Chapter 11
Luca waited three days and four more unanswered texts to his father before he finally broke down and called Gabriel.
“What?” his brother barked into the phone, like he hadn’t wanted to answer, had felt obligated to, and now wanted to exact his revenge, one annoyed word at a time, on Luca for making him feel too guilty to click decline. “I’m busy.”
“Aren’t we all?” Luca retorted.
“Well, it must be important,” Gabe said, “or you wouldn’t be calling me.”
That was true.
Though he’d texted him the other day, just because he wanted to, and Gabriel hadn’t responded then, either.
It stung. It shouldn’t, because Luca had a pretty good idea of why his brother never wanted to talk to him, but that didn’t make it ache any less.
“Have you talked to Dad recently?” Luca asked, tamping down his own temper, his own hurt feelings.
They’d only make things worse, and as much as they both disliked it, he needed Gabe right now.
He’d even considered the timing of his call, waiting until it was after five here in Indigo Bay, when the lunch rush at the food truck would’ve passed.
Oliver was at a festival meeting so he was on his own tonight, and he’d grabbed a salad from the corner store and poured himself a glass of wine while opening his laptop.
He was not missing Oliver. He absolutely was not. They’d just spent a lot of time together in the last few days, that was all.
“Haven’t you?” Gabe retorted. “Aren’t you there, in his pocket—or maybe he’s in yours?—all the goddamn time?”
“No,” Luca said shortly.
“No?”
“I’m not in California, you idiot,” Luca said. “Didn’t anyone tell you? I went to help Giana. I’ve been here for over a week, and nobody is telling me a fucking thing.”
Gabe was silent for a long moment.
“I didn’t know, actually,” he said. He sounded like he regretted that. Or maybe that was just residual guilt.
That was the thing about being a Moretti. They certainly never lacked guilt; there was always extra to go around.
“How is it?” Gabriel asked, his sentence rushed like as soon as he started saying it, he’d regretted it.
“Indigo Bay? Small. Quiet.”
“I meant the deli,” Gabe said in a wry voice. “And Giana.”
“A mess, and argumentative,” Luca admitted. And like the word vomit was contagious, he kept going. “I’m really fucking grateful I never had to come down to LA and fix you.”
“Like you’d ever need to,” Gabe scoffed.
“Exactly,” Luca said with finality.
Gabe was quiet again for a very long moment. For so long, Luca almost asked him if he was still there.
“We’re both Morettis, aren’t we? Ren and I?”
“And how is our darling cousin Lorenzo?”
“Glaring at me, though I think that’s more you by proxy.”
“Lovely,” Luca said dryly. “I miss him a lot too.”
Gabe cleared his throat. “Do you want me to call him? Dad, that is?”
“If you have the time . . .” Luca trailed off, like this hadn’t been exactly the reason he’d reached out in the first place.
But had it been?
Or had he just wanted to hear his little brother’s voice again? Without him being angry or yelling or arguing with him?
I’m sorry, I fucked it all up.
He wasn’t insane enough to say that, but he hoped it was there, unspoken between everything he’d actually said out loud.
“I think I can find the time,” Gabe said.
“Good.”
Silence fell between them again.
It was time to hang up, before things got really awkward, but crashing into Oliver had changed things already. Changed him already. Luca could feel it. Could feel himself trying to be different, even if he wasn’t quite sure he could get there.
But damnit, he was going to try anyway.
“Everything good there? How’s . . .uh . . .Sean, was it?” Luca stuttered over his name, hoping he’d gotten his brother’s boyfriend’s name right. Gabe would be pissed if he didn’t.
“He’s good, we’re good,” Gabe said, sounding surprised.
Thank God, I got it right.
“We hired some more part-timers at the truck,” Gabe said. “We’ve been busier than ever, so it made sense since we’re just now getting ready for the spring and summer here. It’ll be a crazy season, for sure.”
Luca took a long sip of wine. Discovered he was actually enjoying himself and there wasn’t a single ounce of guilt to be found.
“I’m really glad,” Luca said, and meant it.
“When are you gonna be back?” Gabe asked casually.
“Oh, not for another two weeks at least. There’s this big festival thing here, and Oliver thinks he can convince the food vendor committee to consider Giana’s last-minute application. I won’t want to miss that, because she’ll need the help.”
“Oliver?” Luca was three thousand miles away, but he could hear Gabe’s eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Oh, he’s . . .uh . . .” Luca stammered. Why had he brought up Oliver? And why couldn’t he just say who Oliver was, without making it weird?
Because he couldn’t help himself.
His brain was one long sentence of Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, and it was a serious problem.
“He’s what?” Gabe asked slyly.
