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“What advice?” she asked, giving me a skeptical look.
“I said we were just fuck buddies and to mind her own business.”
Her eyes widened with a mix of shock and horror. “You didn’t!”
“No, of course I didn’t. I said I was your slave to command, and she’d have to ask you.”
That made her giggle. “Ooh, good answer. If she does ask me, I’ll say I keep you tied to my bed so I can have my wicked way with you every night.”
Before I could reply, Jesse walked up, clearly struggling to catch his breath.
“Where’s your inhaler, buddy?”
He shook his head. “Fell…out…can’t…find it.”
Ally slammed the oil bottle down. “Come with me.” I wasn’t about to second guess her. I picked Jesse up, his wheezing freaking me right out, and we hurried inside into the empty kitchen, where Ally had hung up her purse. “I’ve got a spare.”
I sat Jesse on the kitchen counter, watching closely while he sucked on the inhaler until the scared look faded from his eyes and he could breathe properly again. Unclenching my teeth, I forced myself to breathe deeply too. “Thanks for that.”
“No problem,” Ally replied, rubbing Jesse’s back. “How you feeling now? Okay?”
“Yeah, better.”
“Great. Well, it’s lunch time if you want some pizza. After, we’ll round the kids up and see if they find your inhaler. If not, just keep that one and I’ll get another.”
“You just happen to have a spare in your bag?” I asked when Jesse had gone out to sit with Ben and Ollie.
“It seemed like a good idea,” she said with a shrug. “When Jesse got diagnosed. I thought about it when I was watching him practice baseball. Imagined him having an attack without his puffer there. It would be awful. It freaked me out enough that I got one.”
I followed her back out, trying to process the fact that my fuck buddy, my friend with benefits, my not-girlfriend, my…whatever it was Ally insisted shewasn’tto me…had a spare inhaler in her purse for my kid.
“Take a seat, I’ll just help Dad get the pizzas started, then I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” I sat with Zara and Matt, watching Ally as she worked, cracking jokes and teasing her cousins. She was so vibrant and fun, the absolute life of the party. I noticed how everyone revolved around her. How the kids kept asking her to throw the pizza dough into the air, how she’d pretend to drop it then catch it at the last minute, making them all laugh, while their parents watched indulgently.
“She loves this, doesn’t she?” Matt observed.
“Oh yeah, feeding people is Ally’s love language,” Zara agreed. “Once she starts feeding you, that’s how you know you’re in.”
“Really? I thought it was just an extension of what she does for work.”
Zara looked at me closely for a moment. “Oh, hell no. She never cooks outside of work, except for people she really cares about.”
Well, how about that.
I watched her while she finished prepping the pizzas. She glowed, positively glowed. There was no other word for it. It made me think of what she’d told me about that asshole. The horrible things he’d said to her. How utterly wrong he was. Howdarehe dim her light? It made me wish she could see herself how everyone else saw her. How I saw her. It made me wish I could tell her how much I loved everything about her, from her wild curls to her bright eyes, to her humor, grace and sweetness—
And there it was. I was in love with Allegra D’Angelo. It was inevitable, really. From the moment I’d first seen her, in the glistening autumn sunshine at Zara’s. I’d been struck then, instantly. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her. Like I couldn’t now. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Holding her. Loving her.
Was I freaked out? Yeah, I was, a bit. Because although she was sweet and loving, she was also fierce and stubborn. And she’d been burned, badly. She still carried around the hurt from ten years ago like a lead weight and I didn’t know how to overcome that. But I was going to. I just had to figure out how.
“Ahh, Gabriele, will you help me with something in the kitchen?”
“Of course.”
Ally narrowed her eyes at her mom as I stood up, but she didn’t say anything. There were plenty of people around to give Giulia a hand, so I wasn’t sure why she wanted me specifically. I expected her to ask me to lift something heavy, but to my surprise, she moved to the kitchen counter. There were four wine bottles and a tray of glasses. “Tell me what you think of this.”
I was no wine expert. “Oh… Okay.”
