Chapter 1 #2
“Charlie’s right,” Eileen confirms. “But you’re my number one priority this Christmas. I already have a short list of candidates for you, which is shorter now that Charlie crossed off two of them.”
“You’ll thank me later,” she says with a grimace. “They were serious duds. One of them is that guy who’s so terrified of Skippy he leapt into traffic and got hit by a car going five miles an hour.”
Skippy is the town dog, a sweet Saint Bernard who has as many owners as there are people in Hideaway Harbor. He sleeps wherever he wants but never lacks for a warm bed.
Eileen grimaces. “Yes, I’d forgotten about that.” Glancing at me, she says, “I’d love to see you with one of those Hawthorne brothers. There’s a fortune on the line with that massive fishery of theirs, you know.”
I make a face. “I get seasick.”
“Or one of the handsome Cafiero boys next door.” Her face lights up with the idea, but then she purses her lips. “It’s too bad Francesca is still cross with us.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I murmur.
The Cafieros run Hidden Italy, the Italian delicatessen, catering service, and gourmet grocery next door, accessible only by a curving stone stairway leading down to the Hellmouth…
or so Charlie and I like to joke. The two of us went there for lunch three times the week of my spring visit—there is no better eggplant parmesan sub in the continental United States—but our love affair with it was short-lived. We’ve been…well…banned.
There are a couple of reasons behind our ban.
For one, Francesca’s granddaughter, Aria Cafiero, dated Lars before Charlie “got her claws into him,” and even though Aria has moved on, her grandmother holds a grudge.
Especially since Aria accepted a job at a resort in Greece and now lives halfway around the world.
But I have to be totally honest: I’m the main reason we were banned.
On my first week at Love at First Sip, a gorgeous blonde woman ran into the café sobbing.
I was alone. Eileen was on a store run to pick up more oat milk, and no one else had come in, so I flipped the sign to CLOSED, made the woman a Byron, and sat down across from her.
She told me all about her problems with her boyfriend Lorenzo, who constantly prioritized work and family over her.
I patted her hand and assured her that she had every right to feel important in her own relationship.
Turns out she’d been talking about Enzo Cafiero, the Cafiero golden child and eldest son.
Apparently Enzo moved to New York City years ago to work as some kind of consultant.
But that particular weekend, right after I’d moved here, he and his girlfriend were visiting his family here in town.
According to her, he’d ignored her the whole time.
He sounded like a total jerk and a terrible boyfriend, and I let her know it.
Within an hour of her conversation with me in the café, she’d dumped him and reserved a weekend spot at The Haven.
I know this because Enzo stormed in with a red face later that day and asked who’d given his girlfriend such stupid advice.
I knew it was him because of the leading question, and also because he looked a lot like his two younger brothers—tall and broad with olive-toned skin, black hair, and thick, arching eyebrows over dark eyes surrounded by long lashes.
Charlie describes the Cafiero eyes as brooding.
Brooding eyes are her favorite to paint, even on the dogs she does portraits for.
It was not as fun to stare into a pair of brooding eyes on a six-foot-one man, especially one with a frown that instantly made me feel smaller. He was gorgeous, he obviously knew it, and he was even more intimidating because of it.
I gulped in air, choked on it, and then raised a hand like a middle schooler who knew they had the wrong answer.
He gave me a withering look and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
“No,” I lied, because anyone who asks that question should be given exactly that answer.
“I’m Lorenzo Cafiero.”
I didn’t give him the reaction he was obviously searching for; I just tilted my head slightly.
“I’m the man you screwed over. What qualifies you to give relationship advice to a stranger? You’re what, twenty-one, twenty-two?”
Honestly. I’m perfectly capable of being confrontational when the situation calls for it—I had to stand up to medical professionals while taking care of my mother—and I wasn’t about to take BS from some gorgeous alpha jerk.
“I’m twenty-eight,” I told him, standing up straighter.
“And you still haven’t answered my first question.”
“Seriously?” I said, exasperated. “Fine. Nothing qualifies me. But I’m not the one who made your ex cry, or the one who broke up with you. And the fact that you’re here complaining and not kneeling at her feet says a lot.”
