Chapter 9 #2
Luca’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, glancing at the screen.
Hoping the text was from his father, but it wasn’t.
It was from Chiara, who’d clearly just sat down and looked at the photos he’d sent earlier.
Needs work, she said, but we can spruce it up.
And then a second message came through immediately after: Who created that incredible menu board?
Luca texted back: Shockingly, your cousin Enzo.
When he slipped his phone back into his pocket, Oliver was occupied brushing mustard on the rectangles of pastry.
“Sorry,” Luca said, belatedly realizing maybe he shouldn’t have been rude and looked at his phone. But what if it had been Matteo? Finally telling him what the heck was going on back home?
If anything was going on at all?
But Oliver just waved off his apology with the pastry brush. “No big deal,” he said. “I get it. Everything okay?”
He considered saying yes, everything’s fine. With anyone else, he probably would’ve. But instead, Luca discovered he wanted to tell Oliver about his worry. Because Oliver would understand? Or was it more than that?
“No,” he said slowly. “Or yes. Maybe? I don’t know. That’s the problem. I left four days ago, and in my experience, things go wrong like clockwork and four days is the longest I can imagine without an emergency of some kind.”
“You think they’re not telling you?” Oliver glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow. “But don’t you have your hands full here with Giana and Enzo? They know what you’re doing here in Indigo Bay.”
For a split second, Luca almost regretted saying anything at all. Oliver didn’t understand after all. Didn’t he know that only Luca could satisfactorily handle problems?
Of course he didn’t. He didn’t know how the Moretti clan routinely ran around clucking like chickens with their heads lopped off.
“But,” Oliver continued in a casual tone, like Luca wasn’t currently swamped with doubt and regret, “I get it. I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, because I don’t trust anyone to handle things the way I would handle things at the bakery.
Especially if something went wrong. So, like I said, I get it.
” He paused. “Anything in particular freak you out or is it just how long you’ve been gone? ”
Luca let out a breath. He hadn’t realized how much it mattered that Oliver understood, until he had.
“I talked to my sister Chiara this morning. She’s got a knack for design, and I’m trying to get her to put together a plan to spruce up the deli.
She remembered I was here, and then said, oh, that makes sense.
That was weird on its own, but after that, she totally clammed up when I asked her about it. ”
“So it could be nothing,” Oliver pointed out. “Surely if there was something really bad, your father would’ve messaged you.”
“Or my brother Marco. He runs the high-end steakhouse, and when I’m not around, though it’s not like that happens all that often, he and my father handle things.”
“So, they’re handling things now, then,” Oliver said. It sounded so fucking reasonable, so why couldn’t Luca believe it?
“Except my father ignored my text, and Marco sent me a total garbage response.”
Luca didn’t miss the glimmer of a smile playing on Oliver’s lips. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a bit paranoid?”
Had they?
Absolutely. They usually weren’t quite so nice about it, or quite as charming when they said it. Luca shouldn’t be surprised Oliver had thought it though, no matter how kindly he’d said it. Because he was paranoid.
What if Carlos had had another drunken meltdown over his girlfriend? What if, even worse, he’d quit?
What if the wine delivery didn’t come in?
What if they ran out of tomatoes? Or mozzarella? Or chicken?
What if, what if, what if . . .
Luca knew imagining all the things that could go wrong was a quick path to insanity. Yet he was doing it anyway.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “I’ve definitely heard that before.”
But Oliver’s expression, as he settled the sausages into their nests of mustard and caramelized onions, was free of judgment.
“This is good for you, then,” Oliver said. “Being here, in Indigo Bay, and letting them handle things.”
“But—”
Oliver finished crimping the edges of his pastry and picked up the tray with flour-covered hands. Slid it into one of the free oven bays. “Listen,” he said, his tone suddenly full of steel, “either they can handle it or they can’t. You can’t always be there, for every single thing.”
“But—” Luca tried to interrupt him again, but Oliver wouldn’t let him.
Stopped right in front of him and without bothering to wipe his hands, placed them right on his shoulders, no doubt dusting them liberally with flour.
But Luca wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about Oliver’s sweet lips and his floppy hair and the gentle toughness in his hazel eyes.
The way he’d kissed him back.
The desperate pleas he’d made as Luca had coaxed him toward orgasm.
“No.” Oliver stopped him again, before he could keep arguing. “You can’t.”
