Chapter Fourteen West
Chapter Fourteen
West
The first thing I notice about Tony Campbell-Costa is that he’s very much not Italian. After his welcoming “buona sera,” he proceeds to address our workshop with Australian-accented English.
The second thing is that his hair looks much more strawberry blond in person.
I see Cammie clocking it, too, from her place a couple feet to my side behind our butcher-block-island cooking station.
While her eyes take in the man’s unexpectedly reddish locks, her fingers mindlessly fidget with one of her own curls.
I know enough about genetics to realize that one physical feature being sort of similar does not mean Tony is Cammie’s biological father.
But it’s one more physical feature than she and Paolo had in common, as hard as I tried to find anything.
Cam still looks sleep-rumpled from her afternoon nap on my shoulder, even though it’s been more than an hour since I woke her as gently as possible so we could leave our bus and head to Tony’s restaurant.
That time with her warm against my side, the pleasant breeze on my face as we cruised through the city and along the coast, and even the ten minutes of the podcast I listened to before realizing I wasn’t paying enough attention to retain anything, well, it’s the best afternoon I’ve had in a long time.
Ordinarily, it had the hallmarks of so many similar situations that would make me paralyzed with anxiety—being in an unfamiliar area of a still mostly unknown-to-me city where I don’t speak the language, not being totally truthful with my parents about where I am and what I’m up to.
Maybe I was wrong about my adventure battery.
Maybe it’s not a complete loss, after years of disuse; it just took a minute to boot up again.
Somewhere, the one electrical engineering major in my group chat is cringing from how badly I’ve misused the battery metaphor, but I want to believe it’s real.
That I could actually be finding my footing again, embracing the unfamiliar, being open to new adventures.
My mind has drifted a few times toward the Germany program, and as much as I’ve told myself it’s not for me, I can’t help but reconsider.
I still haven’t officially enrolled or withdrawn, nor given Max a final answer.
Is this why I’ve held off deciding—because somewhere deep down, I know I’m more capable than I’ve been telling myself ?
Or am I just so caught up in Cammie that I’m ignoring my own needs and wants?
Just pretending I’m in the driver’s seat when I’m actually riding shotgun, too busy drooling over her freckles to ever operate a motor vehicle?
I don’t want to let attraction and emotions convince me I’m the type of independent, outgoing guy who can keep up with her, then get out on my own and find that I’m not that guy at all, not without her leading the way, making the plans, grasping my hand when the anxiety presses in.
Regardless of what it means for my future, I’m enjoying the hell out of the present.
The feeling I get every minute I spend with this girl, it’s like all the best parts of being seventeen again.
Of falling in love with my best friend, with no intention of letting her go in a storm of my own confusion and fear.
I never expected to find that kind of happiness again, especially not with her.
“West,” Cammie prompts, snapping me out of my daze, her tone indicating this is not the first time she’s tried.
I blink her back into focus, though I’m pretty sure I’ve been staring blankly in the direction of her face for a while now, and realize she’s handing me a flute of prosecco, holding another for herself.
I glance to the side as I take it and see Tony passing them out to each pair at their respective cooking stations, identical to ours, around an industrial kitchen that sits above his restaurant.
Out the windows, we can see the sun setting over the bay, blanketing its golden light over peaceful evening waters and the boats that float through them.
I can’t decide if this is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever been a part of, or if I’ve just got it so bad that a landfill would look romantic to me, as long as I was there with Cammie.
Returning to the front of the room, Tony raises his glass and gives the class a “Saluté.”
We echo his cheers and take sips from our glasses.
The bubbly beverage is somehow both refreshing and burns a little as I swallow it down, and I barely suppress my grimace.
Cammie is not as successful at this, but I think I’m the only one who sees the scrunched-up expression she aims toward the counter.
I remember her asking me about her throat being scorched by limoncello and bite my cheek to keep from laughing.
“It’s a pleasure to have you all in class with me tonight,” Tony continues.
“I’m Tony, the chef and proprietor here at Antonio’s.
I suppose to start out, we might as well address the elephant in the room.