“Just uh . . .a guy here. Who owns a bakery.”
“Didn’t know you had a sweet tooth,” Gabe said. He sounded deeply, seriously amused.
“I don’t,” Luca said shortly.
“Seems otherwise,” Gabe teased.
There was a scuffle on the other side of the phone and then suddenly there was Ren’s voice in his ear. “Did you finally find someone to unbend you? Remove that enormous stick from your ass?” Ren demanded to know. “Cause if you did, I wanna send him a nice fruit basket. He’ll deserve it.”
“I date,” Luca said defensively. A hell of a lot more than Ren had, at least before he’d finally found himself a boyfriend.
“Sure you do,” Ren said.
“It’s not . . .not anything,” Luca said. Not quite believing it himself.
Because it could be something, if you didn’t have to leave.
But that didn’t matter, because he did. The fact that his father wasn’t returning any of his texts, and Marco was dodging him . . .that said it all.
He couldn’t stay here, couldn’t even dream of staying here.
“Uh-huh, you keep telling yourself that,” Gabe said, chiming in.
Oh great, they’d put him on speakerphone. Now the whole food truck lot probably knew how pathetic he was.
“I suppose you knew you were in love with Sean the whole time,” Luca grumbled.
“Yep, even when you showed up to yell at him,” Gabe said, sounding very proud of this fact—or the fact he’d managed to weave in a reminder that Luca had acted like a total asshole.
“I didn’t yell,” Luca said. Though he probably had.
“Okay, when you showed up to threaten him. Any better?” Gabe was grinning now. Luca could hear it in his voice. He told himself he deserved this, and at least if Gabe could smile about it or maybe even laugh about it, then maybe he wasn’t quite so angry anymore.
Maybe they could finally move past this.
“Better. And . . .” Apologize now, you dumbass, the moment’s begging for it. The voice in his head sounded surprisingly like Oliver’s, and so he listened. “And I’m sorry I did that. You had things under control and I barged in with my usual—”
“Attempts to control everything and everyone? To impose your arrogant Moretti conviction on the situation?” Gabe asked archly.
“Yes.” It was not easy to admit it, but apologies weren’t supposed to be easy. And he was Luca Moretti, wasn’t he? Easy isn’t worth doing, Nonna had always told him, growing up.
He could almost feel her now, smiling down on him, glad he’d swallowed his pride and made nice with his younger brother.
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” Ren said. “It’s almost like you’re a human being now. We really should send this Oliver a fruit basket.”
“Do not,” Luca ordered. The worst of it was Lorenzo would, because he had more of a sense of humor than his brother did.
He’d easily find the one Oliver in town who owned a bakery, and a few days later some big extravagant display of fruit would show up on his doorstep and that wouldn’t be embarrassing at all.
“Don’t worry,” Gabe said heroically. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
Now he had to be indebted to his little brother, and wasn’t that just annoying as hell.
“Thanks,” Luca said shortly.
“So you just want me to call Dad and ask what? Why aren’t there are any fires you’re making Luca put out from three thousand miles away while he’s in the middle of a three-week-long argument with our aunt over her deli?”
Luca sighed. “Something a little more subtle than that, please.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Gabe promised. “You want me to call Marco, too?”
“No, I’m going to deal with him myself.” Marco knew better than to dodge him. He knew better, and Luca was going to take some pleasure in reminding him of that particular fact.
“Better him than me,” Gabe said.
“Tell Oliver hi for us!” Ren called out.
“I don’t know how you tolerate him,” Luca grumbled.
“He’s actually a hell of a lot better since he started dating Seth,” Gabe confided. It was just him again. “Besides, you shouldn’t let him needle you like he does.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” He’d been one of Ren’s favorite targets from way back when.
“Maybe try that unbending thing a little,” Gabe suggested. “He teases you because he can. Because you let him.”
“It’s just—” Luca began to argue but then stopped.
He was making himself a target, wasn’t he?
Why had he never seen that before? Every single time he got all starchy and arrogant, it just made the situation with Ren—and Gabe, too, and honestly, Ilaria and Chiara and sometimes even Marcella—worse. “Okay, I’ll try that.”
“You will?” The surprise in his brother’s voice was impossible to miss.
“I said I’ll try,” Luca reminded him.
“Right, right. Okay, well I’ll call Dad now.” Gabe hesitated. “You need anything else?”
Luca’s eyebrows rose. When was the last time Gabe had offered additional help without being asked first?
Maybe there really was something in this unbending thing.
“No, we’re good here. Well, not good. But managing.”
“You would be,” Gabe said wryly. “Giana would be stupid not to listen to you.”
“But—” Luca tried to insert, but Gabe stopped him.