He stared me down for a solid twenty seconds. And I stared back, full of anger but frozen in place, like I’d been turned into a mannequin. Then he shook his head, swore in Italian, and said, “I don’t kneel at anyone’s feet.”
The way he’d said it unnerved me, but I found myself replying, “Then we both know why she wasn’t satisfied.”
It was a dumb thing for me to say, considering how little experience I’ve had with real-life dating, but I’ve read hundreds of books, maybe thousands. I know what men do to satisfy their women, even if I’ve mostly been left cold.
Someone in the café started giggling, but Enzo darted a furious glance at them, and they stopped immediately. He shifted his gaze back to me. “I never leave a woman unsatisfied.”
The intensity of his tone, paired with that dark glower, was very…intimidating. It made my knees feel like jelly. But I stood tall and lifted my chin, saying, “Then I guess it must have been your sparkling personality she found lacking.”
Enzo glared at me for a moment, his jaw clenched. Then he just stormed off…
The next day the Cafieros posted a flyer announcing our banishment from their deli, right where we were sure to see it, on the door by the stairs leading down to Hidden Italy.
Not just a written notice either, but a flyer with actual photos of me, Charlie, and Eileen—stolen from our Facebook accounts—with big Xs printed over our faces.
People came in and asked us about it all day long, and each time, it generated a fresh wave of embarrassment.
Especially since the whole town of Hideaway Harbor is always playing a game of telephone, where stories become embellished with each telling until they only slightly resemble what actually happened.
For a whole week, that flyer stayed up. Until finally a torrential rainstorm took care of it.
I suppose it could’ve been one of the other Cafiero boys who actually took it down.
They’re big and handsome like Enzo, but they aren’t outwardly hostile.
Then again, they did allow their family’s anti-us flyer to stay up for a whole week.
That was nearly four months ago, but even now, Eileen’s offhand comment about Francesca Cafiero still being “cross” with us brings all the humiliation rushing back. Until those damn Cafieros, I’d never been banned from anywhere.
“The Cafieros are all jerks,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat with remembered embarrassment. “Hot jerks, but still jerks.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” Eileen says. “Though I haven’t forgotten that Enzo did behave abominably toward you that day.”
“Exactly. He’s not at all the kind of man I’d want to be set up with.
So let’s move on. Mom said I need a man with a soft heart.
” In addition to the magic ball, my mom also left me a heartfelt letter I’ve read at least a hundred times.
In it, she wrote that she was sorry she wouldn’t be able to make it to my wedding and listed all the qualities she thought I should look for in a man.
Charlie grins and waggles her eyebrows. “Softhearted, maybe, but not soft—”
“Very funny,” I say. “But yes, obviously.” I pause. “Look, you know how much I want a family. I’m not resistant to trying this matchmaking thing, but I don’t know how to date anymore. I’m totally out of practice.”
I dated a normal amount in high school and in my one semester of college, but for the last eight years, I focused on taking care of my mom.
I finished my undergrad math degree online and got a tutoring job that allowed me the flexibility I needed.
I still went on dates—Mom insisted on it—but it turns out telling twenty-something guys you’re a caretaker for your dying mom is a buzzkill.
I told Charlie as much back then, but she refused to see my situation as hopeless. Her solution? I should try being someone else for a night. A stunt pilot. An actress on the lam from Hollywood. Anything I wanted…
But I wanted to find a man who wanted me, and none of them did. I was too stubborn to pretend to be someone else for their benefit.
Now, I have no reason to lie about what I’m doing. I’m working here at the café and taking some programming classes to help me develop an idea I have for an app. But I’ve only gone out with four men since moving here, and they were very unremarkable.
One of the guys clearly only wanted to talk about himself, and he wasn’t interesting enough for me to tolerate it.
Another ordered dinner for me while I was in the restroom. He’d chosen poorly.
The other two had immediately disqualified themselves for future dates with their reaction to learning about my virginity on Date Number Three.
But while it’s proven to be an effective litmus test for men, I’ve kept my virginity a secret from Eileen and even Charlie.
I know they’d offer advice, and it would be excruciatingly embarrassing.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to go on dates,” Charlie says, rolling her eyes. “There’s no manual.”
“Actually, there are a million manuals about dating, and they all offer conflicting advice. That’s the problem. If there were only one manual, it would be easier to navigate.”