Chapter 6 #2
“You’re totally one of those people who researches a restaurant online, reads the menu, reads the reviews, before you ever go, aren’t you?” Oliver observed, no judgment in his tone.
Normally, Luca wouldn’t ever be uncool enough to admit it. But he nodded.
“I get it, you just want to make sure you get a good meal,” Oliver said. “You all set now?
“Yes, thank you.”
“As for your question, I went to Charleston for pastry school,” Oliver said.
“And that was great. Working in some of the big restaurants there? Little less great. The experience was worth it, but I didn’t want to stay.
I thought I would, because like you know, it can be a little claustrophobic with so many people in your business all the time, but it turns out I kinda like that people care about me. ”
“I stayed a lot closer for school,” Luca said. He hadn’t even realized how he felt about that until he’d started talking about it. “I kind of wish I had gone farther away, but my Nonna, she wasn’t doing well, and I didn’t want to be too far.”
“Family’s really important to you,” Oliver said, after Andrew had dropped off their drinks and taken their food order, with a maximum amount, Luca was sure, of winking. “I can tell.”
“Do you think he has something in his eye?” Luca asked, somewhat amazed.
“No,” Oliver laughed. “He’s just like that. If you would believe it, Enzo also tried to date Andrew.”
Luca couldn’t imagine his sullen cousin with the bright ray of sunshine and incessant winking that was Andrew. “Really?”
“To be fair to Enzo, there aren’t many queer guys in this town,” Oliver said. “But yes, he did. I think they made it two dates.”
“Ouch.” Luca hesitated. “And yes, family is important. The most important.” Usually after he said this, the guys he dated would grow colder around him. Like they realized nothing they did could ever replace the position his family held in his life.
But Oliver didn’t.
“My dad died a few years back, cancer. But my mom and I are really close, and frankly, I know so many of her friends, it feels like I’ve got about ten moms at any given time.
So I get it.” Oliver laughed a little self-consciously.
“I didn’t mean to . . .I don’t know . . .
bring the mood down. I guess I find it easier to talk about it than to not talk about it. ”
“You didn’t,” Luca said with certainty. “I’m used to men who aren’t interested in family and don’t understand that my whole life revolves around them. Around our business.”
“Of course it does.” Oliver frowned. “They don’t like that you’re a smart, responsible guy who commits, who takes care of what he loves and loves hard? That’s so weird. Honestly, I think that makes you more attractive?”
“Oh. Oh.” Luca didn’t know what to say. He took a sip of wine to try to hide his speechlessness but there was no hiding from the fact that he was.
“Sorry.” Oliver shot him a lopsided smile. “I clearly haven’t been on a date in a while.”
Luca cleared his throat. “It’s alright. It’s . . .it’s more than alright, in fact. Most people just don’t see that side of me. They see . . .”
Clearly he hadn’t been on a date—or a good date he actually gave a shit about—in way too long, if he was about to give Oliver a laundry list of all the faults people usually saw in him.
“They see someone too exacting, someone difficult and arrogant because he knows what’s best and doesn’t suffer fools. That about right?”
“If you weren’t a baker, you could’ve been a psychologist,” Luca grumbled.
“I like to think I could’ve been a lot of things, but the stomachs in this town would’ve missed me too much. So tell me more about your family’s restaurants. How many are there?”
“Four,” Luca said. “Not counting the food truck my brother and my cousin run together in Los Angeles, though they technically own that outright now, so . . .I guess it doesn’t count. And then there’s Giana’s deli, of course.”
“Food truck?” Oliver perked up. “That’s really neat. I always wonder if there would be a market here for a food truck.”
“Gabriel is . . .brilliant. Difficult. But brilliant. Knows it, of course, because he’s a Moretti.”
“Of course.” Oliver grinned.
“He was really angry with me over how the whole food truck thing went.” This was another subject he should not be broaching, but there he went anyway, because Oliver was so goddamn easy to talk to.
“Really?” Oliver’s expression turned sympathetic. “I don’t have any brothers—or sisters—so I can’t say for sure, but I think they’re kinda a blessing and a curse, yeah?”
“I have six, so you’re free to borrow a few of mine,” Luca said wryly.
“Six?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re the oldest?” Oliver sounded incredulous.
Luca nodded. “It’s really not so bad most of the time.
Unless Gabe is picking fights, which he likes to do, or Marco’s decided to be difficult on purpose.
And don’t get me started on Ilaria, who went to school and then refused to come home and then convinced Chiara to join her.
” The more he kept talking, the more it did sound bad most of the time.
“Gabe is the one who owns the food truck?”
“Yes, with our cousin Ren, and I should’ve known, the two of them in LA together . . .”
“What happened?” Amazingly, Oliver actually looked interested in this family drama.
“I tried to hold on too tight. Tried to push too hard. And then he was his usual difficult self about it. About everything.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Oliver teased.
“He paid back his loan, and he and Ren do whatever they want now. Though . . .” Luca sighed. “It’s not like that isn’t just as successful as I hoped they might be. It is. Maybe even more. But now he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“Well, okay, maybe he thinks he hates you, but only because he thought his big brother didn’t approve of what he was doing. That hurts.”
