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“I’ll take your leftovers.”
“Eat with me.”
She picks up two forks as I move to the microwave. While we wait, I pour two glasses of lemonade and take them over to her. The guys chat amongst themselves, but I can tell she’s not sure if she’s allowed to join in. When the timer goes off, I take the food to her and pull out a barstool. She climbs on while I stand beside her.
I know the guys don’t want to bombard her. They don’t want it to sound like they’re interrogating her if they ask questions to get the conversation going. I twist to look at Carmine.
“Car, where are the pastries you promised us?”
“I ate them. Fina knew they were my favorite red velvet cupcakes and the strawberry tarts. It’s her fault for trusting me to bring them over. She knows better.”
He shrugs unrepentantly. It’s a good thing he works out as much as he does. His wife is a gifted baker who owns two shops. I think I remember their vows included her bringing home any unsold pastries or bread.
Lorenzo nudges him none too gently.
“She was going to send over two dozen cupcakes,stronzo. You said she forgot.” Asshole.
“She did forget. She forgot not to trust me. And it was one for each of you, not two dozen. And I didn’t eat them all at once. I sneaked two at the bakery, then a few more on the way to and from the hospital. I ate the last two while I was in Mama’s office.”
Marco’s pissed. He loves Serafina’s baking as much as Carmine, but he gets it far less often.
“Figlio di puttana, you had them here in the house?” Motherfucker.
Carmine shrugs again.
“Find your own hot wife to bake for you.”
Marco pulls out his phone.
“I’m telling on you.”
“Go right ahead. I’m not worried. She can scold me all she wants. I’ll just have to make it up to her.”
He waggles his eyebrows.
“You’re supposed to make it up to us.”
Marco unlocks his phone.
“Rosella’s single. That would solve your problems. I'll let her know you’re looking for a woman who bakes almost as well as Fina.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Tell her she only bakes almost as well as Fina or that you’re looking for a woman?”
Carmine offers the innocent expression he perfected when we were kids. It was the surest sign he was guilty as sin. Marco puts his phone away, knowing Carmine doesn’t issue empty threats. Rosella is nice and attractive, but she is not Marco’s type at all. She’s a put a ring on it kinda girl, and Marco is a running as far and fast from the altar as he can kinda guy. Carmine wouldn’t lie to Rosella and say Marco was interested, but he might plant the seed that he likes women who bake.
Throughout this exchange, Matteo, Lorenzo, Luca, and I keep eating as though nothing’s going on. Sinead’s finding what she likes and eating silently, but she’s listening to the cousins go back and forth.
“Cry to Auntie Carlotta and see if she’ll make you those cookies you used to beg for whenever you got hurt trying to keep up with Luca and Emilio.”
Auntie Carlotta is the next best baker in our family with sweets. All the mothers and wives— including Olivia now —can bake bread. But Auntie Carlotta— Matteo and Emilio’s mother —finds it relaxing. She’s a general surgeon and says she far prefers the smell of her kitchen with the oven full of dough and batter than an operating room. I watch Luca, then dart my gaze to Matteo.
Emilio is someone we almost never talk about. He gets mentioned in passing, but that’s it. He fucked up even more than Carmine and now lives in Jersey. Matteo still sees him, and so do his parents. Which means Luca’s sister, Maria— who’s Matteo’s wife —sees him too. But rarely. Emilio and Luca were best friends until Luca wound up with a scar from a knife blade. It runs along the side of his cheek to beneath his collar, and Auntie Carlotta was the one who stitched it. Maria’s also Marco’s sister, and Matteo is both Emilio’s younger brother and Marco’s best friend.
“Uh-uh. Mama promised Maria and me her next batch of anything.”
Marco snorts as he glares at his best friend who’s three hours younger than him.
