Chapter 6 That WTF Moment
Chapter 6
that wtf moment
Summer blinked up at the clock over the fireplace and rubbed her eyes. It was nearly noon. Her twenty-minute nap had turned into a three-hour marathon.
She could hear muffled voices in the distance. It sounded like her auntie and mom arguing about how to properly pinch the gnocchi dough so that the potato dumplings were fluffy. She could also hear Buttercup snoring at her feet.
“Time to get up and take a walk,” she said, but Buttercup didn’t move. “I know you’re faking.” When Buttercup merely squeezed her eyes tighter, Summer said, “I think Nonna has some bacon in the fridge.”
Like a bull out of the pen, Buttercup was off the couch and halfway to the kitchen before her feet touched the floor.
Summer sat up and rolled the kinks out of her neck. After a heavy breakfast of bacon and cheese frittatas, homemade shortbread with a jam shop’s supply of options, and espresso, she had succumbed to a food coma. Thanks to her inconsiderate neighbor, even the power of two espressos couldn’t combat the sheer exhaustion from too many sleepless nights. But she wasn’t going to waste another second of her vacation thinking about Wes Kingston and his empire, not when there was a beach chair and rolling waves calling her name.
With a yawn, she stood and shuffled to the kitchen.
“There’s my summer breeze,” her mom said.
Even with an apron on, Blanche Russo looked fashionable in a pair of white linen palazzo pants and a navy-and-white striped shirt. Her hair was pinned up, her makeup was flawless, and her face was warm with love. Blanche might be sixty-eight, but she didn’t look a day over fifty.
“How was the nap?” Aunt Cecilia asked.
After four decades of being married to the Russo brothers, Aunt Cecilia and Blanche acted more like sisters than in-laws. They were competitive, gossip hounds, and pranksters. One year both families had rented separate houseboats on the Connecticut River. On day two an argument had ensued over whose pesto was superior. Blanche had secretly swapped out the olive oil in Cecilia’s houseboat for canola, and Cecilia had retaliated by hiding two trout in Mom’s cupboard. It took three days to find where the stench was coming from.
“I didn’t mean to sleep so long. You should have woken me.” Summer didn’t hesitate, just walked over to the cutting board and began rolling out the dough. The three women fell into an easy rhythm, but something still felt off.
“Did Autumn mention when she was supposed to arrive?” Summer tried to hide the hurt in her voice over her sister deciding to drive herself. In all the time they’d come to Mystic they’d never driven separately.
“She’s arrived,” came a singsong voice that was exactly like Summer’s but somehow sultry.
Two arms came around Summer’s waist and her sister planted her cheek between Summer’s shoulder blades. And just like that, her chest which had been slowly seeping air for the past month filled back up.
She turned in her sister’s arms and hugged her fiercely, and a bottomless peace and contentment swept through her. While Frank might hold the title of Best Russo Hugger, nothing beat the feeling of being with her twin.
“What did I miss?” Autumn asked, hoisting herself up on the counter.
Today she was dressed casual-chic, in an off-the-shoulder, sage green sundress paired with strappy heels and sunglasses on top of her head. Her golden, glossy hair was longer than Summer’s and her skin was the perfect balance of matte and dewy. She looked like she was heading off to a photo shoot.
Summer, on the other hand, looked like she’d just woken up from sleeping on the couch. Her hair was sticking out of its ponytail holder, her bottoms were pajamas, and she was pretty sure she had a little drool dried in the corner of her mouth.
“That your aunt didn’t knead the dough enough,” Mom said.
“Too much and it’s tough, too little and it won’t hold together. It was the right amount of pressure. You just wait and see.” Cecilia tapped her forehead, leaving behind a light dusting of flour. “I have a feeling about these things. It’s my—”
“Third eye,” everyone said in unison.
Aunt Cecilia had spent thirty years running her own homemade pasta company and a lifetime telling people she could see the future. Blanche called it intuition. Cecilia called it “The Sight.” When Summer was young, she used to believe that her aunt could see the future—and sometimes, when she was feeling wistful, she still did.
“What do you see in Summer’s future?” Autumn asked, and Cecilia closed her eyes and began to hum. “A man. A good Italian man. Maybe a tall, dark, and sexy suit.”
The last thing Summer needed was another stuffed suit in her life. “Hard pass. Maybe a firefighter or a paratrooper.”
“Firefighters are too clichéd for you and paratroopers are notorious for having bad knees,” Autumn said. “You don’t want some guy hobbling behind you your whole life. You need someone sophisticated and steady, who is passionate.”
“Have you been talking to Cleo?”
“My guides are telling me that your sister is right,” Cecilia said. “He’s not what you expect but he’s more than he appears. And he’s right around the corner.”
Autumn pinched off a piece of dough and Summer smacked her hands.
“Ow!”
“These are for dinner.”
“Your sister’s right,” Mom said. “If you want something to eat there’s leftover spaghetti in the fridge.”
“Tattletale,” Autumn whispered, then suddenly her eyes went wide. “I have a surprise for you.”
Summer’s heart bubbled up with delight and she clapped her hands with excitement. She loved surprises. The anticipation, the not knowing, the unexpectedness of it all. Surprises were like sitting down with a new book where the buildup ended with a satisfying and heartwarming conclusion.
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you. I have to show you.” Autumn hopped off the counter and looped her arm through Summer’s, and led her to the front door and out onto the porch just as a car parked. “I brought him all the way back from Europe.”
“Him?” Summer asked, squinting to see through the front window of the very expensive Aston Martin. “You’ve never brought a ‘him’ home before. Especially not to our family vacation, where your last name has to be Russo to get an invite.”
Autumn bounced on her toes, her smile so bright it warmed the entire space. “He’s special. Wait till you meet him.”
Before Summer could ask who “him” was, her sister was bounding down the wood-flanked stairs and tossing herself into the arms of a hot guy. Not Summer’s kind of hot, more of a thirst-trap, frat-bro kind of hot. But the smile on Autumn’s face said everything Summer needed to know.
She was in love.
Which made not one iota of sense. Summer was the one who wanted marriage and forever. Autumn was the queen of the four-week fling.
After a long and inappropriate show of PDA, Autumn took the guy by the hand and guided him up to the porch. “Summer, this is Randy. Randy, this is the best sister in the whole world.”
Summer stuck out her hand but Randy pulled her in for a big hug, really getting in there with the back pats and twisting side to side. Finally, he pulled away. “Cool to meet you, Best Sister in the World.”
“Ditto,” Summer said, a bit overwhelmed that Autumn was in love with a guy Summer knew nothing about. They shared everything, even their cycles. Why would Autumn keep something so big as a “him” from her this long?
“And here’s the best part,” Autumn whispered to Summer. “He comes with a sexy plus-one.”
Summer watched in awe as the driver’s-side door opened and out folded a fine specimen of a man. He wasn’t just tall, he towered. Then there were those broad shoulders and the dark hair that was perfectly styled. His jeans clung to his thighs, a button-up that was rolled at the sleeves was in a losing battle with his biceps, and he had—
Summer’s phone pinged in her pocket with a RoChance match.
“Bollocks,” said the man with the coldest blue eyes Summer had ever seen.
“You!” she said to her nemesis, who was grinning like Napoleon right before he conquered Italy.
“Hey, Summer,” Wes Kingston said. “I guess your sister and my brother are both big Taylor Swift fans. Small world, huh?”