Then he reached up, and they were kissing again.
Oliver smelled sweet, but a different kind of sweet. The scent of the caramelized onions and the sausages clung to him, and it should’ve been a turnoff. Just like the flour all over his suit.
But Luca lost himself in it the moment their lips touched.
Oliver made a little questioning groan in the back of his throat as his mouth opened underneath Luca’s, and Luca ground his hardening cock against his thigh before he could stop himself.
Before he could stop himself seemed to be an occurrence that happened a lot around Oliver.
“Oh shit,” a voice echoed behind them, and suddenly Luca’s arms were empty again.
It was that red-haired lady. Marjorie, was that her name? She was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, holding a plate.
Oh, his scone.
He took the plate from her and tried not to blush the same bright red as her hair as she shot him a knowing look.
Oliver had retreated to the other side of the kitchen, pretending to check something at the oven.
At least they’d only been kissing? Okay, they’d also been half a minute away from humping each other helplessly, maybe, but Luca believed—he had to believe—that both of them would’ve realized and stopped before anything questionable happened in the middle of Oliver’s bakery.
“You enjoy that . . .scone,” Marjorie said with a wink and a grin, before she disappeared through the door toward the front.
Luca broke off a piece of scone and popped it in his mouth. Couldn’t help the moan that escaped him as he tasted the richness on his tongue.
“Good, huh?” Oliver was back. He still looked flushed, but whether that was from embarrassment or arousal, it was hard to say.
Embarrassment, Luca insisted to himself, because if he thought about Oliver’s milky pale skin naked and flushed with pleasure, he was going to lose even his vaunted self-control all over again.
“My mom makes the best scones in town,” Oliver said. He reached in and took a piece, too, savoring it as he chewed. “Though these are pretty good.”
“Marjorie said yours are better,” Luca said. Everything you make is better.
But Oliver just laughed. “She would, though Joy would kill her if she heard that.”
“That’s exactly what Marjorie said.”
“Trusting you with town secrets? Marjorie must like you,” Oliver said. Luca had an inkling from the look in Oliver’s eyes that she wasn’t the only one.
“Still?”
Oliver shrugged, and there was that same flush, coming back. He reached up and brushed the flour off his shoulders. “Sorry, I made a mess out of you.”
“In more ways than one,” Luca teased.
Oliver’s hazel eyes were luminous, even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the kitchen as he gazed up at him.
“What are you doing tonight?” Luca asked, before he could stop himself.
There it was again. Before he could stop himself.
“Well, I was sorta hoping you might be free,” Oliver said.
“There’s no kitchen at the Inn, but I was thinking . . .” Luca shoved the part of his brain that kept yelling how he didn’t do this, not for anyone, not ever before. “Hoping, actually, that I could cook you a meal.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “You want to make me dinner?”
That sounds serious, the unspoken end of that sentence, echoed between them. Maybe it wouldn’t be with anyone else, but they both cared so deeply about food. It was an intrinsic part of their lives. Oliver must know Luca didn’t cook for just anyone. But Luca didn’t look away, didn’t flinch.
It is, he wanted to say in silent response, but he didn’t.
Because that would be totally crazy, and he was Luca Moretti. He didn’t do crazy things. He was steadfast and certain and cautious, more than anything else.
“Yes,” Luca finally said. “Yes, I do.”
“I suppose I could always invite you over to my place,” Oliver said.
Luca had a sudden and terrible feeling he’d overstepped. “But of course, you don’t have to do that, not unless you want to,” he said quickly.
“But I do,” Oliver promised, and he was smiling again, reaching up and patting Luca’s cheek.
No doubt getting flour all over him again.
Luca, who normally hated mess, discovered his feelings about it greatly depended on who was making the mess.
“You wanna come over tonight? Cook me dinner? Seduce me in my kitchen?”
“All of the above, yes,” Luca said.
“Now that important thing is settled . . .” Oliver hesitated. “Did you want to talk about the bread order?”
“Oh, yes, we should.” Luca, who never found himself getting distracted from business, discovered he’d completely forgotten about his supposed purpose in coming to the bakery.
That’s because it was never really why you came.
The truth made Luca squirm as Oliver walked over to a small room tucked away from the kitchen and grabbed a clipboard. He was flipping through some pages when Luca leaned over and read some of the notations.
“You’re still using paper?”