Chapter 6 #3
“Damn, Doug, why don’t you . . .” Emily starts before catching herself.
She snuggles in to Doug, moaning as though she’s the good kind of sore.
“Give me a few minutes’ warning before you come after me that hard again, okay?
You know, so I can hydrate and stretch out before you bend me up like a pretzel. ”
Doug’s confused look tells me all I need to know about that part of their relationship, but Emily is saved from trying to cover for their obvious correction by the waitress coming over.
“If I may order a bottle for the table?” Lorenzo asks politely.
Doug holds out his hands wide and jokes, “As long as you’re paying for it.”
Emily grits her teeth.
Lorenzo has a quick conversation with the waitress and then turns back to me. “I selected a rose champagne, something light and bubbly to celebrate our recent vows, mia rosa.”
“Perfect,” I agree.
Doug interjects, “So, Lorenzo, why do you call Abi mia rosa? I mean, she’s the one into flowers, right?”
“Rosa also means pink. And Abi’s skin is the most beautiful, delicious shade of pink.” Lorenzo looks deep into my eyes and suddenly squeezes my thigh, hard. I gasp and jump in surprise, and he lifts a brow, that sexy smirk returning to his face.
“Pink?” Emily asks, confused. “I always thought her face was, I don’t know, a little pale.”
“I wasn’t talking about her face,” Lorenzo says, his meaning hanging in the air until Emily’s eyes go wide as she gets it.
“Oh . . . ohh,” Doug adds, actually amused. “I guess, well, makes sense then, doesn’t it?”
Damn, Lorenzo’s good at this. At driving me crazy and rubbing Emily’s nose in this mythical, magical marriage.
I jump in, worried we might be taking this too far.
The last thing I need is Emily running home and telling the country club debutantes that I’m into whips and chains.
Despite every woman from coast to coast singing along with Rihanna that they excite them, the truth is, our sweater-set types would judge me harshly at the reality of that.
“Tell me how you two met,” I say to Emily, giving her the floor. I know she likes to be center-stage, the object of attention, so it’s an easy maneuver.
“Oh, it was the sweetest thing ever,” Emily says romantically, looking at Doug with stars in her eyes. “We were at school—Stanford, you know—and we were both part of the same groups. Sorority, fraternity, Young Politicians, Entrepreneur Club, things like that.”
The only thing Emily Jones would be doing at a political or entrepreneur club meeting is looking for her M-R-S Degree. Seems like she found it too.
“We just hit it off,” Doug adds. “It took me a while to be ready for such a big step, especially with a girl as amazing as Emily. I wanted to be sure I was worth her,” he says, absently touching her engagement ring which is more telling than his words, “and when we said ‘I do’, it was the happiest day of my life.” He smiles at Emily sweetly but then ruins the whole moment by turning to Lorenzo and bro-joking, “Until I make CEO. You know how it is.” His chuckle falls flat, no one else laughing along with him.
Doug clears his throat awkwardly. “Uh, how about you two?”
Lorenzo smiles, letting me tell the story.
“We met at a wedding, of all places,” I start.
Emily quickly interrupts, asking Lorenzo, “Were you the caterer?”
It’s a small dig, and Lorenzo lets it roll off his back without so much as a flinch. “No, I was a guest of my cousin, Violet.”
I can see Emily’s mind putting pieces together, so I intercept her foregone conclusions.
“You see, Lorenzo had just moved to the area when Courtney and Kaede were getting married. Violet invited him to introduce him to our group, and when we started talking, it was just right.” I sigh happily, staring into Lorenzo’s eyes, and he picks up the story.
“There is an old folktale in my home of Positano. It tells that God made the heavens and Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. But sometime, while he rested, one of his angels visited the new creation, leaving behind a small trail of her beauty. And every once in a great while, that beauty takes human form in a very special woman. One of grace, purity, with the kindest heart and the sweetest soul. I was fortunate to find such a creature and make her my bride.”
Holy . . . I want this to be real. I want him to say that to me, to be truthful and honest about it, and to take my heart the way his words are asking. Because that . . . he is an artist. He is a poet. He is everything.
Silence reigns around the table, and even Emily can’t really argue with the passion in Lorenzo’s voice or the beauty of his words. Finally, Doug picks up his glass and tosses back the rest of his drink, setting the champagne glass down.
