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“Whether you learned it by interest or force, I am duly impressed,” I told him. “The only thing I know about wine is the cheap stuff that tastes more like rubbing alcohol than grapes gives me a headache. Oh, my God. This menu,” I said as I started to look over it. “I don’t know what I want. It all sounds amazing.”
“We can visit anytime,” he told me. “Pick what’s calling to you the most with the knowledge that everything else can be tried in time.”
“Ravioli it is then,” I declared. “It’s one of my favorites,” I added.
“I will be sure to tell the aunts that,” he said with a warm smile.
“Yes, about that…” I started.
“Don’t waste your breath telling me that they don’t have to do it,” he cut me off. “Even if I did tell them that, they wouldn’t listen. You don’t fuck with the Grassi women and their food offerings.”
“I mean, they don’t have to do it. But I am so grateful. And I feel like an ungrateful idiot for not realizing that it was your family dropping them off.”
“They’re big on their meal trains,” he told me as the server came back with the wine. “Anytime someone is sick or had a baby or is just going through a bad time, meals just show up. My ma says it helps people to function through hard times when you take the mental burden of planning a menu and the physical burden of shopping and prepping food off their hands.”
“That is incredibly sweet. And it’s true. There’s no way I would feel like cooking for myself right now,” I told him. “My mom feeds me at work, but if it wasn’t for the kindness of your family, I would be surviving off of whatever is in my cupboards and freezer right now. Are they all good cooks? Your aunts?”
“Every one of them. And most of my cousins too. And siblings. Our ma is a firm believer in cooking being a life skill, so she forced us to learn it from her side, though she prefers to be the one doing the cooking. Do you ever cook? Or is that just more your mother’s thing?”
“I can feed myself,” I said. “But I’m not the cook my mom is. I’m better as a kitchen assistant. I am an excellent stirrer.”
That got another smile out of him. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I got lost once again in those eye crinkles. Who would have thought that eye crinkles would be so hot?
From there, we fell into a conversation about his family. Me, curious, full of questions, and him, amused, and full of answers.
I learned that his sister Valley—short for Valentina—was a teacher at a prestigious prep school and was hardly ever seen without heels on. And he had a cousin, Lucky, who ran a bunch of pizza places in town. I made a mental note to try that pizza once the meal train headed in someone else’s direction. There was also a cousin who ran an event venue business. And so on and so forth.
It seemed fair to say that everyone in Nino’s family was some sort of successful businessman. The women did mostly step away from careers once they married, once they took the role of mother, wife, aunt, sister, and cousin of a big family very seriously.
“Do you want one?” I asked as our main course plates were taken away. “A big family,” I clarified.
“Yes,” he said. No hesitation. I’d been so accustomed to men who said no or that they weren’t sure that I found his certainty about the matter really refreshing. “You?”
“I… I think, if I stay put, that I would like several kids, yeah. I love kids. And I would like for my kids to have a bunch of siblings.”
“Did you miss not having them growing up?”
“I mean… yes and no. On the one hand, I had my mother’s undivided attention. I got all of her love. She filled me up to overflowing. On the other, while I got to play with a ton of kids all the time, it would have been nice to have those connections. Sisters to share secrets with. Brothers to be annoying and overprotective. I don’t feel like I missed out, per se, but I just would want something different for a family I was making, I guess is what I’m saying.”
“I get that. I think everyone always wonders if the other way is the better way. I used to fight to no end with my brothers, then go to bed thinking how nice and quiet and stress-free it would be without having them around, always in my shit, never minding their business. But the older I get, the more I see how valuable all that was. Teaches you patience,” he said. “And that shit can’t always be about you. Good shit to take into adulthood. Dessert?” he asked, passing a menu toward me.
I was so stuffed that my pants were biting in, but I wanted another ten minutes, another hour, another week talking to this man.
So I ordered dessert.
And I picked at it and sipped at my coffee, listening to his deep, soothing voice, asking him as many questions as I could just to keep him talking.
But, eventually, everything, even the best date—that was probably not anactualdate—of my life had to come to an end.
Nino paid, waving off my offer to at the very least leave the tip, and dropping a fifty on the table for the server, before standing, and waiting for me to walk down the deck with him once again.
There was this aching sadness in me then, knowing this was coming to an end, wondering if I would get another chance.
Then we were walking into the restaurant where several men were standing around a table talking.
From their handsome faces, I figured maybe his family, and for a short moment, I was trying to put faces to names and stories that Nino had told me already.
But then a new man was walking up, and his hand went and pushed his jacket back.
