18. Casey #2
It makes it easier to say the next part.
“It’s not always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just background noise.
Sometimes it’s exhaustion, nausea, pain—all the fun things no one puts on motivational posters.
” I glance at him. “And sometimes it knocks me flat for a couple of days, which is inconvenient when you’re trying to convince everyone you’re low-maintenance. ”
His gaze stays on mine for a second longer than usual. “You don’t have to make yourself smaller to make other people comfortable.”
The words catch me off guard enough that I let out a quiet laugh. “That sounded suspiciously wise, and actually very sweet.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he says dryly.
“Your secret is safe with me, Adi.”
“I know, Tesoro.”
He watches me for another second, and there’s something in his expression that makes my amusement soften before I can stop it. I can’t even think what him calling me Tesoro does to me.
“I don’t like that you’re used to hiding it,” he says.
My throat tightens in a way that catches me off guard, so I look at the fire. “It’s easier.”
“For who?”
The question is quiet, but it hits the mark.
I don’t answer straight away because the truth is too obvious and too uncomfortable. “For everyone,” I say eventually.
His silence feels like disagreement.
Not loud. Not performative.
Just there.
I clear my throat and push myself up before the conversation can get any heavier. “Have you eaten?”
His eyebrows lift slightly. “You’re changing the subject.”
“Yes. Skillfully.”
“No.”
“No, I’m not changing the subject, or no, you haven’t eaten?”
“The second.”
“Adriano, you need to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“Oh, look at that,” I say, glancing back at him as I head toward the kitchen. “He uses the line he hates hearing from me.”
That earns me something close to a real smile.
It’s quick, but I see it, and it makes my stomach flip over. God, he’s handsome.
“I’m making grilled cheese,” I announce, because apparently avoiding any form of vulnerability means sprinting directly toward dairy and carbs.
He stands immediately. “You’re sitting down.”
“I’m not an invalid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You heavily implied it.”
“I implied you’re recovering.”
“I can make a sandwich.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“Then why are you following me?”
“To make it for you.”
I stop at the kitchen island and turn to face him. “Do you even know how to make grilled cheese?”
This time, he actually laughs.
Not loudly, but enough that it changes his whole face for a second, softening the stern mouth, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes.
It’s deeply unfair how much this man affects me.
“I can make grilled cheese,” he says.
“You say that with so much confidence, like a man who doesn’t own several Michelin-starred restaurants and has never personally buttered bread.”
“I’ve buttered bread.”
“I’m not convinced.”
He moves past me, opening the refrigerator like he knows exactly where everything is, because of course he does. “Sit down before I change my mind and make you soup.”
“That’s not the threat you think it is. I like soup.”
“Yes, I remember.”
I sit, mostly because my body chooses that moment to remind me I’m not as recovered as my pride would like to believe, and also because there’s something secretly wonderful about watching Adriano Mancini roll up his sleeves to make me grilled cheese in a luxury ski lodge on New Year’s Eve.
He sets bread, butter, and cheese on the counter with more seriousness than the task requires.
“You’re very intense for a man making a sandwich.”
Adi grins at me, his eyes twinkling. “The sandwich deserves respect. Grilled cheese is seriously underrated.”
I bite my lip to stop smiling. “You should smile more.”
His hands pause for half a second on the butter knife. “I haven’t had much time or reason beyond Letty,” he says.
The answer is simple, but it takes some of the teasing out of me.
I watch him spread butter carefully to the edges of the bread, his movements sure, domestic in a way I wouldn’t have imagined from him a month ago.
He looks too expensive for it, too composed, but somehow that makes it better.
I’m nurturing a serious obsession with his forearms when he speaks again.
“My mom used to make these when I was sick,” he says after a moment, placing the first slice into the pan.
The butter hits the heat with a soft hiss, and the smell immediately fills the kitchen, warm and salty and ridiculous in how comforting it is.
“Grilled cheese. Tomato soup. Ginger tea if she thought we were pretending.”
“You pretended to be sick?”
“Matteo did.”
“Of course he did.”
“He was terrible at it.”
“Also unsurprising.”
His mouth curves faintly as he adds the cheese. “She always knew. Fussed over him anyway.”
“She sounds lovely.”
“She was.”
There’s no hesitation in the answer, just warmth and love. “And your dad?” I ask carefully. I know the loss of their dad is fresh, only losing him a little over a year ago.