I realize that very few people, if any, come to Napoli with the intention of taking a pizza-making workshop with an Australian.
” He’s met with light, if slightly uncomfortable, laughter from around the room.
“But rest assured that I am well-qualified, having lived in Campania—and in Napoli specifically—longer than I’ve lived in my home country, making this place feel like my true home.
“My mother is Neapolitan, and I came here straightaway after high school, in the hopes of getting more in touch with my roots and studying at university. But then, like all of us here tonight are familiar with, I fell in love.” I raise an eyebrow at the comment, because what does this man know about my romantic experience?
“In truth, I fell in love three times.” He raises three fingers and is met with a couple oohs and a few more raised brows.
“The first time was with a young woman named Luna Costa, now known as Luna Campbell-Costa, my wife and the mother of our three children.”
My gaze darts back to Cam’s face just in time to see it fall from her interested smile to something slightly dimmer. Shit. Immediately, my mind runs through the implications of that information, like the fact that, if Tony is her father, this means he has other children who he did want to raise.
But that’s ten steps ahead of anything we know right now, so I try to refocus. Any intel we don’t have to dig for is priceless.
“Second, I fell in love with the city of Napoli, a place unlike anywhere else in the world and the home of my heart. And third, much to the dismay of my parents, I fell in love with pizza.” Laughter rumbles through the kitchen again and Tony smiles, bringing his hands together.
“Not just with pizza, but with cooking as an art. I left university to pursue culinary school and never looked back. I run this pizzeria, where we use recipes and inspiration from generations of Neapolitan cuochi, including my mama and nonna, as well as Luna’s and other restaurateurs and chefs in town under whom I apprenticed.
Every day, I get to share my true love with people from around the world who visit Napoli—the birthplace of pizza, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
“Now, I love running these couples workshops. They’re my favorite classes to teach. Because my story with cooking and with pizza is, at its heart, a love story.”
I choke on the sip of prosecco I just tried to swallow. Did he say “couples workshops”?
“Couples workshop?” Cammie murmurs. I look to the other pairs. Two women with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, an older man and woman with their fingers interlaced, and another pair of middle-aged guys, one of whom is gently rubbing the other’s shoulders casually but tenderly.
“Couples workshop,” I confirm with a nod, sweat beading at the nape of my neck as it suddenly feels ten degrees warmer in this kitchen.
Abruptly, Cam’s arm shoots out and smacks a hand to my back as if she’s squashing a bug. It knocks me forward with a quiet oof. Then she moves the hand in clumsy circles, as if smearing the imaginary bug guts around on my shirt.
I shrug her off and whisper, “Is this your attempt at couple-y affection?”
Her eyes stay fixed ahead when she replies, “Not now, honey, Chef Tony is speaking.”
Am I being punished? Did some higher power hear me thinking about Cammie’s legs in her cutoff shorts while we were sitting in a church earlier?
Now I’m in a sort of relationship purgatory, where we’re not really dating, not really just friends, but this strange, in-between, fake-couple bullshit?
Can I buy my way out of here, or did Martin Luther kind of ruin that shortcut for everyone?
Tony claps his hands once, yanking my attention back to where it should be—on him.
On figuring out whatever we can about this man, and what part he could have played in Cammie’s story.
Now that I know even more about why she’s looking for her dad, it’s all the more important to me to be involved.
I need to be here for her, protect her heart and her already shaken sense of self-worth, no matter the outcome with any of these men.
When Tony sets us free with our first instructions for starting the dough, I gesture to the aprons we were given when we arrived.
Souvenirs, Tony said, that we’ll get to take home to remember this workshop forever.
They’re red with a loopy white script that says I left a pizza my heart at Antonio’s di Napoli.
“Do you think these come with all the workshops, or just the ones for couples?” I emphasize the last word with an accusatory look.
Cam meets my gaze with an apologetic wince. “I swear I didn’t know. It was just called Pizza Making Two!”
I nod toward a flyer taped to the wall by the entrance, one I hadn’t noticed when we walked in that advertises the recurring weekly workshop in this exact time slot. “Uh-huh—Pizza Making for Two.”