“Damn, if you ever want to stop cooking, you’d make a killing writing song lyrics or Shakespeare or something like that,” Doug says with as much honest admiration for another man as he can muster. “You’re Catholic, right? Are you going to have to go to confession for that much bullshit?”
It’s just the right amount of humor to break the tension, and Lorenzo leans back, laughing lightly. “Trust me, Abigail is worth any penance. And I’ve paid a few already. For all her angelic soul, she has a bit of the devil in her as well.”
I shiver at the way he sees me, feeling exposed and vulnerable. Not just because we’ve shared so much today, way more information than you usually dump on someone mere hours after a first real conversation, but because he seems to have taken all that insight and found something even deeper. In me.
Our food comes, pausing the verbal jousting as we dig into the food. It’s delicious, though I’m not sure what anything is. Lorenzo simply told the waitress that we would prefer a chef sampling.
“Here, try this,” Lorenzo says, holding up a flat yellow chip that’s covered in tiny diced squares of white, orange, and green. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”
I take a bite, the flavor exploding in my mouth. It’s fresh, bright, and tangy with a hint of salt . . . “Oh ma gawd,” I exclaim around the mouthful of food. “Wat is that? Isso gud!”
My moan has Emily fuming again, looking up from her braised white fish like she wants to scratch my eyes out.
I can’t help but laugh—on the inside, of course.
She either ordered to ‘keep her figure’ or because she’s too afraid to try new things, but the chef is sending us dishes that are symphonies of flavor.
In other words . . . who’s awesome? I’m awesome! And Lorenzo’s awesome!
And really, this chef is awesome.
Admittedly, it feels good to be the winner in this little reignited battle for once.
It’s childish, I know, but they say the best revenge is a life well lived, and that’s exactly what I’m showing Emily.
That her put-downs and judgements didn’t keep me down and my life is just fine, thank you very much.
“If you like the lobster pan bati, just wait until dessert, mia rosa,” Lorenzo purrs in my ear, too low for Emily to hear.
He looks me in the eye and leans in, and before I know it, we’re kissing. It’s not a deep, soulful kiss but not a polite peck on the lips, either. He kisses me in a way that makes me think he really does want me. Or that he’s as good at acting as he is cooking.
“Ahem,” Emily says when our kiss goes on too long for her liking. “So, tell me about your wedding, Abi. Like I said, I haven’t heard a thing about it and I’m dying for all the deets.”
The insult is wrapped up in the request, that my wedding was either so small or so awful that word hasn’t even traveled through our social circle. The truth is, it hasn’t because it never happened. But I can’t let her discover that.
“It was quick, just a couple of short months after Courtney’s. And with all the hoopla surrounding that,” I say, acknowledging the craziness and gossip my brother and sister had to deal with for their weddings, “I didn’t want the big to-do. I’m just not flashy like that.”
Emily snorts, the sound quite unladylike, but then she pats her lips with her napkin daintily to cover the faux pas.
“We just snuck away and got married,” I say.
Her eyes narrow, and I realize the opening I’ve given her a moment too late.
“You eloped?” I inhale slowly and nod. “Oh, you poor thing,” she says, an evil gleam in her eye.
“A girl dreams of her wedding day her whole life. The dress, the flowers, the cake, walking down the aisle. And you missed out on it all, poor thing. What’s the saying?
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. You’re like the wedding florist with no bouquet. ”
She’s crossed a line. Not so much with her words—she’s said way worse to me before—but her tone is so falsely pitying.
We all hear it, feel it, and the tension at the table amps up.
“Babe, not everyone wants all that. And the most important part of the whole day is the bride and groom. Everything else is just gravy, right?” Doug takes Emily’s hand and I truly feel for him.
He’s here to have a honeymoon with his bride, not get into some dick-measuring contest with Lorenzo or a melee with his wife and a flash from her past.
His tone snaps at Emily, whose face pinches. She’s never been the type to take someone clapping back at her lightly, especially if she’s basically being told to shut the fuck up. Even if it’s done politely.
But she knows she needs Doug on her side. He is her husband, and whatever sort of little game she’s playing with me now, he’s going to be the one she has to go home with.
Across the table, Emily glares at me, the insults coming through loud and clear in our silent conversation.
I know what you’re doing, Emily.
Doesn’t matter. You can’t stop me. And you know it.
Bring it on. This is my man, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
A-bitch-gail Andrews.
That’s what she always called me, and I can hear it as if she said it aloud.
Suddenly, a movement catches my eyes off to the side of the booth. I look closer and blanch.