“Really, how are you so good at this?” Luca was a little mystified. Nicoletta and Matteo had been trying to talk to him about Gabriel for months and had never made as much simple sense as that.
Oliver shrugged. “I think of a baker kind of like a bartender. We have a lot of repetitive tasks and so we end up listening a lot to people’s troubles, and it turns out, I’m really pretty good at listening.”
“I can tell,” Luca said. It was one of the things, besides Oliver’s attractiveness, that had drawn him to the guy in the first place.
“I think you should call Gabe. Text him. Just let him know you’re thinking about him.” Oliver held up a hand when Luca began to protest. “No, I know you are. You wouldn’t have brought him up if you weren’t. And sometimes, you gotta be the older brother, you know? Reach out. Be the bigger person.”
Luca hadn’t reached out before, because he’d been worried Gabe might not respond, or might respond negatively, and their whole relationship might get worse. Already Nicoletta was pissed at him for Gabe leaving for Los Angeles and now essentially refusing to come home.
He didn’t need any more flack.
“I’ll think about it,” Luca said.
It didn’t feel like it had been so long since he’d actually been on a date—far, far longer since he’d been on a good one, for sure—but he never remembered conversation flowing this easily.
Usually it was stilted. Difficult. Awkward. Luca had to search for things to say. Navigate around all the things he wasn’t supposed to say.
But with Oliver, it was so easy. After Andrew dropped off the bread basket, which Oliver said he provided, so Luca didn’t bother to even prevaricate—he immediately grabbed one of the hot rolls—he knew just what he wanted to say.
“So, your mother owns the Inn I’m staying in, huh?”
Oliver nodded. “It’s been in our family for four generations.”
“But you didn’t want to run it?”
“I don’t know, someday I’m sure I will. But the bakery? It’s my first love.”
“I can tell. I could tell the moment I walked in that it was. Actually,” he corrected, “I could tell before that. The moment I tried one of your muffins at the Inn, I knew you were special.”
“Like my muffins, do you?” Oliver said with a teasing grin.
Luca couldn’t deny it; he was having an actual good time just talking to Oliver, but there was also that desire to get his hands on him, to kiss him, to feel his body pressed against his own.
“Actually, yeah,” Luca said, and he was smiling again, so much his face hurt.
But then how often did he have chances to smile back at home?
It felt like he was always dealing with a disaster with the restaurants—which . . .he supposed it was a minor miracle nothing had happened in the last few days—and it wasn’t like any of his dates ever made him smile, nevermind laugh out loud.
But Oliver did it easy as breathing.
“It’s alright.” Oliver leaned forward, the corner of his mouth quirking up like he had a particularly tasty secret. “I like yours, too.”
“You two are really too adorable for words.”
Luca was finally forced to look away from the potent heat in Oliver’s eyes by Andrew’s timely—or rather untimely—interruption.
“Sorry,” he said, completely without self-consciousness, “I thought you might want your dinner ASAP, so you can get out of here.” He winked again.
Luca might normally be really annoyed by the insinuation he could barely wait to finish eating before sex, but maybe it was a little bit true.
Only a little bit though, because he did really enjoy talking to Oliver.
“Andrew, you are absolutely incorrigible,” Oliver said but didn’t exactly look disappointed either as the waiter set their plates in front of them.
“Hey, I know you get to bed early,” Andrew teased. “Anything else I can get you? Refills? More rolls? A condom?”
“Oh my God,” Oliver cried out, his face flushed. “Please, stop.”
“Thanks, we’re good,” Luca managed to say, embarrassed despite himself.
After Andrew departed, Oliver looked over at Luca from behind a partially covered face, still red. Still adorable, frankly. “I’m so, so sorry,” he said.
And okay, yes, Andrew was embarrassing. But maybe they were the embarrassing ones, fawning all over each other, when everyone who even looked at them had to know what they really wanted to do, which was rip each other’s clothes off.
“Don’t be,” Luca said.
Maybe back in Napa, he might’ve been a little more stunned by Andrew’s comment, but honestly, that never would have happened in any of the restaurants he frequented with his dates.
Hadn’t he smiled more tonight than he had in forever?
He could chalk almost all of that up to Oliver being amazing, but some of it was the more relaxed atmosphere.
The lack of pressure. He wasn’t auditioning someone to be his husband, or long-term partner, even, or to help him lead the Nonna’s empire.
No, he was just spending the evening with someone because he wanted to.
Not because it was expected of him, or because he genuinely expected it to go anywhere.
He was doing it because Oliver was too compelling a person to not spend time with.
“Really, you’re not mad?” He waved around. “This must not be like any other date you’ve been on.”
“No, no, it hasn’t been.” Luca had to be honest. “But I like it better because it’s different. And because it’s you.”
Oliver flushed again. “Stop sweet-talking me; you already know I’m a sure bet.”
Luca raised an eyebrow. “You are?”
“Well, not a sure sure bet, but um . . .”
“How about this? Let’s enjoy our dinner, and see what happens after?” Luca asked.
Oliver nodded. “I like the sound of that.”