page 100 of Back for Seconds

“Louis likes Mimi,” I said softly.

Joey grinned, his fingers pulsing where he held me around my waist. “What a fucking pairing.”

“Like focaccia and muhammara.”

“Crabless crab cakes and mojo sauce,” he said. “Baccalá and rum.”

“I really think I’m falling in love with you,” I said suddenly.

Joey blinked his eyes open slowly, his mouth pulled into a serious little line. “I really think I am too, Jaybuggy.”

Inside the tent, applause erupted—someone hooted and hollered. I felt myself melting into his chest, wrapped up tight in the warmth of Joey’s arms and the bittersweetness of the night. That it was so perfect and that it would have to end.

I laid my head onto his shoulder. “I don’t want this to end. You’ll have to kiss me at midnight.”

A soft chuckle rumbled through him. “Why’s that?”

“Whatever I do at midnight is what I end up doing all year. One New Year’s Eve, I got super drunk and puked. I spent the entire rest of the year puking. I got food poisoning, Norovirus, a stomach bug. It was horrible.”

“So, kissing me is like puking?”

“No.” I laughed. “It means I’ll kiss you all year.”

Joey pulled away slightly, so he could look me right in the eye. “You want that?”

I bit into my lip before giving in. I smiled wide and bright. “I do.”

Part Four

ammazzacaffè

In Italian this means “coffee killer.” The ammazzacaffè—or digestivo—is a small glass of liqueur such as grappa or limoncello typically served after dessert and coffee to dull the effects of caffeine and cleanse the palate of any residual bitterness.

Goes great with a cigarette.

Epilogue Joey

December 30

One year later

The Alfiero family did not travel well.

Sal was deeply hungover, cycling through shades of green at a wild rate. June was in back-to-back calls with her team, which she insisted on taking from her phone the entire way through TSA. AnneMarie was over an hour late for an inscrutable reason—something to do with her hair extensions.

And somehow Vin was trapped in Curaçao.

“Curaçao?”

He’d FaceTimed me with the news, since his nuclear family was obviously extremely tied up. At nearly forty, Vin’s face had the waxy patina of a newborn baby and head of hair that had made my heart skip a beat. He had the same dark eyes as June and had paid for a set of bee-stung lips that looked almost identical to hers. He really was a beautiful man.

I could tell from the sliver of visible background that he was on the elliptical at the hotel gym. “Do not worry! I’ll be back in San Juan by tonight. Your rooms are booked and ready. Please tell my mom not to panic.”

I looked over at my future mother-in-law, seated at the airport lounge bar, enjoying a cobb salad and her third glass of Chardonnay. “I’ll pass the message along.”

“Can you please tell June to text me back?”

“Sure thing. She’s been tied up with work all morning.” I spied her typing furiously on her laptop, glasses slipping down her nose, the pink tip of her tongue pressed to her Cupid’s bow. She’d gone over to the cappuccino machine to have her eighteenth coffee of the day, but seemingly had gotten so caught up in some email that she was now using the entire coffee station as a makeshift desk.