Chapter 14
SNAP – BALL IS HIKED FROM CENTER TO QB TO BEGIN A PLAY.
I’ve faced fourth-quarter pressure, viral chaos, and locker-room fights—but asking Maya if she wants to spend time together might actually kill me.
I told myself it could be as simple as a cup of coffee, a walk through the vines.
Who knows? After how well last night went, maybe we’d progress to sharing a laugh or two.
Who am I kidding? She probably still thinks of me as the guy who turned into a human guard dog on social media after her ex’s cheating blew up to be more prominent than the Jumbotron at AT&T Stadium.
I just hope she doesn’t mind that I plan to spend the rest of her stay proving I’m more than the guy she left in her dust and have more potential than any man she could meet in her future.
Pacing back and forth in front of the stairs, I hope my boots aren’t wearing down the terrazzo tile we recently replaced. I mutter, “I need a top-notch warranty.”
Just then, Maya’s voice penetrates the fog of my anxiety. “For what?”
Of course, I’m so lost in my own thoughts, I blurt out, “To see if you want to go sightseeing.”
There’s a pause, a held breath. A moment suspended between us as if time knows her answer, one word, will forever change the trajectory of everything. My diaphragm tenses, just like it did in those few precarious seconds before I was taken out of the game.
For good.
Maya stills. Her head drops even as her fingers clench the wrought-iron banister in time to an invisible metronome. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. Certain she’s going to turn me down, I brace myself for her “No” only to be surprised by a response I wasn’t expecting.
“Can we go to the castle ruins?” Her head lifts, and the excitement in her eyes almost overwhelms me.
I’d do just about anything to put it there. Going to see a pile of rocks that have been on this land for hundreds of years? “Absolutely.”
An hour later, we approach the ruins—me with memories, Maya with reverence. Before she lifts her camera, I ask, “Do you want to explore first or do you want to know more about the castle?”
Maya thinks through her response. “Give me some context about your life here. I’m having some difficulty aligning the man who wears custom-tailored suits with the one who just carried a backpack lunch for two.” She blushes before stammering, “I mean…”
I don’t correct her. Instead, I launch into some family history.
“The Ferraros have owned this piece of land dating back—so far as we can trace—to the 1500s. During that time, the Piedmont region was governed by the House of Savoy and—what I’m certain felt like under the less than modern conditions we’re blessed with today—the Italian Wars that never ended.
It’s a key piece of Piedmont history, which led to the return of Piedmontese territories from France after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. ”
My words captivate Maya. “Go on.”
“The Ferraro estate was originally part of the stronghold of the Duchy of Savoy, but after the wars ended, it was returned to my ancestors.” I nod to the remains of the structure—the castle tucked into the hills of Piedmont, surrounded by rows of vines that down the line would sustain the wealth of my family for generations.
“My childhood summers spent here were blistering hot and bone-tiring—pruning vines, hauling buckets. I learned Italian the hard way.”
“How’s that?”
“By listening to my uncles muttering I’d never be cut out to run the winery.” A whimsical memory flashes through my mind. They weren’t wrong. All I wanted back then was a ball in my hand, not dirt under my nails.
“What just went through your head?”
“Just now?” At her nod, my smile widens. I jerk my chin toward the castle. “I realized I was meant to play football standing right about where you are right now.”
“Wow. A tour and life epiphanies all in one day. Who knew you were such a catch?”
I grin, “Careful, keep talking like that and I’ll start thinking you actually like me.”
She tilts her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late,” I say, but what I don’t add is that it’s not my ego that’s swelling—it’s hope.
We both chuckle before I continue giving her some insight about me that no-one except my family knows.
“One summer afternoon, I was so tired of hearing I would not be good enough that I grabbed my ball and came down here. I placed the ball on the kicking tee, took a few steps back and, wham! Sent it flying.”
Maya’s brows raise above the tops of her sunglasses. “Over the castle?”
“I was twelve. Try into the ruins.”
Her hand comes up to her mouth to stifle her laughter. “Oh, my. They must have been furious.”
I tug at one of her loose curls. “A complete understatement. Mama was livid until I explained what drove me to do it.”
Her hand comes up and rests on my bicep, close to the heart that’s racing for her. “I hope she understood.”
I capture her fingers and lift them to hover just below my lips. “I was immediately grounded.”
Her outrage is magnificent. She uses her free hand to rip off her sunglasses, blue eyes raging with indignant storms twenty years too late. Unable to resist the temptation her reaction provokes, I brush my lips against her knuckles.
Did her hand tremble in mine or was that my imagination? I finish the story. “I was grounded because of the respect I didn’t show to our past famiglia, not quei miei zii idioti.”
“I didn’t understand that last part,” she admits.
“Quei miei zii idioti translates to ‘those idiotic uncles of mine.’”
She studies the castle intently. Her expression wavers between concern and disbelief, as if she’s absorbing my ghosts right alongside her own. “Idiotic or not,” she murmurs, half-smiling, “Your ancestors knew how to build something that lasted.”
I edge closer, close enough to see her pulse flutter at the base of her throat. I say softly, “Maybe—at least the really ancient ones.” I pause for her laugh before continuing. “Weren’t so idiotic after all. Takes a certain kind of madness to create something that stands through centuries.”
She glances up at me then, and for a heartbeat it feels like the entire vineyard sucks in all the surrounding air.
The weight of my past, our combined past, fades.
It’s just me and Maya and the echo of generations who may have had similar conversations in this same spot, albeit without the technology.
But undoubtedly, they stood here and tried to tackle issues of family, loyalty, and love.
When her fingers brush my arm again, my hand naturally follows, covering hers. Electricity arcs between us and I wonder if she feels it as well.
“Maybe,” she whispers in a voice so low, I have to lean down to hear her. “Idiocy runs in the family.”
“‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’” I murmur back.
“Quoting Shakespeare next to an ancient castle? Next thing you know, you’ll be asking me to hold a football for you and hoping I don’t pull it away.”
“I’d let you do it even if you disappointed me.”
“Why’s that?”
I lean closer until our lips are just a hairbreadth apart. “Because it’s time for me to hold on to the things I find important instead of kicking them away.”
Her eyes dilate at my words. Her lips part, even as her tongue darts out to wet them. But I take a step back.
It’s too soon.
I need her to trust me.
The silence that follows is thick enough to cut, heavy with our mingled breaths. She chokes, the faintest sound—half disappointment, half relief. I want to reach for her again, to erase the distance I just created. But it’s not the right time.
Not yet.
Instead, I shove my hands into my pockets and force a grin. “Come on. I’ll show you the west wall. It has the most remaining structure than any other part of the ruins.”
She studies me for a long beat, then she nods once, slow, deliberate.
As we walk side by side around the castle ruins, I try to rein in my shudders every time her shoulder brushes mine. I know I did the right thing.
Even though right now it feels like it’s slow torture.