Chapter Eight
chapter eight
RAFAEL
“Freshly caught this morning, ragazzo mio ,” Luca says as he tosses shrimp in the fry pan next to me.
“They smell delicious,” Leo chimes in from where he’s sitting on the other side of the island, watching us work.
I toss an olive over at him. “You could help, you know.”
He catches the olive, giving me a wide grin as he pops it in his mouth. “Too many cooks in the kitchen,” he shrugs.
I shake my head before filling the pan with oil. I met Leo when we were only teenagers, and he’s always been a little shit. But I’ve always loved him. Everyone has.
As much as he’s a little shit, he’s a fierce protector. Hell, he got banned from Ruby Cove events because he threw a punch defending a random woman he’d never met before. The guy has a heart of gold, and he’s always had my back. When I was a kid at school, I was always closer to my family than anyone my age. But when they died, these guys rallied around me. Caio and Leo were some of the only people I wanted to see. And the only people that forced me out of bed on the hard days.
I have a feeling he’s having some hard days now too, but he masks it with his cheeky grin and thinks no one can see. But I can see. I just need to find the time to ask him what’s really going on .
“No! I need your help.” Vanessa’s voice interrupts my train of thought.
“Isn’t this like your specialty that you make all the time?” Another voice. May .
I look over my shoulder to see her being dragged into the kitchen.
“Yeah, yeah,” Vanessa replies, waving her hand in dismissal. “I just need to get them in the fridge. Pass me the ramekins, principessa. ”
May is right—this is Vanessa’s specialty, and she could make panna cotta with her eyes closed and her hands tied. So why she’s dragging May into my vicinity is unknown.
“In this cupboard.” Luca points to the cupboard right where I’m standing, searing calamari in the pan. Of course they are .
“ Muoviti , Rafael,” Vanessa says.
I gesture towards the pan. “I can’t move. This pan is on high heat. If I cook these too long, you’ll all be cursing me at the dinner table.”
“It’s fine,” May says. “I’ll just…” She awkwardly bends down beside me, pulling open the cupboard until it hits my shins.
“ Merda ,” I curse, looking down at her.
She just scowls up at me. “Do you mind?”
“I do, actually. I’m trying not to overcook the calamari.”
“God, you really do like to make everything difficult, don’t you?”
I just take a step back, allowing her to open the cupboard and grab her ramekins so she can get out of my space. I’m already annoyed by it.
She stands up, giving me a fake smile before she hands the dishes to Vanessa.
“Oh, and the glasses please, dear. On the top shelf.” As she says it, I take note of the glasses sitting on a shelf tall enough that May is not going to reach them. But she’ll try.
I pull the calamari out of the pan, plating it up before turning back around to see May hopelessly stretching for the glasses, the tips of her fingers just curling over the edge of the shelf.
I can feel both Vanessa and Luca’s eyes on me, as if waiting to see what I’ll do, even though either of them could walk over there and help her. But instead, we are all just standing here, watching her painful attempt to get the glasses from the shelf Vanessa clearly knew she wouldn't be able to reach.
“Oh, for god’s sake.” I storm over, standing behind her and reaching up for the glasses, pulling them down and placing them on the counter in front of her.
“I can do it myself,” she spits, still stretching for the shelf.
“If you could have, then you would have already.”
It’s only when my arm grazes hers that I realize how close I’m standing to her. She goes deadly still, barely even breathing as I place the last glass in front of her. I pull my hand back, but my body doesn’t move, not right away. I stay standing this close to her, and I have no idea why, considering five seconds ago I was annoyed by her presence. But right now, it feels like an invisible force is dragging me towards her.
A laugh breaks the tension between us. “God, you two are something else.”
I drag my attention to where Leo sits with his chin in his hand, looking at us with wonder.
I narrow my eyes at him and shake my head, but he just shrugs before May slips out of the kitchen, escaping outside to where the others are waiting.
“ Oddio .” Vanessa places a hand on my arm. “You’re getting rusty, tesoro .”
I frown. “Rusty with what?”
“Your flirting.”
My frown deepens as Vanessa’s smile doubles. “I wasn’t trying to flirt, nor would I ever flirt with her.”
