Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
OLIVIA
Two days later, Olivia, her mother, Luca, AB, and Sophie all sat toiling away in Luca’s kitchen.
The smell of fresh-cut herbs and simmering broth from Luca’s soup wafted toward Olivia as she fought with pinning orange felt fabric.
“Whose stupid idea was it to make giant leaf costumes?” she muttered.
“Yours, dear,” her mother said, pins between her pursed lips.
They sat working on costumes while Luca attempted for the third time to braid Olivia’s hair.
They’d tried to braid AB’s hair, but she couldn’t sit still long enough. It was too complicated to explain without seeing what he was doing, so her mother coached Luca while she focused on costumes and sitting still.
The delicious feeling of his fingers running through her hair was a happy byproduct.
Given his busy schedule, her busy schedule, and a very nosy six-year-old, they hadn’t had any more alone time since their couch run-in.
A few sneaky kisses here and there, but spending time with Luca had largely been a looking-only activity.
After another mangled try at a fishtail braid, he brushed out Olivia’s hair.
“Maybe try number four will work,” her mom said, patting Luca’s arm and then staring at it. “What do you do, lift those cars you work on?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. Her mom was as subtle as a car horn. “Mother, I can see you in the window. Stop squeezing his arms.”
“What! He’s a handsome, strapping young man.”
Luca rumbled out a laugh as he ran his fingers over Olivia’s crown, gathering two sections of hair.
“Now, gather just a little bit…” Her mother said, coaching him. “That’s it, not too big. Now fold that one over the top…and again…good job.”
Luca sighed, sounding like he was relieved. “Thanks, Mrs. Maroo-Canon.”
“Oh, call me Martha,” she said, waving her hand and picking up pieces to pin together for Olivia.
One costume down, nine to go. Olivia had rigged up a series of suspenders and small hula hoops that would give the leaf costumes a big, adorably comical shape without being too heavy for the little girls.
“Now.” Her mother looked at Sophie and AB, sitting down at the table across from them. “How are those bats coming?”
They giggled, poking plastic wings into black styrofoam balls. Olivia had decided it was time to decorate for Halloween, and AB’s play date was as good a time as any to do it.
Olivia sent her mother silent do not get attached mental signals. Her mom had never been a ‘when am I going to be a grandmother’ type, but astronauts could see from space how much she enjoyed spending time with AB and Sophie.
“I made three.” Sophie held them up.
“Great job, Soph!” Olivia smiled.
“We’re going to go outside and play,” AB said unceremoniously. They ran off giggling.
“Shoot, I need to lock the back gate if they’ll be out there. Give me five.” Luca jogged after them to the back porch.
Olivia sighed wistfully. God, he’s so good at this. Making soup, keeping everyone safe. Looking so fucking hot in that tight long-sleeve shirt.
Her mother turned slowly to Olivia with a knowing smile.
“Wipe that smile off your face.” Olivia narrowed her eyes.
Her mom threaded two more pins into the fabric with a placid look. “So! How long have you been sleeping together?”
“Mother!” Olivia’s eyes darted to the door to see if any of them had come back in.
Her mom’s wizened face was full of mischief. “Am I wrong?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it with my mom, eughh.” Olivia shuddered.
“You’re both grown-ups. He’s delicious.” She peered over her rhinestone glasses. “Frankly, you’d be a fool not to.”
Olivia sighed, finishing the last pin on the side of the leaf costume. “Two weeks.” Olivia sighed again. “Just making out. Mostly.”
“Ooh,” her mother said with a smile, wiggling in her seat. “He seems like a very nice young man. Who can really fill out a pair of jeans.”
Luca came through the sliding glass doors looking confused. “They’re playing ‘ghost princesses’...?”
“Ah, my fault.” Olivia raised her hand. “AB and I watched a ballet of Giselle online after school. There are…a lot of ghosts.” She grimaced. Was that the kind of thing she should have told him? Or shit, not done at all?
