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Oh, so hewashere on a date. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re bringing a date to my restaurant?”
“Not quite. Why, do you care?”
What the hell did he mean by ‘not quite’? “No, why would I?”
“I have no idea.” He did that thing he always did, just looked at me, a soft light of amusement dancing in his gorgeous blue eyes, like he saw straight through me.
I did care, a lot more than I should. Before I could say anything else, my dad stepped out from the back office with a thick folder under his arm. To my surprise, he came over to us, moving around me awkwardly to sit down opposite Gabe. My dad was his date? So that’s what he meant bynot quite.Smartass. “Anyway, here’s the wine list and some water.”
My dad’s eyes widened at my tone and I almost blushed. When he spoke to me in Italian, asking why I was being so rude to our guest, I felt two feet tall. Being chided by your father for behaving like a three-year-old when in fact you were a fully-grown adult didn’t feel good. Especially because I knew he was right. I cleared my throat. “Please let me know when you are ready to order. Personally, I recommend the pinot grigio with the frutti di mare. We also have an amazing cabernet that pairs well with the lasagna.”
“Thank you so much. I’ll go with your recommendation and have the seafood with the white wine.” He was being excruciatingly polite, mirroring my tone. It was clear that he could tell I’d just been chastised by my dad and thought it was hilarious. Asshole.
“I’ll take care of the wine,tesorrucia.”
“Grazie, Papa.”
I went back to the kitchen, put my hat and apron back on, and washed my hands. I needed to find a task that kept my back to the serving window, otherwise I’d be constantly looking over at Gabe and nothing would get done. I set about making his seafood dish, trying not to feel the rush of pleasure it gave me to cook for him. It was a sign of my state of my mind that I didn’t even consider adding too much salt, or lemon sauce. I was much more interested in showing off to him. I was also in no way interested in exploring why I felt like that, thank you very much.
I brought the plate to the table, as well as a basket of mozzarella sticks, taking a moment to say a little prayer of thanks that we weren’t one of those hyper formal restaurants that placed the napkins on the guests’ laps for them. I really couldn’t have handled that.
“Ah,si,yes, I understand. I think Giulia would like it, too. If we can manage to grow some more fruit trees there, she would be in bliss.” My dad cleared some papers from the table so I could put the food down.
“What are you talking about?” Up till now I’d tried to hide my curiosity about exactly why Gabe was here under an air of feigned nonchalance, but I really, really wanted to know.
“We’re hiring Gabe to do some work at the farm. Your mother wants to expand the area behind the house and make the most of the sunlight.”
What?!“Can I see?” Gabe handed me his rough sketch and I laid it flat on the table, biting my lip as I looked it over. “Hmm… If you moved the chicken coop further out, over here,” I pointed to where I meant, “you could plant more trees and still give the chickens access to the area.”
My dad stroked his chin for a moment, looking at the plans, then up at Gabe, a question in his eyes.
“Yeah, that could work really well,” Gabe answered.
“I have an idea.”
“What?” There was something in my dad’s tone that warned me.
“Ally can take you out to the farm to look around. I’d love to do it, but I can’t get away from the restaurant for that long while Giulia is off work with this cold.”
That made me frown. I mean, Dad did work really hard in the restaurant, but it wasn’t like he never took time off. Was he trying to set me up?
“Great idea.” Gabe’s confirmation sealed the deal.
“Do you have plans tomorrow,tesorrucia?” Dad asked.
I should have said yes, that I was taking my very next day off to do anything other than hang out with Gabe Walker, but my lips spoke before my brain had kicked into gear. “No, I’m free.”
“And you?”
“Tomorrow works for me.”
“Perfect. That’s settled.” Dad leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. What was he up to? I wasn’t sticking around to find out, so I left them to get back to their meeting.
When it was time for Gabe to leave, Dad had already slipped back into the office, which meant I had to see him out. “The dinner was amazing, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I kept my voice neutral, trying to hide the happy little buzz his words gave me. Leading the way to the register, I realized that I wasn’t sure what arrangement my dad had made for dinner tonight. But he was getting his wallet out, so I rang up the bill and as I did so, was hit with a flash of inspiration.
He took the bill from me and gave it a perfunctory check, then a slight frown furrowed his brow. “PITA tax? Five percent?”
