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And, sure, I had gotten the stamp of approval from Antony and Matteo, from Lucky and Dario and Michael. But they were a small percentage of the people I would now need to impress seeing as Luca and I were official.
It had been a long couple of days of stress after he came home, constantly worrying I was going to bump one of his injuries, or would screw up redressing them, even though I had made the nurses show me three times just to be sure I knew what I was doing.
We had drop-ins only for a short couple of minutes, his father and him talking in hushed tones on the balcony, Lucky dropping off supplies, Matteo bringing over leftovers from the latest wedding or anniversary party at his party venue.
Mostly, though, they gave us privacy, they gave Luca space to recover, to lay about without feeling guilty. As it was, I was struggling to keep him out of a suit on the daily, I didn't need constant drop-ins that would make him want to be put together.
But it had been almost four full weeks.
Stitches were out for both of us.
And while Luca was still favoring his side where most of the bullets had struck, he was nearly back to normal.
Which meant we had no good excuse when his aunt had called to insist on a big family dinner to celebrate his recovery.
And to size me up.
She didn't say that, but it was one of those things everyone just knew.
Lucky had even sent me a text telling me that his mom would be impressed if I brought a dish.
So I dragged myself out of bed at four a.m. to slave away at a meal, trying to make sure I got it perfect, wanting everyone to like it.
It wasn't going to match their typical Italian cuisine, but it was my contribution. A little bit of me mixed in with all of them. I thought it was poetic in a way. Even if I was worried about how well the food was traveling in the cooler in the trunk.
"Are you sure I'm not overdressed?" I asked, looking down at my red with white polka dot slacks, my kitten heels, my white silk tank top.
"Romy," he said, waving a hand at his body, covered in a suit like always.
As much as I had loved seeing him relaxed and resting in sweats and t-shirts, with his face all scruffy, I had to admit it was nice to see him in a suit and even clean-shaven again.
"Hold on. A couple more breaths," I demanded, taking in a deep one.
"Everything is going to be fine. You've already met a few of these people," he reminded me.
"A few, yes. There's an entire football stadium in that house from the looks of this parking situation."
Lucky's mother's house was a white wash brick two-story structure with immaculately tended, sprawling gardens out front, happy white daisies brushing shoulders with black-eyed-Susans, giving way to giant white hydrangea bushes. There wasn't a single weed to be found. The long, winding driveway was scattered with no less than ten cars, and then there were the ones lined up on the street as well.
From where we were parked, I could see into the backyard, men toiling around on the wooden deck, children bobbing up and down in the built-in swimming pool.
"Okay. Let's do it. Before I lose my nerve," I told him, throwing open my door, walking around to the trunk to grab my dish.
"You're beautiful. The food you made is perfect. And they are going to love you," he assured me, pressing a kiss to the top of my hair as his hand found my lower back, guiding me up the front path.
There was no dramatic scene where the door was thrown open, and a woman wrapped me into a bear hug, gushing about how glad she was that Luca was bringing a nice girl over.
In fact, there was no greeting committee at all, letting us enter the house on our own accord.
Once inside, though, heads started turning, conversations faltered, and eventually, people started coming up, greeting us.
Within ten minutes, I learned—and forgot—more names than I had in the entire past year.
I was going to need Luca to make me a chart with pictures and names and little personality cues.
Adrian's house was one lovingly decorated over the decades. And her favorite decor was images of her children.There seemed to be childhood and adolescent pictures of her many children in every corner. There were walls of collages, mismatching frames across the mantle in the living room, single frames on the end tables, on the key table, a collage of high school senior pictures of each of them.
"Hey look who made it," Lucky called, walking into the room, arms wide, a beer in his hand. The whole thing came off almost like the man of the house. And, I guessed, since his father had been killed, that was exactly what Lucky was. The oldest son. They always, in their own ways, became the men of the houses, helping their mothers in any way they could, trying to ease the burden left on her. "You look like you need a drink," he added, coming close, giving me a smile.