“Metal,” he said with an approving nod.
Her mother smiled wickedly at Olivia. “So—”
Olivia sent her mother a warning look. Troublemaker.
“—do you have your auditions lined up?”
Olivia sighed at the small mercy of her mother behaving herself for once. “There are open auditions at Dayton, American Rep, American Midwest, and the Mendocino Ballet.”
“Ooh, Dayton could be nice.”
Olivia sighed, not wanting to get anyone’s hopes up. “I’m working on my audition tape to submit in a few weeks.”
Her mother finished pinning the second leaf costume and handed it to Olivia to sew. A beep sounded from the oven, and Luca paused to pull out a loaf of homemade, gluten-free bread he’d proofed earlier in the day.
This all felt so fucking…good? So domestic?
She wouldn’t have this in Dayton. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Her mom stretched. “All right, young man. Show me you know how to fishtail on your own.”
The pleasure cascading down her scalp as Luca ran his fingers through her hair was practically obscene. He combed out her hair to start all over again.
“Heard anything from your old coworkers?” her mom asked her.
Olivia shrugged. “A couple friends are in Pittsburgh now. I’m going to see their Nutcracker performances in a few weeks.”
“That could be fun,” Luca said offhandedly as he gently separated her hair into three sections.
Her brow arched in surprise as she tried to turn around, but he held her head in place. “You’d go see the ballet?”
She saw him shrug in the reflection on the sliding glass door as if it was no big deal. “It has candy in it, right? AB would like it.”
“That was always my favorite part too,” her mother said with a generous smile at Luca.
“Yep, and then you….exactly.” Her mother nodded approvingly as he braided Olivia’s hair. “Oh, that looks quite nice.”
“I want to see,” Olivia said as her hair was being gently tugged into place.
“Hold still.” Her mother swatted her and turned her mega-watt ‘I’m an adorable old lady’ smile onto Luca. “You and Annabelle should come by for dinner next week. Wells is coming home; Herbert is cooking. We’d love to have you over.”
She wondered how much her mother knew about Wells’s business investment. Probably nothing, otherwise she’d have heard her mother’s lecture at him from three miles away by now.
The end of Olivia’s hair was tugged as Luca wrapped it in an elastic band. “Ta-da!”
She used a mirror to see the back of her head with her phone. He’d made a French fishtail braid that looked pretty damn good. “Impressive, Bishop.”
“And I cook,” he said with a slow smile as he went to stir the soup.
Olivia ran the edge of the costume through the sewing machine that she’d brought over from her house, turning it right side out to see the finished product.
The effect was pretty good. She ran the half hula hoop through each side and swung the sliding glass door open.
“Annabelle, come try on your costume.”
The girls both ran inside, carrying the scent of campfire smoke in with them as people had started to burn wood fires in the afternoon.
Olivia’s phone pinged.
PEARL
Are you home? I keep knocking.
OLIVIA
At Luca’s
Shit, shit, shit. She hadn’t realized it was so late. She’d wanted to talk to Luca about her idea before Pearl got here.
Meet me at the back door.
Pearl walked up the back steps with a tray of cupcakes topped with thick purple frosting.
Oh god, maybe this is a terrible idea. Maybe I’m overstepping.
Luca saying he never wanted Annabelle to forget her mom had stuck with Olivia. She’d wanted to do something special for them, to ease his worries in some way.
So, Olivia had put in an order with Pearl for a dozen AB-friendly cupcakes in memory of Marcy’s birthday. She held a little ‘happy birthday’ plastic cupcake topper to stick on top.
She opened the back door quietly and snuck out onto the back steps. “Thank you so much,” Olivia said, looking at the pretty cupcakes.
Pearl suddenly wrapped Olivia in a hard, crushing hug.
“Whoa.” Olivia chuckled as she hugged Pearl back.
