Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Gabriela
When we got in last night, Rosaura and her husband, Leonardo were waiting for me.
I thought Diego was a big guy. But holy shit, Leonardo is bigger.
Rosaura hugged me, she reminds me of my mamà.
She has a bodyguard, his name is Seamus.
On the way to Lake Renegade, Rosaura and Leonardo tell me about the town and the families.
The things that they tell me make me excited to see the town and get to know everyone.
Maybe this won’t be as bad as I originally thought.
They took a drive through the town and I love it already.
There’s a hotel and some cute little stores.
A cafe and restaurant and the bakery that Rosaura and her friends own.
After I wash up, I head downstairs and I hear a little voice giggling.
“Good morning! You must be Gabriela, I’m Fiorella, favorite daughter of Rosaura and Leonardo.”
The guy with her snorts.
“I’m Salvatore, oldest son and Sheriff of Lake Renegade.”
“I’m Raven, Salvatore’s wife.”
I smile and say good morning to all of them.
“Is that your son?” I ask them.
“No, this is Giancarlo. He’s our younger brother, Gianluca’s son. Luca sleeps in a little after game nights.”
“Gianluca’s the hockey player, right?”
Giancarlo giggles. “My papà pways baseball, zio Dom pways hockey and zio Declan and zio Cillian.”
“That’s a lot of zio’s.” I smile at Giancarlo, he’s adorable.
“I haf lots of Zio’s and Zia’s.” He grins at me. I want to pick him up and squeeze him.
Fiorella chuckles. “Domenico’s our cousin, Declan is married to his sister, Giovanna and Cillian’s my love.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to remember everyone.” I laugh.
“It’s okay, there are a lot of us. It’s going to take some time remembering everyone. What are your plans for today?” Fiorella asks.
“I wanted to go to the bakery. Your mamá said that I could learn to bake with them.”
“I can take you and Diego if you want. I’m headed to my shop soon.”
“Or you can escape my sister and ride with Raven and me, we’re headed to the station.” Salvatore laughs as Fiorella squints at him.
“I’ll have you know that I’m the funnest Mancini in the family. The rest of them are booooring.”
I laugh as I listen to them. They make me miss my brothers…a lot.
“Do you have sisters or brothers?” Raven asks me.
“I have five older brothers, álvaro, Elvio, Félix, José and Juan. José and Juan are twins.”
“Holy crap. And I thought my two brothers were a lot.” Fiorella laughs.
“My mamá said there’s twins and triplets in your family?”
“Salvatore, Gianluca and I are triplets. There’s a few twins in the families here. Sebastiano and Domenico are identical, don’t worry if you mix them up.” She laughs.
I love this family already, they’re making me feel welcome and part of their family.
It’s something I didn’t expect. They tell me how they’re usually here in the morning because Rosaura makes sure there’s breakfast for all of them.
Leonardo came down and sat down to eat with us.
He said he drives into the city everyday with his brothers.
Their office is in downtown Chicago, it’s a two hour commute each way as long as traffic is nice.
I decide to go with Fiorella into town because her shop is a few doors down from the bakery.
When we get to the bakery, the smells that are coming out of it make me forget that I already had breakfast. By the time we get there, it’s already seven am and Fiorella says that they’ve been baking for at least three hours by now.
We head inside and I get introduced to Graínne and Caitríona. I also meet Simone Vietti, she runs the front of the bakery. Her husband, Romano is here this morning. I swear there’s something in the water here because he’s enormous too.
“Why is every guy in the family so big? Is there anyone that’s small?” I whisper to Fiorella.
“Nope. And Romano is one of the smaller ones.” She laughs.
“Holy crap, are you serious? I mean your papá is a really big guy. My papá isn’t as big as he is.”
“My papà and his brothers are some of the biggest in the families. But I don’t think there’s any of the guys that are under six three.”
Fiorella’s laughing at me and I can’t help but laugh too.
“I was thinking today you can follow Simone in the front. You can get to know the pastries we sell. Whenever you’re ready to try getting up with us, then we can teach you to bake.
We bake everything before we open and once we sell out, we’re out.
We do have some things that we have extras, but for the most part, everything’s made fresh daily. ” Rosaura explains to me.
“Thank you so much. I can’t wait to tell my mamá that I’m going to learn to bake. She’s a great cook, but she doesn’t like to bake.”
“We all cook and bake. The bakery was something we decided to open about five years ago. We originally just wanted a bigger space to cook and bake. And now we’re so busy that we’re thinking of hiring more help.” Graínne chuckles.
Graínne and Caitríona have Irish accents and I love listening to them talk. Rosaura has the same accent as I do.
The morning goes by really fast. There’s a lot of customers that come in, Simone knows a lot of them by name. She said they come in almost every day. Just as it starts to die down a little, Giancarlo comes running in. Behind him is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.
Gianluca
After Giancarlo and I finish breakfast, he asks if we can go to the bakery.
