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She looks at me slyly. I don’t blame her. She’s no dummy and it isn’t hard to figure out I don’t spend my days making up weird-ass vegetarian dishes for a restaurant that uses so much meat.
I don’t mind. In fact, Iwanther to know my ulterior motives.
She carefully opens the box and gasps. “Wow. This is too pretty to eat. It looks like some sort of sculpture in the front window at Tiffany. Not something meant to be consumed.”
She laughs when I pass her a fork. “Just because it’s too pretty to eat, doesn’t mean I won’t.” She scoops a big bite into her mouth, closes her eyes, and moans.
Fuck yeah.
She eats the way she lives—taking big bites out of life with no worry for what others might think.
“So, you like it?” I ask as she looks into the empty box to make sure she left nothing behind.
“That, Enzo, was one of the tastiest things I’ve eaten in my whole life. I don’t even know what it was, but it was pure heaven.”
She closes her eyes and rubs her belly and all I can think is that she’s the cutest fucking thing.
I take a step around the counter to get closer, and I wonder if she can feel the thick air between us, or if it’s all in my imagination. Only one way to find out.
“Livvy, I’ve wanted to tell you… well, that I… have a lot of admiration for you. Your tenacity, sense of humor, kindness, love of animals. I gotta tell you, you fascinate me. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman like you.”
I don’t mention how she tries to hide all this under a spiky, smart-ass exterior, because, when it comes down to it, her prickly shell is about as transparent as the glass in her front window. She’s not fooling anyone, least of all me.
She looks at me, her eyes wide, like she’s trying to decide what to do with this information. I get that she might be ambivalent. I just laid a big load on her and hell, we don’t know each other that well even if we have messed around.
As the seconds pass in silence, I find myself regretting being so frank. I should have just kept my damn thoughts to myself. My nonna always says I wear my heart on my sleeve and that’s not a good look for a man. I try to tell her my generation is different but she doesn’t get it.
Does she have a point?
I inch back from Livvy, thinking it’s high time to split, when she busts out into a huge grin, one of those rare, full smiles that transforms a person’s face.
In return, my spirits soar.
Sorry, Nonna.
She looks down at the counter, drumming her fingers on it. “This… complicates things, doesn’t it?”
I don’t give a fuck, I want to tell her. Life is complicated. So what?
Damn if I don’t feel like I won the lottery, which is weird because it’s not like I freaking asked her to marry me. I don’t get it, not at all.
“Hey, you’re invited to my family dinner tomorrow night. You free?” I ask.
She pretends to hold open a notebook and page through it. She’s a good pantomime, and I love that she’s teasing me. “I think I can squeeze you in,” she laughs.
I clap my hands together. “Excellent. I gotta get back to the resto before someone burns it down.”
“What can I bring?” she asks.
I look at her. “I can’t think of a single thing.”
34
ENZO
Dinnerat my family home is not for the faint of heart, not on the best day of the year, and my bringing a guest does not guarantee a damn thing. We could laugh our asses off… or a fight could break out. We could tell stories and laugh until we cry, or argue and shout and smash dishes against the wall. There are no pretenses with my family, no ‘being on our best behavior.’ What you see is what you get and it’s all subject to change with no advance notice.
And Livvy is the perfect person to handle something like that.