“Yeah. I’m a fuckin’ hugger now,” Pearl grumbled. She wiped her eyes as she pulled away. “Fucking love of my life turning me into a fucking mush.”
Pearl shrugged her shoulders, crinkling her leather jacket, trying to brush off any emotion. “Marcy was one of my best friends, so, you know. Thanks. This was a good idea.” She handed Olivia the cupcakes.
“Let’s hope Luca agrees.” Butterflies pirouetted artfully in Olivia’s ribcage.
They walked back in as Olivia called for Luca. “Can you meet me in the laundry room?”
“You’re in trouble,” Annabelle teased him from the kitchen.
“Hey, you,” he said with surprise as Pearl walked past him.
“What’s all this?” Luca pointed to the cupcakes.
Oh, shit. How do I even start?
“I, uh…wanted to honor Marcy’s birthday,” Olivia said, bluntly.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Oh no, this is weird. Shit. Too late now.
“You were worried about AB forgetting her and I wanted to do something nice to remember her. I mean, she made AB, after all, and you loved her. She was one of Pearl’s best friends.
She deserves to be remembered. I told Pearl to do it in her favorite color.
So, uh, these are happy birthday cupcakes for her.
” Olivia bit her lip, smiling worriedly, and lifted the tray of purple cupcakes.
Luca’s jaw dropped, and he ran a hand over his beard, looking thunderstruck.
“Is this okay? I’m sorry if I’m overstepping.”
Luca took the tray from her and set it on the dryer. He pulled her into a hard hug.
The kind where he wrapped himself almost completely around her—his torso bending over her, his head nestling into her neck, her ribs crushing against his with a solidness that grounded her.
She squeezed back, trying to channel all the love everyone had ever had for Luca. She felt connected to Marcy as the only other woman who had fallen in love with him. She had good taste.
Luca squeezed tighter, nuzzling into her neck.
“So…this is okay?” she said, her voice coming out muffled against his chest.
Pulling back finally, he angled his body to shield her from the kitchen doorway.
He nodded, swallowed, and his thumb stroked her cheek, her bottom lip. It felt like heaven after a day and a half of behaving themselves in front of Annabelle.
“You.” He sighed as she kissed his thumb on her lips. “Just…this is so you. Thank you. For being here, and for being you.”
Warmth and relief and yearning braided in her chest, matching her hairdo. She leaned into his hand on her cheek, nuzzling it.
He tilted her chin so his mouth could meet hers in a slow, lingering kiss. He tasted like rosemary and freshly baked bread. Warmth, safety, belonging.
Like home.
The sound of footsteps approaching the laundry room grew louder, and he pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” Annabelle said in the doorway.
Olivia pulled away, and she saw how concerned AB was for her dad.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, wiping his eyes.
“Why are you crying?” AB’s face scrunched in sadness.
Olivia wiped her eyes as well. Having two people in her life who were so amazing was overwhelming.
“Hey,” Luca said softly, bending down to AB. “Do you remember how Mom’s birthday is in a few days?”
Annabelle nodded solemnly.
“Olivia thought it’d be nice to have some cupcakes in honor of her birthday.”
Annabelle’s eyes lit up. “That I can have?”
“Made by AP, so they are Sophie-safe, too,” Olivia said, knowing Sophie’s nut allergies.
AB’s eyes sparkled. “We get Mom cupcakes?”
Luca laughed as he grabbed the tray. A few minutes later, they all sat in the kitchen devouring cookies-and-cream cupcakes. Pearl and Luca swapped stories about Marcy, telling the stories of all of their escapades as Annabelle asked questions about her.
Olivia handed one to her mother at the edge of the kitchen, and her mom squeezed her side. “You did good, kid,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” Olivia asked quietly, still not sure. “I didn’t know if it was my place.”
Her mother nodded sagely as she looked at Annabelle and Luca. “It’s always our place to take care of people we love.”
Olivia blew out a slow breath and decided not to correct her mother about the fact that she just might be in love.