Since I don’t have a game today, I get to spend all day with my boy.
I love days like this. We get in the car and head to Precious Risings.
He loves it there because he knows he’s going to get some kind of treat.
No one seems to be able to say no to him. Not even me.
“Come on little man.” I smile as I get him out of his car seat.
If you had told me a year ago that this would be my life?
I would’ve laughed and said no fucking way.
But now? Now I can’t imagine a day without my son.
I only wish that Faith was still here to see him grow up.
I know we would’ve found a way to raise him together.
Even though we weren’t in a relationship.
Knowing how loving Carlo is? I know that Faith raised him right.
We walk into the bakery and Giancarlo lets go of my hand and runs to the woman that’s standing behind the counter with Simone. She says something to him as he hugs her and points to me. I’ve never seen him hug someone he didn’t know.
“Hey, Gianluca.” Simone smiles.
“Morning.” I nod. I can’t tear my eyes away from the woman that’s holding my son.
I see my mamà come out from the back.
“Abuela!” he giggles as she hugs him.
Then she comes over to me and gives me a hug.
“Mijo, remember I told you my friends daughter was coming to stay with us? This is Gabriela. Gabriela, this is my baby, Gianluca.”
I step closer to Gabriela and take her hand.
“Hi.” I say as I stare into her deep blue eyes.
“H-hi.” She says softly.
Giancarlo has gone back to holding her other hand. I don’t know what it is, but I need to know her. And it looks like my son likes her too.
“I met your son this morning. He’s so cute.”
“Thank you, I’m sorry I missed you this morning. When I don’t have practice, I get to sleep in a little.”
I don’t know why I’m telling her this. I feel like I need to explain why I wasn’t around to greet her this morning. She’s staring at me and I can’t tell if she thinks I’m crazy or not. Before I can blurt out anything else, my sister comes into the bakery and hugs me.
“So I see you met Gabriela. Isn’t she adorable? We need more women in the family. She fits right in. But we need to take her to a baseball game and a hockey game. OH! Tonight! HOCKEY! We’re all going to the hockey game tonight.”
“I’ve never seen a hockey game. I have seen a baseball game.” Gabriela giggles.
“Well we’re going to fix that tonight. I’ll ask Cillian if we can get a tour of the locker room. Maybe you can meet the team too.”
I frown at Fiorella. I don’t want Gabriela meeting any of the hockey players.
“Why are you frowning at me?”
“What if Gabriela doesn’t want to meet hockey players?” I frown more at her.
My sister continues to stare at me.
“Holy shit…”
“What? Shut up.” I say as I stare at her.
My sister has a big mouth and I’m pretty sure I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.
But now I’m fucked. She smiles at me, one of those smiles that tells you she knows what you’re thinking.
Which isn’t different for us, I mean she is my triplet and the three of us have always been very close.
But there are times like this I wish we actually had triplet telepathy.
Because I need my sister to keep her opinions to herself.
“We’re going to have so much fun tonight.” Fiorella gives me another one of her smiles and I sigh.
“Can I go to hockey game too?” Giancarlo asks.
“Of course, amore. You’ll have to wear your ear protection while we’re there.”
“Otay, papà.” He smiles.
I still can’t take my eyes off Gabriela. But I can feel someone staring at me. I turn and see two someones. My mamà and Fiorella are smiling at me as they whisper. Fuck me. My sister and her big fat mouth has told our mamà something. And I have a pretty good guess as to what it is.
I sigh at them and shake my head as they continue to smile and whisper.
“You know it’s not polite to whisper when there’s people around, right?” I say to them.
“I don’t mind saying out loud what I told mamà.” Fiorella smiles.
And there’s that evil sister smile again.
“So what time are we leaving for the game?” I say, trying to change the subject.
Fiorella laughs. “We need to leave by three-thirty.”
“Well then I should get little man home to get a nap in.”
I look over at Giancarlo and he’s sitting on Gabriela’s lap. She’s talking to him and he’s nodding and smiling. Even my son can see something special about Gabriela. I walk over to them.
“Come on Carlo, you need to take a nap if you want to go to the hockey game tonight.”
“Can Gabby come and take a nap wif me?”
I chuckle. “I don’t think Gabriela needs to take a nap.”
Giancarlo frowns. “Why not? I haf too.”
“Well Gabriela isn’t two years old.”
“No fair. I almost tree.” He pouts.
“I’ll see you after you take your nap.” She smiles and hugs him.
“You pwomise? Papà says you can’t bwake pwomises.”
“I promise.”
Giancarlo sighs and hops off her lap and takes my hand.
“We’ll see you back at the house.” I say to her.
“Would you like me to bring you some pastries?”
“If there’s any apple strudel’s that would be really nice. Thank you.”
“I’ll make sure to save you some.”
Giancarlo and I head home, all I can think about is Gabriela. And how I really don’t want her to meet the hockey team tonight.