“Mh-mm,” she mutters. “We’ll see about that.”
“This calamari is delicious, Pa,” Marina says.
Luca leans over the table, pouring wine into her glass, before filling his wife’s as well. “That was all Raf.”
Marina cuts her gaze to me, raising her brows and tipping her glass in my direction. I just nod back.
“You should add this to Olive&Vine’s menu,” Caio says from where he’s sitting on my right, Isla on his other side. “You haven’t added anything new in a while.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. I don’t think my menu has changed one single bit in the last two years. It’s exactly how my nonna left it. “Maybe.”
Caio gives me a look that says he knows that ‘maybe’ is a no. I just drag my gaze across the table to where Leo sits across from me. Looking at him out here in the natural light, I notice how dull his skin looks, how tired he looks.
“How is it staying at Lost and Found, Leo?”
“Hm?” His eyes tip up to look at me.
“Are the old ladies wearing you out?” I joke. Everyone in town knows that the bed and breakfast is basically a community center for the elderly folk of Ruby Cove, but Leo has been staying there for the last month or so. He’s not setting down roots here, but not going back to his job in the city either. I told him he can stay at my place, but he turned down the offer. He’s just lying in limbo, and right now it seems like his mind is up in the clouds.
He shakes his head. “What?”
“You look exhausted. Are you all good?” He just shakes his head like he can’t keep up with the conversation.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just didn’t sleep so well last night. The scrabble games get intense.”
“Oh!“ Vanessa exclaims. “I haven’t been to one of the Lost and Found scrabble games in months! Nora and I used to go every week, but now that the gallery is getting busier,” she nods in Isla’s direction, “we haven’t found the time.”
Leo tips his drink back, downing the prosecco in one gulp. “If you care about me at all, Vanessa, you’ll hold back for a while. I’m barely sleeping as it is. We all know it would get even louder with you two there.”
She tucks a loose curl behind her ear. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Luca snorts from beside her and she cuts him a deadly glare, making him shut up and drink his own prosecco.
“You two invented the word competitive. And cheating.”
Vanessa gasps, and everyone at the table–including me–picks up their drinks and takes a sip, staying out of what is about to become a very dangerous conversation.
I jolt as someone kicks my shin under the table—the same shin that just got bashed by a kitchen cupboard—and my drink crests the edge of my glass, a few drops spilling just over the top.
I send a glare to my right where a little she-devil is sitting next to me. “Do something,” she whispers.
I send my foot her way under the table, and she flinches, her face screwing up. “Fucking ow .”
“You do something,” I send back. It’s immature, but it’s all I got.
“He’s your friend.” I feel the whoosh of air as her foot comes towards my leg again, but I slide my feet under my chair, trying to save my shins from further abuse.
“You chose a very convenient time to decide he’s not yours as well.” Our arguing is nothing more than angry whispers as Leo and Vanessa fire words back at each other across the table. Vanessa’s defending her and Nora from Leo’s accusations, but he’s not letting up. We all know Vanessa and Nora are sly, but no one has ever said anything to them. The fact Leo is saying something, on Ferragosto, at Vanessa’s house, says enough in itself. The boy isn’t in his right state of mind .
“We need to give them a distraction,” May whispers, her voice laced with mischief. I can almost hear her scheming in her head.
“What?”
“Quit being an asshole,” she says, her voice suddenly at normal volume.
“What?” I whisper shout. This time I truly haven’t done anything to her.
“I said,” she stands up, grabs her wineglass, and her voice grows even louder, “quit being an asshole.” And then she throws her wine in my face, and the whole table goes silent.
She quickly turns on her heel and storms into the house, a sway in her hips as she does, as if she’s proud of herself for that little performance. That distraction .
After a breath, the table moves into action again, and Vanessa walks over to me. “What did you do?” she asks. I just shake my head. Meanwhile Isla and Marina scurry into the house after her, clearly eager to hear whatever story she conjures up to explain that little outburst.
I bet she enjoyed the hell out of that, and as I grab a napkin from the table to wipe the sticky liquid from my face, I start plotting how I’m going to get her back.