He flips the sandwich with neat precision, the bread golden already. “He was quieter. Less demonstrative. But my mother only had to look at him, and he’d do whatever she wanted. He adored her.”
I smile at that. “That sounds familiar: the women in the Mancini family having the men wrapped around their little fingers.”
He glances at me. “Careful, that could be considered slander.”
“I said nothing that wasn’t true.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately, you might be right.”
He says it with a wide smile on his face.
“I often am.”
“I’ve noticed.”
The sandwich sizzles between us, and for a minute, the only sounds are the fire in the next room, the faint noise of distant fireworks outside, and the quiet scrape of the spatula against the pan.
“They were very much in love,” he says eventually, softer now. “My parents. Not loudly, not theatrically. But you felt it in the house. In the way they moved around each other, the soft looks, the respect, the affection.”
I rest my chin lightly in my hand, watching him more than the food now. “That’s rare.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is that what you want for Letty?”
His gaze stays on the pan, but his expression changes. Not closing down exactly. More like something inside him turns toward his daughter even though she isn’t in the room.
“I want her to feel safe enough to expect it,” he says. “Not to settle because she doesn’t know what love is supposed to look like.”
Oh. My. Heart.
I swallow.
There are moments when he says things like that, calm and matter-of-fact, and it becomes impossible to keep pretending he’s only the terrifying man in expensive suits who issues instructions like the world is built to follow them. To remember he’s my boss.
“You’re an amazing dad,” I say.
He looks at me then.
Really looks.
“I’m trying.”
“You’re doing more than trying.” My voice comes out softer than I meant it to, but I don’t take it back. “She’s happy. She’s secure. She’s wild in the way kids are when they know someone will catch them.”
His expression stills. “Thank you,” he says.
It’s quiet, but those two words are heartfelt.
I nod, because if I say anything else, I might make it too much.
He plates the sandwich, cuts it diagonally without asking, and slides it in front of me.
“Correct,” I say.
He frowns. “What?”
“Diagonal cut. Good choice.”
“That was never in question. Food always tastes better cut on the diagonal.”
I take a bite, and because I’m apparently very easy to please when recovering from hormonal warfare, I close my eyes for a second. “Okay. Fine. You can make good grilled cheese.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
I laugh, and for a moment it’s easy.
Too easy.
Which is probably why I ruin it. “What about Letty’s mom?” I ask quietly.
The change in him is immediate.
The tiny pause, the way his hand stills near his glass, the careful closing of a mental door I didn’t mean to shove open.
Regret moves through me fast. “I’m sorry,” I say, already pushing back slightly from the island. “That was too personal. Ignore me. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll just take this to my room.”
“Don’t go.”
I stop.
His voice isn’t sharp. It’s low. Firm. Tired in a way I haven’t heard from him before.
He looks toward the living room, then back at me. “Bring your plate.”
I don’t know why that feels like a choice he’s offering instead of an order, but it does.
So I pick up the plate and follow him back to the couch, feeling all sorts of dumb for putting my foot in my mouth.
The fire has burned lower, and the room is quieter than before. Outside, somewhere down the mountain, people cheer at something I can’t see. The world continues, but here in this bubble, everything feels loaded now.
He sits beside me, not too close, but close enough that I can feel the heat from him under the warmth from the fire.
“I don’t talk about her often,” he says after a while.
“You don’t have to explain. I had no right to ask.”
“I know. I want to explain.”
He looks at the fire instead of me, as if he’s watching the past through a lens only he sees. “We met in college. She was smart. Funny when she wanted to be. Stubborn, beautiful.” His mouth moves, not quite a smile. “We were young, and she got pregnant. Marriage seemed like the right thing to do.”
I listen without interrupting.
“I loved her,” he says, and there’s no hesitation there either. “But I wasn’t in love with her. Not in the way she deserved. Not in the way my parents had taught me to recognize.”
There’s something unbearably sad about the honesty of that.
“We were going to separate,” he continues. “Quietly, if we could manage it. We hadn’t told many people.”
My chest tightens.
“Then the accident happened, and she was gone in the blink of an eye.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
His jaw tightens slightly, and he reaches for his glass, though he doesn’t drink. “People assume grief is clean because death gives it shape. It isn’t.”
“No,” I say softly. “It’s not.”
He glances at me then, and for a second, I think he might say more, but he doesn’t.